"Jenny, where are you going?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

"I don't know. Anywhere. Somewhere where I can just stop thinkin' about babies and pregnancy and bein' a mother for five bleedin' minutes!" Vastra sighed. Why was it that every time they tried to make preparations for the baby it had to end in an argument and Jenny storming out? In all honesty the Silurian would be glad when the child was finally born and Jenny's mood swings could settle down again. Of course she loved Jenny no matter what, but she missed how things had been before. They never used to fight at all but since the pregnancy it seemed to have become like a daily ritual of sorts.

"Darling please, I only suggested that perhaps the crib would be better placed under the window. Is all of this fuss really necessary?" The girl's eyes flashed dangerously and Vastra immediately knew that she had said the wrong thing yet again.

"Is it necessary?! Yes it's bleedin' necessary you ridiculous lizard! This is our child we're talkin' about, the one and only thing that we should always fuss over! Or don't you care at all?!" She tried to storm out of the room but Vastra wouldn't let her. The second that Jenny moved to turn away the Silurian's hand closed around her wrist and she pulled the girl back to face her with such force that she had to steady Jenny as she stumbled towards her slightly. Bright blue eyes pierced into dark and Vastra shook her head almost in disbelief. How could Jenny even suggest such a thing? The child and Jenny meant more to Vastra than life itself. Had she not proved that yet? Had she not made it clear how important the two were to her? She knew that Jenny didn't mean to hurt her, and that the girl's temper was simply getting the better of her, but she had been making similar comments more and more often as of late and it was beginning to chip away at the Silurian's normally unbreakable mask of serenity.

Jenny hadn't meant to say it but as the last bitter question sprang from her lips she could see how hurt Vastra was. The lustre in the Silurian's scales seemed to dull slightly under the girl's watchful gaze and the cerulean eyes snapped down to the floor. It was how Jenny imagined it would look to watch a heart breaking, all of the pain and sadness depicted before her in a few simple movements. Her hand pressed against her lips as though she was trying to stop herself from saying it but it was just too late. The words had already been said and there was no taking them back.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was a broken whisper and it shook slightly but still Jenny had to say it. Her eyes filled with tears and she shook her head furiously from side to side, wishing with all of her heart that she could just take it all back as though it had never happened. "Vastra I... I didn't mean that, you know I didn't. I... I'm sorry my love, so sorry. I know you care, you care more than anyone else in this world; I'd 'ave to be blind, deaf and stupid not to know that." The tears were beginning to spill carelessly down the surface of her cheeks and Jenny tried to take a step closer to the other woman but Vastra immediately took a step back and released the grip that she had had on the girl's wrist. "Vastra please..." Vastra shook her head and her hands trembled slightly as they fidgeted nervously in front of her. She didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to say. All she knew was that she couldn't keep living as they were with Jenny always questioning her loyalty and love.

"If you do not know what you both mean to me by now Jenny then why are we doing this?" Not once did the Silurian allow her eyes to wonder up to the girl's face. Vastra knew that if she did she would not be able to control herself and the hurt would come pouring out in floods of tears. For a creature that never thought she could cry she had been doing an awful lot of it since Jenny had entered her life. "I do not understand what we are supposed to be if you do not believe that my heart and soul are yours. That is what a family is, is it not? And yet you question if I care for our child at all..."

"I didn't mean it!" Jenny felt sick. Just knowing how much she had hurt the woman she loved was tearing at her insides and she hated herself for ever opening her mouth to say anything at all. "Ma'am please, you 'ave to believe me. I'm just so tired an' stressed an' I want everythin' to be perfect. It's so 'ard when we can't agree on where to put the crib or 'ow to decorate the nursery. I... I just wanna get this right. I never got the chance to 'ave pretty things an' a proper furnished room when I was young, I want to give our baby everythin' I didn't 'ave an' more." Vastra still wouldn't look at her but all of a sudden Jenny had grown deathly pale. Her head was spinning and she felt as though she could vomit at any given moment.

The silence that fell between the two women was more uncomfortable than any they had ever experienced before. Vastra wanted to see Jenny's face, to check that the girl was okay and to assure herself that it wasn't just words that were falling from her delicate little lips, but she wouldn't allow herself even a peep. Her heart felt battered and bruised and the Silurian didn't know how much more she could take. What if a baby hadn't been such a good idea? What if they had been fools and allowed themselves to get carried away with something that could never work? Vastra resented herself for even thinking such things but she couldn't suppress her concerns. What if none of it would work out at all and they would both end up broken.

"I need some air..." Pulled from her musings by the sound of the girl's voice Vastra lifted her eye line just in time to catch sight of Jenny as she turned out of the room. She didn't look well at all. The girl's skin was almost translucent it was so pale and although she walked quickly there was something unsteady in her step. The sight of it squeezed Vastra's heart tightly, constricting the steady beating until all the Silurian could think of was going after her. It didn't matter if what the girl had said had hurt her, Vastra needed to know that she was okay. She needed to know that their child was okay.

Barely thinking, Vastra rushed to their bedroom and grabbed her cloak and veil from the bed before rushing back out and following the path Jenny had taken down the stairs. As she reached the front door the Silurian's suspicions that something was wrong were confirmed at the site of the door flung wide open. Jenny would never leave without closing the door under normal circumstances. She knew better than most that to do so was practically begging for thieves to help themselves to anything they could possibly want, she had lived amongst the sort of people who survived from theft for long enough to have learned that.

Vastra flung on her cloak and veil and closed the door behind her before continuing after Jenny. She could see the girl gliding around a corner at the end of the street and her heart gave a slight twitch, Jenny was heading for the East end of London - specifically the docks. But why would she go there?

~.~.~.~.~.~

Walking down by the water front did make Jenny feel a little better. Although the smell of fish and salt water turned her stomach it also cleansed her in a way; it reminded her of her father and how he had always smelled when he returned home from work after long days of loading and unloading the ships. Jenny knew that it was why she had chosen to go there. She always missed her father most when she and Vastra fought. She supposed it was something to do with feeling as though she was losing the solidarity in her life. Until Vastra came along Jenny's father had been the strong one. He had been the one who had protected her and kept her happy. He had been the one who would pick her up when she fell (both physically and metaphorically) and dried her tears when she was sobbing over the shattered fragments of her heart. Vastra had taken on that role when Jenny had fallen for her. The Silurian had filled the gap in her heart left after she was ostracised from her family and she had picked up the pieces of Jenny that had been falling apart from the life that she had led. Jenny had thought that Vastra would be that strength for her forever, but then they had started fighting and she was beginning to wonder if she had been naive to put so much faith in the woman.

That was why Jenny had headed for the docks as she had begun to feel herself falling apart again while she and Vastra had argued. She knew that she couldn't let her father see her, it would only break her heart more to see him block her out while remaining fully aware of her presence, but she wanted to see him. She needed to see him. Something in Jenny needed to be reminded that he was still living even if he was no longer a part of her life. Sometimes it felt as though her family were dead, all of them gone forever, but she couldn't accept that about her father. She wouldn't let herself. As she rounded another corner Jenny stopped in her tracks. Ahead of her she could see the men working - some big, some small, all strong as oxen and lugging huge crates of heaven knows what back and forth from the ships. Somewhere amongst the throng of sweating, half dressed, male bodies was her father.

For a moment Jenny began to second guess herself - what if he saw her? What if he didn't ignore her and instead felt the need to approach her? What would she do then? What would she say? She knew the chances of it actually happening were very slim indeed but still she couldn't fight off the endless stream of questions in her mind. It wasn't until a pain began to grow deep in her stomach, however, that the worst thought occurred to her. What would he say if he were to find out about the child? The last time they had spoken, he and her mother had turned Jenny away for falling in love with a woman - how on earth was she supposed to explain her pregnancy? She couldn't tell him the truth. It was bad enough that he knew about her gender preferences, she was sure that it would have been adding insult to injury if she were then to tell him that the woman she loved was also an alien (of sorts) who had somehow quite beyond their understanding managed to impregnate her and that he would very soon become the grandfather of a mixed species child. Just the thought of such a conversation was laughable.

Dismissing the pain in her stomach as the baby kicking her Jenny took a deep breath and continued walking. Whatever happened she just had to see her father. She needed to know that he was still there. While the rest of her world felt as though it was crumbling around her Jenny needed to know that her father was still physically in existence just in case the day came when she needed him again.

Vastra had continued to follow Jenny from their home to the docks and, although she had considered stopping the girl and trying to talk to her, she had instead opted to keep a certain amount of distance between them. The Silurian had found that the time that she spent following Jenny had given her a chance to think. It had been utterly ridiculous of her to take what Jenny had said so badly. She didn't know why she had allowed a comment that had been made in the heat of the moment to hurt her so much. Of course Jenny hadn't meant it. Of course the girl knew that she cared and that both she and the child were everything to the Silurian. Vastra didn't know what had possessed her in order to make her react in the way that she had but she wished it had never happened.

As the two women walked just a short distance from one another it had been a great comfort for Vastra to see that Jenny appeared to strengthen a little as she walked. The girl had seemed to be so out of sorts on leaving their home in Paternoster Row and Vastra had been worried that there was something terribly wrong. Still, as Jenny began to grow a little stronger Vastra had felt the constricting of her heart loosen slightly and she had breathed a sigh of relief. She would have stopped following the girl right then had it not been for the direction they had been heading in. Vastra couldn't help but wonder why Jenny would possibly be heading for the docks. Of all of the places in London she could have gone to clear her head it was neither the safest nor the most pleasant and quite frankly Vastra didn't like the thought of the girl going there with no one to protect her.

Suddenly Jenny stopped walking and Vastra grew even more confused as to what was going on. The girl's eyes were fixed on the group of men working away on the docks and the constricted feeling in Vastra's heart started up again. Was Jenny looking for someone? Surely not, Vastra had never heard the girl talk about anyone that she knew who worked loading the ships. Then again, there was no guarantee that Jenny told her everything – even the closest of relationships had some secrets. For some reason the Silurian was starting to feel uneasy. She couldn't explain it but she felt as though there was something going on that she should have known about. She didn't like the feeling at all.

At the back of Vastra's mind a question was fighting to get to the forefront of her thoughts but she was trying desperately to hold it back. She didn't want to even consider it. She didn't want to believe that it was possible. But still a part of her couldn't help but wonder. Was the baby really hers or was there someone else involved? The Silurian's eyes froze on the girl just a few feet ahead of her and it felt as though her heart stopped beating the second that the question had been let loose in her mind. Would Jenny really do that to her? It would explain why the girl had headed straight for the docks rather than anywhere else. It made sense that if Jenny did have a secret lover she would run to him the second that things got difficult between the two women, and of course she would have had no problems getting any man she wanted to fall in love with her; Jenny was so perfect that anyone would have been lucky to call her theirs. Vastra had thought that she had been that lucky person. Of course it had been too good to be true, she was angry that she hadn't seen it sooner.

As Jenny began to walk again Vastra allowed herself to speed up slightly. She would be damned if she let herself lose the girl amongst the throng of bodies before she could get a good look at the man who had taken the one thing that meant the most to her in the world. It all made sense: Jenny's conviction that Vastra didn't care, her fear at finding out that she was pregnant, her desperation to give the child a normal human name, even her constant need to be given space when Vastra got over protective. It all added up to the inevitable, Jenny had simply been using her. She should have seen it happening. The girl was from a poor home, she had never even been in a house like Vastra's let alone lived in one. Jenny must have been planning it all from the very first time she had found herself in the house on Paternoster Row. No wonder she had remained silent for so long that night, she had been busy figuring out how she could get as much money and material goods out of Vastra as she possibly could. What did it matter to her if the Silurian got hurt in the process? She probably never cared for her at all. As Vastra's mind filled with images of Jenny laughing at her the whole time and loving some ape behind her back she thought she would fall to pieces for the pain of it but when she caught sight of the girl beginning to disappear amongst a crowd of bodies she knew that she couldn't lose sight of her and she moved so fast that barely a second had passed as her fingers closed around Jenny's upper arm.

Jenny span fast as the hand closed around her arm, an expression of shock painted on her pretty features. "Vastra?" The Silurian's face was set in an emotionless expression and she regarded the girl evenly. Jenny was a convincing actress Vastra would give her that, she almost seemed pleased to see her. "What are you doin' 'ere love? Did you follow me?"

"I was worried. You did not look well when you left and I thought it best not to let you go alone. I was afraid that something would happen to you." Jenny frowned slightly and she tried to catch Vastra's eye as the woman avoided looking directly into her face. She could tell that something was wrong. Vastra's voice was cold and unfeeling and she seemed agitated.

"Are you..."

"Why did you come here Jenny?" Vastra was determined not to let the girl distract her with her act of innocence and naivety. Despite herself she still loved Jenny and she knew how easily the girl could manipulate her if she wanted to. Jenny's frown deepened at the question and she bit her lip as another pain shot through her stomach.

"I... I needed air... I told you..." The colour was draining from her face again and all of a sudden Jenny was finding it harder to breathe. The pain in her stomach wasn't stopping as it had done before and it took all of her energy to bite back a groan of pain that was trying to fight its way out into the open.

"But why here?" Vastra waited but there was no response. She tried her best to stop herself but after a few moments had passed she finally allowed herself to look down at the girl. "Jenny!"

Jenny was doubled over with her free arm clutching her stomach and her eyes squeezed shut. The pain was almost unbearable and, although she attempted to suppress the pained sounds that were pushing their way out a few small whimpers got the better of her and silent tears were beginning to roll down her cheeks. For a moment Vastra seemed to forget everything she had been thinking about the girl. The sight of Jenny in pain was enough to wipe any hurtful thoughts from her mind and in a second she had lifted the girl into her arms like a child.

"Jenny?" A fairly large, grubby man was pushing his way through the crowds of oblivious men who were still working but Vastra didn't see him. All she could see was Jenny, curled in her arms and burying her face in her neck. She needed to get Jenny home. She needed to find the Doctor. Somehow she wasn't sure how she could accomplish either task in any short space of time but as she held onto the girl as tightly as she could and she heard the quiet sobs and whimpers emanating from her she could have sworn she had heard a familiar whirring noise not too far away.