A/N - story based on a prompt from: txnmcky: "I've always wondered how Vastra would react if she didn't realize she had fallen in love with Jenny, never having experienced it before. ..maybe having to ask the Doctor for his advice as to what's the matter with her"

This is a quick and fun interpretation of that prompt :) I've set it before Demon's Run - their relationship has begun, but neither has said the "L" word yet.

I couldn't quite manage Vastra not wholly realising what was happening to her...but fell on the side of deliberate avoidance and disbelief. Minor references to to other fics of mine and the DW novel "Summer Falls".

Enjoy this light-hearted one! We've had too much angst recently haven't we! Thanks to you all :)

P.S - Bonus prize if you get the title reference ;)

London - 1888

It had been an uneventful day, solely uneventful; Vastra might even have dared to call it boring. She had gone three solid days without a hint of a compelling case; the best anyone seemed to be able to manage for her was some superstitious nonsense down at the docks. Vastra refused to demean herself by wasting her time on every little human whimsy. The only trouble was that without a case to distract herself with, Vastra was left entirely at the mercy of her own thoughts.

Several months had passed since Vastra and the Doctor had jointly rescued a destitute Jenny from her grim fate at the unforgiving hands of the streets of London. Vastra could barely believe how much had changed since the day she had dragged the young woman out of the alleyway and into the TARDIS. Now, walking down a vibrant street market, with its gregarious sellers and varied, well-adorned stalls of food produce with no real intention than to occupy her time, Vastra could not help but return to her new favourite pastime: fretting over the status of her new relationship with Jenny.

Vastra was not much of a "feelings" lizard, it had to be admitted. Just entering into her courtship with Jenny had been laboriously difficult to muster the courage to achieve, and Jenny had ultimately been the one to push the tension over the edge. The first time they had shared a bed it had been Jenny that had knocked on Vastra's door and initiated the conversation that led to that unforgettable event…

Jenny had pushed Vastra into the wall following just the smallest amount of encouragement from her Silurian object of affection. Vastra had been briefly taken aback, which had switched to arousal in a violent jerk of adrenaline. The determined mammal had wrapped her warm limbs around Vastra with such purpose that Vastra would have been slightly afraid if she wasn't enjoying it so much. When they had kissed, the passion had been insatiable. The feeling was addictive as the human's thicker, shorter tongue bumped against the sides of her lips, skated of the top of her own retracted, forked one.

'Taking clothes off' quickly morphed to 'tearing', and then 'ripping', and then suddenly Vastra found herself pushed down to the floor onto her back; they hadn't even made it to the bed . Vastra caught herself marvelling that she had been so mistaken in estimating Jenny's romantic intentions to be a lot tamer than they were manifesting in this moment; but quickly decided this was most advantageous.

'The warmth and softness of her naked form is…incredible'. Vastra thought as they moved against each other seemingly in sync, neither quite having experienced this before, yet both somehow instinctively knowing what to do next. They occupied an exclusive flow, as if they were dancing together, alone in a deserted ballroom, to a music that only they could hear. Vastra discovered she was in a position she was not used to: complete vulnerability; and she surprisingly desired no mercy from it.

Euphoria had hit Vastra like a speeding horse, trampling her and dashing the breath from her lungs, yet she only wanted more. She had picked the woman up and carried her to the bed, ready to return the favour, and regain a sense of control over her scrambled emotional state.

But even taking command of the now expectantly awaiting human, letting her long tongue rein free into undiscovered corners, did not erase the feeling of exposure, or make her feel any less sensitive or touched. A deep vein had been breached, and something had been irrevocably changed. As Jenny reached the height of her own personal ecstasy, Vastra felt the ripples within herself, like an undisturbed lake that a pebble had been cast into, after being hidden for many forgotten years.

Vastra felt a jolt of amorous hormones at the memory, and found she had half-blindly walked at least one hundred metres without acknowledging any of her surroundings. Scenes like that which she had just recalled had become increasingly frequent between them, something Vastra approved of very highly.

But it was more than some animal, physical lust that drove their joint affections - that she had become more aware of as the relationship had progressed. The changes Vastra was experiencing managed to be both gradual and yet profound at the same time. If she didn't think about it for a week or so, she found that when she revisited her feelings over their situation, they had evolved onto another plain without her consciously realising.

It was the sheer momentum of that thing that she found difficult to control, she thought to herself as she vaguely cast her eyes over the various stalls and merchants that surrounded her periphery. But Vastra's attention to all these conflicting stimuli was, at best, cursory. Her blood seemed to pulse with a confusing energy, a tight, urgent contraction of her nerves. This…attachment she felt was almost debilitating. It reminded her of the connection one had to family, only with a certain essence the other one lacked. That she regarded Jenny as family was telling enough, and this thought caught her so off-guard that she stopped in her tracks quite suddenly.

When had that happened?!

This change in status has wheedled its way into her acceptance so slyly that she could not accurately date its happening. That was the second time she had noticed herself losing focus like that in one day. It disconcerted her that these perceptual shifts were barging in like uninvited guests, refusing to leave after they had stayed their welcome. But could she honestly say it was wholly uninvited, or unwelcome? Or was it simply unfamiliar? The distinctions felt so blurred that her entire life now seemed to be comprised of grey areas and patches of shadowy doubt.

Revellers pushed past her in confusing, rushed certainly, inbound to their destinations; hurried mothers with children bunched around their ankles, labourers with their rugged arms and determined brows, beggars desperate for coins, reams and reams of seemingly endless people. As Vastra stood there, a strong, silent beacon in a sea of intense life, all she longed for was it all to come to a gradual standstill, and for her to have time to appraise her emotions. She wished she had someone as a sounding-board, but it was only Jenny who she had in this small, over-packed city. There was no question of talking to Jenny about this, because to do so would be to forfeit her defence, to admit…

'Surely not' Vastra felt a reverberation of panic engulf the entire surface area of her body, 'It couldn't be'

"Hey, watch it lady!"

Vastra was buffeted to the side as a burly man pushed past her, brandishing a heavy-looking crate in his raw, weather-beaten arms. Vastra cleared her throat self-consciously and took quick steps to keep her footing. This was hopeless, she thought, as she scuttled surreptitiously to the side. Ridiculously, all she needed was someone to talk to, other than the person she wanted to talk about, and Vastra never wanted to talk about her feelings with anyone. It was so out of character, and yet even the strongest person would cry for help out of desperation, she thought, if they were floundering in a mire of their own problems.

Leaning back against the rough edge of a nearby brick wall, she consigned herself to bleakness for a moment, building the will to turn back at return to Paternoster Row to face a barrage of strong desires. The urge to confess was growing, but what exactly it was that she wanted to confess was not that simple. Could it be that the final boundary was about to be over-stepped? Could it be...

"Don't touch that cat!"

Vastra threw herself off the wall faster than if it had spontaneously caught fire, just in time to see a scraggly-looking moggy sprint round the corner from a back street, and dart in and out of the stalls, disappearing out of sight. It was hard to tell if the cat was actually brown or just thick with filth. Caressing her chest above her rapid heart, Vastra caught her breath and bent a reluctant head around the corner, to see who had cried out so suddenly.

Almost simultaneously, the deceptively young-looking, thin face that she distinctly remembered looked round from the opposite direction, their foreheads almost colliding and the movement rustling Vastra's trademark veil. Vastra gasped; she wasn't sure her heart could take so many surprises in one day. The man opposite her responded by almost screaming as he jumped back in a way that Vastra would almost describe as…comical.

"Argh! Oh Vastra…it's you…" the Doctor exclaimed breathlessly, looking very dazed, "Did you see a cat go past?"

"Yes…" Vastra replied , coming to her senses, "Yes, just now" she regarded the thin, gangly man in front of her, "Is it dangerous?!" she added, absurdly, but when the Doctor was involved, even a small feline could be a lot more than it seemed.

"No…" the Doctor hung his head sheepishly, "No I…I mistook it for an alien life form" he admitted, fumbling his lean hands nervously, "But I think that one was just a cat"

"It is easily done" Vastra chimed sarcastically.

The Doctor peered round the corner into the busy marketplace, but the cat was no longer visible.

"I wanted to apologise" he mumbled regretfully.

Vastra sighed hopelessly, her face morphing into a mildly disappointed frown. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who had saved her life twice already.

"You know…" he loped a friendly arm around Vastra's stiff shoulders, "I once had an encounter with a talking cat…grey thing, little bit mischievous…frightful mess with a painting and a lighthouse…the cat was very brave in the end…" the Doctor trailed off whimsically, walking Vastra away from the marketplace until the noise lessened enough for them to talk. He seemed to become more serious was they took each additional step, as if descending deeper into a stairwell of thought, "So Vastra, how long has it been since we last saw each other?"

"Wait..." Vastra spoke, "How did you recognise me?"

"Come on now Vastra" the Doctor cocked his head knowingly, "That veil is fooling nobody, so, time?"

"A few months I suppose Doctor?" Vastra thought back, trying to calculate the time that had passed. When she had first been awakened she hadn't kept track of time at all (never mind getting used to the ape's system of time calculation), and it was only since her relationship with Jenny had begun to assert itself that Vasttra had taken more care over the recording and dating of her personal affairs. It made it easier to try and mark all the changes that were happening to her. Work was another matter entirely; with that she was always meticulous, always accurate.

"And what year?" the Doctor asked.

"1888" Vastra clarified.

"Good, seems are timelines are in sync" the Doctor smiled boyishly, "No nasty surprises, eh?" he patted her on the back in a show of camaraderie, "So" the Doctor came to a stop in a relatively quiet area of a residential street, just outside a small alleyway, "How has it been?!" he grinned, gripping Vastra by the deltoids enthusiastically.

Vastra was struck by the suspicion that all this nonsense with the cat was just an elaborate ruse to check up on her without admitting it. She wasn't totally opposed to that though; making the visit seem casual allowed her to keep her fierce pride intact.

"I…took your advice Doctor, in many regards" she smiled, in an uncharacteristic show of shyness, "Myself and the girl get along quite well for ourselves"

"She stayed with you?" the Doctor could not hide just how impressed he was, his eyes beaming with delight, "Oh Vastra how wonderful! Human and Silurian working together, for the good of Earth!" he span around wildly, "All in Victorian England!" he shouted to the rooftops, gaining a few sceptical looks from the odd passers-by that encountered them. Catching his breath back, he returned to slap Vastra on the back heartily, a habit Vastra hoped he would 'grow out of', so to speak. Once she had recovered, Vastra could only watch his reaction in astonishment as he continued to jig around.

"Peace…" he breathed, "Peace in our time…oh wait no, that was Chamberlain…hasn't happened yet!"

"Doctor!" Vastra cried out, desperate to ground his mad rambling before someone tried to detain him, or he accidentally gave away the next few decades of human history.

"Yes…yes sorry…spoilers" he creased his brow, becoming introverted, "Causing…a bit of a scene aren't I? Yes…tell me, the girl, Jenny was it?"

"Yes" Vastra agreed, holding back the usual flush and radiance that would usually envelop her with the mention of that name.

"You are…" he turned his head a bit, almost slightly hunched over as he thought hard, "Friends, would you say?" he asked innocently, almost hopefully.

"Why do you ask?" Vastra hurriedly responded, jumping back a bit guiltily, "What is wrong with that?" she added.

Vastra could have slapped herself. She may as well have told him outright, for what it was worth. Her response was far too defensive for such a well-meaning question! Attempting to recover, Vastra started to blabber uncontrollably.

"I apologise…yes! Of course, we are great friends, platonically speaking…" she laughed nervously, "Why wouldn't we be?!" she planted her hands firmly on her hips in a terribly artificial movement, "Good one Doctor, very funny!"

"It wasn't a joke" he squinted worriedly, "What is going on?" the Doctor raised his eyebrows, walking back to where Vastra stood awkwardly, "Don't tell me you've…"

"Oh what is the use?!" Vastra flopped miserably, "I'm a hopeless liar"

"So you're not friends?!" the Doctor asked confused, "You don't even know what I was going to say" the Doctor used a long finger to lift Vastra's chin and look into her fear-frozen eyes, "Vastra, have you fought?"

The Silurian shook her head earnestly.

"Then what do you mean? You haven't eaten her have you?" he asked, half-jokingly.

'Not in the way you're thinking' Vastra though involuntarily, happy she had not blurted it out loud. If the Doctor was in a perceptive mood she suspected he might notice the dilation in her eyes, or mark her unreasonable skittishness at such a question.

"No" Vastra crossed her arms back and forth in front of her in a dissenting motion, "No, absolutely not"

"Good" the Doctor narrowed his eyes harder, "Then…"

In an instant, Vastra could see he had worked it out. His eyes popped open like a picked lock and the happy expression that covered his face could have stretched from one side of London to the other.

"Oh…oh tell me it is true Vastra!" the Doctor pleaded excitedly, his mouth forming a definite "O" shape.

Now that the moment of confession Vastra has been wishing for had presented itself, Vastra was no longer so keen to divulge her feelings. It was as if she had been walking in a maze for hours looking for an exit, only to discover that it led to another maze. A small instinctual urge within her gut told her to trust this man, yet it fought against a lifetime of being guarded and private (especially with other species). But her choices, alas, were limited, and as much as it made her squirm to think of it, talking to the Doctor could actually help her. He was, after all, the only other person who had shown her kindness in this dark age.

Vastra begrudgingly gave a miniscule nod of agreement.

"We are…" and despite her misgivings, Vastra could not stop herself from breaking into a warm, genuine smile, "Close" she sighed in a faraway manner, disgusting herself thoroughly. She half-expected herself to start batting her eyelids at this rate.

"Oh…" the Doctor writhed happily as if he was cooing over a litter of new born kittens, "Oh that's just wonderful!" he brazenly grabbed Vastra's face and planted a firm kiss on her cheek, "This is more than I could have hoped for! A Silurian, in love with a human!" he pulled Vastra in for a suffocating hug.

"Love?" Vastra managed through the painful compression in her chest, "Doctor, I didn't say…"

"You don't need to " the Doctor laughed, finally relinquishing his vice-like hold on Vastra, to her relief, "It's obvious Vastra" he breathed excitedly, "Just…just look at you" he finished, spreading a palm at her.

A resounding thud of defeat echoed in her ears; now it had been voiced so plainly, Vastra could no longer deny that the sentiment was indeed true. It was liberating to finally give in and admit it; she was in love with Jenny, hopelessly so! Even the Doctor, a man who barely knew her, could see through her pathetic attempts to disguise it.

"I…" she collected all the strength she had left, "I know"

To say the admittance out loud made Vastra feel a strange combination of airy light-headedness, coupled with a heavy, burdening feeling in her inner organs.

"Then, what is the problem?" the Doctor enquired, noticing Vastra's downtrodden look.

"Love is wonderful, is it not Doctor?" Vastra gazed hazily at the London skyline, "Wonderful for those who are blessed with the certainty of reciprocation"

"And you are not?" the Doctor pulled a thoughtful expression, "What makes you say that?"

"How can I be sure, Doctor, that I am not some fanciful lark of hers?"

"You've picked up some of her dialect…" the Doctor smirked in wonderment.

"Hah…" Vastra laughed hollowly, "So it would appear" she added, in her more characteristically well-spoken tone.

"Vastra, if she was going to fool around with someone, she could have picked a much easier target. She's going out of her way to not only date a woman in a time that doesn't accept it, but a woman of another species!"

Vastra had to concede that the Doctor was right; Jenny could have sought out any Tom to experiment with, as she had done before the two of them had met.

"How do you feel when you are around her?" the Doctor asked kindly.

Vastra contemplated the question for a moment, and found it was harder to answer than she first anticipated. Not because she didn't have anything to say; far from it, she had too much to say. The emotions were reluctant to be summarised, boxed, or labelled as simply one thing, one description. She had never felt so deeply about a single being before. The only thing that has come close was the feeling she had about her race and her departed sisters. But even that was incredibly different, and certainly not romantic. Attraction was no stranger to Vastra; she has lusted after others during her lifetime, enjoyed the pleasures that desire could bring, but had never wanted a bond mate or partner for life.

But now…

How to explain all the warmth, safety, and affection Jenny imbued in her? The glow from her breast to the back of her throat when the human entered the room? The rage that fired in her belly if anyone dared to threaten Jenny's safety?

When Vastra was alone, before they had met, she had felt as if she belonged nowhere. Her Silurian home was lost long ago, and her… abode in Victorian London may as well have been an open prison. Wandering and restless, she had stalked the streets like a vengeful vigilante, with no real purpose until…Jenny had appeared.

Now she didn't think of London as her 'abode' anymore, she thought of it as…

"Home" Vastra stated plainly, after a thoughtful pause.

"Well then" the Doctor turned to walk down the alley they had been stood outside, "You are speaking to the wrong person!"

"No!" Vastra snapped out of her trance into a panic, "Doctor, wait"

"Schh…" the Doctor skipped back to place a finger on the affronted Silurian's lips, earning him a low growl, "You've nothing more to say to me"

"But…"

"You need to speak to her. She is the only one who can answer your question"

The Silurian's mouth clamped shut reluctantly, but knowing it was her only option. She was a brave, fearless warrior, why did this matter turn her into such a whelp? She felt naïve as a hatchling!

"Vastra" the Doctor pulled the unwilling reptile into another over-friendly hug and kissed the opposite cheek he had from earlier, "To even it out" he smiled, "Good luck" he whispered warmly into her ear.

Vastra closed her eyes emotionally and felt him disengage.

"Thank you" she trembled back.

But when her eyes opened, he was gone, and she knew not if he had heard her gratitude.