March began and Jenny was once more up and about, pondering about how to earn money. Her wounds fully healed, looking poor but honest in her clothes and second hand boots, she wondered if she couldn't find work somewhere. But her search turned up nothing but skivvy jobs or maid work, most of which seemed to be live in and which she was slightly too old to do. She lacked any skills at cooking, lacked a decent education and, in her mind, anything but a talent for thieving. Maybe she could be a street seller again? But there was a left over fear of being recognised. Was the Tong gang really out of the way?
It bothered her and she annoyed Vastra by tossing and turning at night until the Silurian snapped at her and she stomped out and walked the streets for a little while.
The next day she looked inside the box of coins and saw it was practically empty. If Vastra had quit the circus then there was no more money coming in. A week later, they'd run out of wood, the little fireplace cold and ash-y. She felt Vastra shiver in the night and there wasn't even tea in the morning.
Lacking any other ideas, Jenny lifted a purse, using it buy lunch and wood and depositing the rest in the box.
"Where did this come from?" Vastra asked one morning, coming home from a night wander to find a fire lit and food and money in the chest.
"Where d'yer think?" Jenny snorted, not glancing up from the book she was reading.
"You stole it." The Silurian closed the box and stared at the wall
"You got any better ideas? Yer knew I was a tea leaf when yer took me in, wot did yer expect me to do when money got low? Get a nice job?"
Vastra didn't answer and Jenny got up off the bed and walked out the door.
Lifting purses was a stop-gap, not an option that she could keep on doing. Using her new status as a respectable young woman, she enquired as to jobs going at an agency and found work in a small factory. It was exhausting and dangerous and the money was awful but it was money.
Once, walking home in the dark from a shift, an urchin grabbed her purse. She felt the shuffle but didn't bother reacting. What goes round comes around, she thought and the purse hadn't had much in it.
April began, warmer but wet and miserable. Jenny noticed that Vastra had become morose and withdrawn. She suspected that she was lonely, with Jenny working so much and also that she didn't like being dependent upon an ape. It was Jenny's wages that had paid the rent that month.
But it didn't seem like a sulk. She just stopped talking. She didn't ask Jenny about her work anymore, or set the fire for when Jenny came home or talk to her about the book she was reading.
And then one day mid-April Vastra didn't get up. She was awake but didn't move even to drink the tea Jenny put by the bed. Drinking her own tea, Jenny remembered the way her father would lie in bed, unmoving, after her mother had died. She went out to work and came back to the flat smelling strongly of gin and a passed out Silurian in bed. Her worry over Vastra surpassed her annoyance at her wages being spent on alcohol. She collected the bottles and made tea, watching Vastra anxiously all night, waiting for her to come round. She wanted to check Vastra's temperature but the Silurian was cold anyway and she didn't know the first thing about Silurian physiology. She made a mental note that perhaps she should learn and drifted off at the side of bed, next to the dead to the world lizard.
It sounded like a cat having a fit whilst fighting another cat. It was angry and spitting and scared and hissing and ear-splitting and heart-wrenching and it woke Jenny up in an instant.
"Tch!" she tutted once she'd recovered. "Gone an' given yerself a hangover 'ave yer? Serves yer right!"
"Silence, Ape!" Vastra hissed. For the first words Vastra had spoken to her in weeks, they weren't the best ones.
Jenny made tea but Vastra wasn't paying attention, wailing quietly into her pillow. It brought back the memory of her father crying in his sleep and her brother wailing next to him and she shivered.
"You alright? Bad dreams?" She was unnerved now and wondering if Missus Blackett had heard and was going to come investigate. "Vastra?" she held out a cup of tea in the hopes of distracting the Silurian.
"Don't you dare!" Vastra hauled herself upright and rounded on Jenny, knocking the cup from her hand and Jenny swore as scalding liquid hit her hand. The cup shattered on the floor. "Call me. By that. Name! You do not have the right! APE!"
Angered and slightly terrified, Jenny fled, yelling over her shoulder "NOT AN APE!"
Vastra snarled, tugging at her head crests in agitation. She was grieving, yes, for her sisters but a small spark of sorrow was added by the sound of a slammed door. She had done exactly what the Doctor had warned her not to. She had lost Jenny Flint; the laughter, the heat, the little ball of flame that span around the apartment. She still had something to lose it seemed. Her eyes filmed over and she lay on the floor, staring at the underside of the bed, feeling the cold and remembering.
"You alright my dear?" Missus Blackett called from her room as Jenny stomped down the stairs.
"'m fine. She was jus' inna mood." Jenny called back over her shoulder.
She shivered walking to work and not because of the still chilly air of April. It reminded her too much of her father's fits of temper. Stupid lizard. But as much as it reminded her of her father, it also reminded her of the cause of her father's temper. What was a Silurian doing all alone in a gin flat in London anyways? Working in a circus? Where was her family? She hadn't really thought to ask.
"The Doctor told me once, if you save someone, you are responsible for them."
The Doctor had worked in the circus too. Looking after her? What had the Doctor saved her from? And who else had he been unable to save?
"Will you look after yer stupid Silurian for me?...Promise?"
Had the Doctor known? He must've done.
During her shift, she thought about it. But why her? How come it was suddenly her responsibility?
"If you save someone, you are responsible for them."
What had she ever done to save Vastra? She'd been the one saved.
In the evening after work, where she got a swift back hand and a shouting for being late, Jenny bought some meat from the butchers and went to what she really did think of as home now.
"Va…ma'am?" she called softly as she opened the door, trying not to antagonise the Silurian. There was no response, so she slipped inside. It was dark and cold. She fumbled lighting the fire and a candle then looked for Vastra, finding her led on the floor by the bed.
She was cold. Jenny remembered the cold too. The way her sister had led in her arms.
"V…ma'am! Ma'am!" she shook her but Vastra didn't stir. Swearing under her breath, Jenny hauled the pallet bed as close to the fire as she dared, hoping Missus Blackett wouldn't complain about the noise and then dragged Vastra into it. Kicking off her boots, she wrapped herself and the blankets around Vastra, rubbing her back and arms.
"C'mon, c'mon!" she whispered, willing the heat into her. After what felt like the longest ten minutes of Jenny's life, the Silurian wriggled. She breathed a sigh of relief and tucked the blankets even tighter. The warmth made her sleepy and she dropped off herself without intending to.
Vastra was confused. The cold had been coming for her, the cold was…gone. There was warmth, all encompassing, glorious, alive warmth. It felt like the sun. She opened her eyes to find herself staring straight at a black wall. It wasn't just warmth, there was pressure. She wriggled and the pressure moved.
"Nngh Vas…ma'am?" Jenny groaned.
"Jenny?" Vastra sat up, staring in amazement, shivering as she did so.
Jenny noticed and rubbing at her eyes, stumbled out of bed to stoke up the fire. Vastra sat in bed watching her, noticing the different position of the bed.
"You came back?"
That stopped the stoking for a moment. "'course." The stoking resumed. "You stopped bein' an idjit now?"
Vastra wished Jenny would look at her. It was hard to tell from behind a curtain of hair what she was thinking. "I…yes."
Jenny spun round, poker still in her hand, making Vastra flinch slightly.
"Alright. Alright then. Help me move the bed back, if yer feelin' up to it."
Vastra nodded and together they shifted the bed back to its original position.
"I bought yer meat, if yer 'ungry." Jenny motioned towards the package she'd abandoned on the table, still not looking at Vastra.
"Why?" the Silurian asked, hesitating to eat it, famished as she was.
"'pparently if'n yer save someone, yer responsible fer 'em."
"And you think you have saved me?" Vastra scoffed.
"…I lost people y'know. I seen what it does, what it looks like, enough to know."
"You could not save them."
"No."
"It was not your fault."
"I guess not. But who else was there?"
"Hm." Vastra almost smiled. "You remind me of the Doctor."
"What I'm sayin' is, don' be thinkin' that I'm jus' gonna up an' leave if yer get in a weird temper."
"I see."
"I ain't goin' anywhere."
"I see."
"I promised I'd look after yer."
Vastra was silent.
"So I guess if you ain't gonna kick me out an' I ain't leavin' then I guess we're sorta stuck with each other a bit."
Vastra wasn't entirely sure she was happy with that conclusion but at the same time, she was very glad Jenny was back. "Yes." She ate her meat quietly. It was the first time Jenny had really seen her eating and she tried not to stare at the teeth that ripped the meat into shreds.
Vastra swallowed the last strip, noticing Jenny's attempts not to watch. She stood up and walked over to the young woman who clenched her fists and teeth, tensing, chin up but resolutely not backing away. She smelt the raw meat on Vastra's breath and swallowed.
"Are you afraid?"
"A little bit." Curses, she hadn't meant to admit that.
Vastra's face fell slightly. She leaned over, and a mad thought entered Jenny's head that the lizard woman meant to eat her. But Jenny saw the expression and all the tension left her just before a scaly forehead hit her shoulder.
"Thank you."
They'd shared a bed every night for months, yet Jenny felt this was the most intimate Vastra had ever been with her.
"I'm sorry." Hands suddenly clutched at the back of her dress. "I'm so sorry."
Shock slowed Jenny's response and she felt Vastra pull away before her arms snapped around the Silurian, hugging her as if she were trying to crush her, very careful not to touch the crests. She held on until the shudders and cries of grief lessened and finally stopped.
An: The loss of your entire family would probably leave you with emotional scars that would come back to haunt, particularly if you then had to work in a circus to survive and probably didn't have a great deal of time to process anything. And I wanted to explore that and these are sad times and I am an even sadder Flintlock than I was Monday (hence the lack of updates) so possibly this is a Look Ma I'm Projecting chapter. Apologies if it's bad or OOC because of this.
