An: A hodgepodge of stuff really? I'm lacking in concentration so the next couple of chapters may skip through time like a TARDIS

Jenny didn't go to work, nervous about leaving Vastra alone. Missus Blackett had loaned her a wicker chair and she sat in that, watching Vastra as she slept, only leaving her side to get food, pee and stoke up the fire. She drifted in and out of sleep, jerking awake at the slightest sound.

For three days Vastra led in bed asleep whilst Jenny watched. On the fourth day, Vastra poked her head above the blankets she'd snuggled down into and saw Jenny sat there, elbows resting on her knees, chin resting on her hands, watching her intently.

They stared at each other for a few moments.

"You alright?" Jenny tilted her head.

Vastra nodded, befuddled. "I believe so."

Jenny got up to make tea and Vastra swathed herself up in the blankets and followed her.

"You look like some kind of blanket monster." Jenny said when she turned round to see Vastra. "You still cold?"

"Slightly." Vastra plopping down with her back to the fire.

"Well, I gotta get to work, if I still gotta job after 3 days not goin'. Look afta yerself alright?" Jenny yawned, threw Vastra's cloak around her shoulders and walked out.

As she'd predicted her boss was not entirely pleased that she hadn't been in for three days and gave her what for. She used the excuse that there had been an illness in her family, that it was unavoidable. She was given a choice between the strap or a fine and having just lost 3 days wages she stood impassive for the strap, hiding the welt from Vastra.

She came home to find Vastra sitting in the battered wicker chair, holding a book listlessly, which Jenny took as progress.

The factory supervisor seemed to have it in for her now and twice more she was given the choice of the strap or a fine.

It was May Day when Vastra noticed.

Jenny had messed up a machine, costing valuable time and with rent due, she took the strap. Her wages were pitiful but she'd saved enough money to pay it, although she'd had to scrimp on the occasional meal. She trudged home in the evening, slipping on the wet cobbles, skinning her hands and muddying her clothes. She lay face down on the pavement for a minute. She was cold and tired and hungry and the thought of a blank faced Silurian was not a cheering prospect. She checked her dress and sighed. It'd been new only a couple of months ago and now it was already tatty. Factories weren't kind on clothes.

She was pleasantly surprised to find Vastra had been up and about; there was a fire lit and tea waiting to go with the pie Jenny had bought on the way home.

"Playin' the good wife?" Jenny sniffled as she observed the tableau, dumping the pie on the hearth to keep warm.

Vastra looked up from the wicker chair. "I th…" she stopped abruptly as Jenny moved nearer the light. "What on earth happened?"

"Slipped." Jenny grunted, struggling out of her wet clothes. Vastra stood to help her, hanging them over the stools and the desk by the fire to dry. She tried to help Jenny out of her underclothes too, despite protestations and then stopped as she saw the fresh bruise across Jenny's back.

"Who?" she asked, eyes narrowed.

"The factory super." Jenny shrugged.

"These are old…" Vastra prodded the older marks.

"They still 'urt alright?" Jenny flinched away and walked downstairs with a towel wrapped round her. Vastra had even got water boiling ready.

"What you gonna watch an' all?" she spat, noticing the Silurian following her, pouring the water Vastra had had boiling for tea into it and sloshing in the bucket of rain water in the corner. She shivered out of her under clothes and into the lukewarm water, wincing as she washed herself.

Quelling a surge of rage at "the factory super", Vastra squatted by the tub and gently reached out to examine the gash on Jenny's brow where she'd fallen.

"Does he beat you often?" she asked in a dangerous sotto voice.

"Nah. Only when I din't go for a few days cos I was lookin' after you. And today I messed up a job an' 'e got on about it. He wouldn't 'it me at all if I let 'im feel me up the way 'e does the rest. An' I carn't afford to take a fine."

Vastra hissed. "Don't go back."

"Well an' what'll we do fer money then?" Jenny shook her head.

"I don't know!" Vastra keened.

"Well then."

"I could go back to the circus..."

"You try it!" Jenny snapped.

"If the alternative is you get beaten!" Vastra stood up.

"Fine! Fine. I'll lift a few purses to tide us over an' we'll think of somethin' different." Jenny sighed, sinking down into the tub, her legs hanging over the side, too exhausted and in pain to argue further.

Vastra hesitantly picked up the rag Jenny had been using to wash and, sitting cross legged next to the tin tub, gently washed Jenny's arms and legs. Jenny watched in amazement that the Silurian could be that gentle, shifting upright so Vastra could wash her back. The Silurian tutted at the knobbly outline of her spine.

"You are far too skinny, ape." Jenny splashed water at her. "Human! Desist! How do you even wash this ridiculous mop?" She picked up the clump that was the remnants of Jenny's bun and let it flop down again.

Jenny took the cloth from Vastra and washed her front and then took up the soap and massaged it into her hair, taking a chipped mug and pouring water all over her head.

Vastra caught on and assisted, taking great delight it seemed in dousing Jenny's thoroughly.

"Fanks…" Jenny muttered, unsure whether Vastra was being charitable or playing. Although playing was a sign her spirits were recovering. But the Silurian held up a warm towel and wrapped it around her so she supposed she might be being nice after all.

Vastra took another look at the welt, made sure it was clean and then ordered her to bed.

Jenny woke the next morning, wondering whether she could sneak out to work without Vastra realising. Lifting things wasn't a way to survive for long. Vastra stirred beside her.

"I would go back to the circus before I would see you hurt like that again, little ape."

Jenny rolled over onto her side to face Vastra. "An' I'd sooner handle a strap then see you inna cage, so what'll we do then hm? Am I ter go out in the evenin', out into the market, fingerin' whatever I can?"

"I don't like the idea of your stealing purses much better."

"An I don' like the idea of starvin'." Jenny shrugged, throwing back the covers to get up. "So if that's the only option we c'n agree on, I'd best be out there."

"You could get caught." Vastra sat up, shivering as she pulled the covers back around her.

"Bin caught before."

"It is not sufficient."

"Well an' I am sorry fer that too." Jenny said, piqued.

"We must come up with something else."

Jenny sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I could go round the 'ouses. Give us a bigger haul."

"Really, if you're going to be so unambitious." Vastra tutted.

"Well what'd'yer want me ter do, rob a bank?" Jenny snapped. And Vastra grinned at her. Jenny would come to recognise that grin over the years. It was the kind of grin that usually resulted in trouble and adventures and (in the future) aliens and spaceships. It was the grin of someone who had been plotting and was grinning because you'd just cottoned on.

"What a wonderful idea Jenny!" Vastra exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "We shall do that." Jenny gaped at her. "Have you stolen from a bank before in your criminal history?"

"Well…yeah. The Tong gang did up a bank once an' the cracker taught me 'ow."

"Perfect!"

Jenny was speechless as she watched Vastra dress.

"You feelin' much better I take it?"

Vastra stopped.

"I mean wot was that all about anyways, if'n yer don't mind an ape arskin'."

"You mentioned you had lost people, enough to know what it looks like. Who did you lose?"

"Thought this was me arskin'." Jenny muttered. "I lost me Ma when I was four, died givin' birth to me sister Joanne, who din't make it neither. Maggie…me sister Margaret she died when I was five in a cold winter. Thom died a few years after that. Influenza. Da's inna workhouse, me other sister Megan got taken by me aunt and uncle an Albie, thas me brother, he disappeared one day. Some say he skipped out cos he couldn't handle Da no more but I reckon somethin' happened to him down the docks where 'e worked. They do that sometimes, sell off kiddies to the boats an' the like. An' 'e was in wiv a gang too down there so. All of me friends are mostly dead or disappeared. Gribble, 'e got took by the cold. Gribble's the one who give me me Flint. An' there's been a few others what dropped by the wayside over the years. Happens y'know. How 'bout you?"

"My mother died when I was young, when a piece of equipment she was using to hunt beasts failed. My sisters were all slaughtered by apes, when they came across our resting place."

"In April?"

"In April." Vastra said no more and Jenny left to go find money for the day at least. Well, that would at least explain why she hated apes. Why she'd yelled at Jenny for calling her by her name. Jenny wondered, as she hadn't for a while, how her sister was doing, whether her father had gotten out the workhouse, whether Jacob had escaped the Tong gang when she'd scarpered. She wasn't naïve enough to think they wouldn't have tried to track her down and Jacob had been her pair.

She also started thinking about how impossible it would be for her and Vastra to rob a bank but that started her thinking about how it could be possible. Even though she'd gaped at the original idea, her mind started thinking, plotting, planning…

An: Yay Vastra's back! Boo for sh*tty working conditions in factories in the Victorian era and the high mortality rate among the lower classes. Forward, to a bank robbery and more detailed Jenny Flint history.