Note: Okay, it's official, I don't think I'm capable of stopping myself from writing this fic, it's actually becoming an addiction! I am supposed to be doing Uni work today but all I want to do is sit and write another chapter for this. God damn it guys, I think I need help! Maybe expect another chapter to appear before the day is over because I'm pretty sure I'll have finished another one before I go to bed tonight... enjoy!
Love always
Shadow of a Black Rose xxx
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Jenny's eyes were fixed on the fire. She had been staring into the flames for a good few hours now and the Doctor, sat opposite her, was beginning to worry that the shock of everything that had happened that evening had made the girl incapable of speech altogether. He had tried to get her to speak to him back on the street, to tell him where she lived so that he could take her home, but she just stared at him, a look of pure shock on her pretty face. Considering the circumstances he thought introducing the TARDIS to all of the commotion was probably not the best idea so he had supported the girl (whose name he still didn't know) all the way back to the house on Paternoster Row.
"I'll be right back" he told her, not imagining that she would be ready to talk any time soon, and he stood, crossing the room and letting himself into the greenhouse at the back of the property where the lady of the house was trying to calm herself after all of the excitement.
"Has she said anything yet?" Vastra turned in her chair as he entered, levelling her gaze with the Doctor's. She noticed how sad his eyes seemed and she nodded her head in understanding. "I see," she murmured softly "It's understandable I suppose, most apes are not accustomed to such violence as the girl witnessed tonight. She must be in a great deal of shock."
"Careful Vastra," the Doctor replied, smiling slightly "that almost sounded like you cared about a human's feelings." She gave him a withering look and rolled her eyes. Vastra had begun to learn over the past few months that she had been settling into this new life of hers that the Doctor was very attached to these apes and that he did not agree with her lack of feeling towards them. It was strange to her how he could understand the pain that the apes had caused her so well and yet he could not seem to comprehend how she associated that pain with every member of the human species.
"I did not say I cared. I was simply stating an awareness of how the ape must feel." The Doctor chuckled.
"You know, for someone who doesn't care you did seem to be rather impressed with how she handled herself back there."
"Well, not many apes could have fought back so well in her place, particularly not those as small and weak as the girl is." They heard a cough behind them and both turned abruptly to find Jenny stood in the doorway, looking from one to the other of them with clear intrigue in her eyes. It wasn't until Jenny's eyes stopped to rest on Vastra that the Silurian realised she was not wearing her veil or gloves. She considered attempting to hide herself but, realising that it was too late, she decided (or hoped) that a small smile might lessen the girl's fear of her.
"I... um... where am I?" Jenny stuttered, her eyes not moving from Vastra's face. She didn't seem scared. Vastra looked at the Doctor in shock, not sure how to respond. She had been expecting the ape to scream at the very least, but if anything she seemed more interested in Vastra than afraid of her. The Doctor was equally as shocked for a moment but, quickly recovering himself, he sauntered over to the girl in the doorway.
"This place belongs to my friend here" He indicated to Vastra who nodded in acknowledgement. "Oh, I'm the Doctor by the way, and this is Vastra."
"Jenny... Jenny Flint" the girl attempted a small smile but she was still a little unsure of how to react in these new surroundings.
"Jenny! Finally, a name to the face, it's nice to meet you Jenny. You had us worried for a while there, we weren't sure if you'd been scared out of speaking." The Doctor steered her over to a seat just across from Vastra and let himself fall into another seat by the Silurian's side. "So," he said, a reassuring smile on his face "You must have a lot of questions, we'd be happy to answer them for you."
Once again Jenny allowed herself to look between the two strangers who had saved her, her eyes flicking from one to the other. She was still trying to get her head around everything that had happened, but the one thing she wanted to understand more than anything was how she had been so lucky as to be saved at just the right moment.
"Who are you both...?" The Doctor frowned. He was sure he had already introduced them both to this girl. Had she developed memory loss in the time that she had been thinking things through? Or had it been before then? He opened his mouth to reintroduce them but Vastra cut him off.
"We help people, those in danger and in need of assistance." Her eyes were locked on the girl as she spoke, surveying her properly for the first time. Out in the street Vastra had barely had time to do more than kill, and in all honesty her mind had been so set on the task at hand that she hadn't considered the need to know who it was that she was saving. Now, as she surveyed the ape she was almost glad that they had been there to save her. Jenny was pretty for an ape, if a little grubby and underweight. Vastra thought it would have been a shame if she had become a corpse, a waste of very rare human genetics holding something more than other apes seemed to possess.
"Well I figured that much for myself ma'am... what I meant was... what are you?"
"What are we?" The scales over Vastra's right eye lifted slightly and Jenny assumed that it must be the equivalent of someone raising their eyebrow. She felt the heat rise into her face as her cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment. She hadn't meant to be rude, she just wanted to learn more. This strange man with his magic blue box and his friend who seemed to be part animal and part human, they were something new to her. Jenny had always had a fascination with foreign lands but this was something else entirely.
"Well," she started, trying not to let her blush show too much for fear of being judged as weak "you're 'ardly normal are you? 'im with that box of 'is that appears out o' nowhere an' you with your..." she trailed off towards the end and blushed a deeper red. How could she make reference to the woman's clear differences without offending her? Vastra was still watching Jenny very closely. She seemed to be carefully studying every movement of her features as though she were attempting to learn something from the girl without using words. There was something tense about the woman, Jenny thought. It seemed like she wasn't comfortable even in her own home. She sat too straight and she watched those around her too closely. It made Jenny a little uncomfortable.
The room had fallen into silence. Jenny expected that the woman was waiting for her to finish her sentence but she couldn't find a way to do so that she thought would not offend her hostess who had so kindly allowed a poor girl into her home. She kept her eyes locked on Vastra's, not wanting to look away and hint that she had no idea how to properly phrase what she wanted to say. Jenny noticed that she had pretty eyes, a light, shining blue that stood out greatly in contrast with the emerald scales that covered her face and neck.
"My what?" Vastra asked after a few moments of silence that had felt like an eternity.
"Your... uniqueness." Jenny saw Vastra flinch slightly and she couldn't look the woman in the eye any more. She was so afraid that she may have caused offense that she dropped her gaze to the floor immediately and muttered, "I'm sorry... that was the wrong way to put it, what I meant was..."
"I know what you meant." Jenny looked up at Vastra slowly. The woman's eyes still hadn't left her and Jenny wondered what she was thinking. "It's okay Miss Flint, I know that I look rather different from what you are accustomed to. I am a Silurian. My species lived long before you apes were advanced enough to control this world, at the dawn of time we inhabited the Earth and hunted your species for sport. Millennia ago we went into hibernation under the earth as human kind grew stronger and began to learn how to live as intellectual beings on this planet; the rest of my kind are still in this state of hibernation somewhere deep beneath our very feet."
Throughout her explanation Vastra had studied Jenny's expressions closely and she was surprised to find that the girl had been absorbing every word that she spoke as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world. This ape continued to surprise her. Where Vastra expected to observe one emotion in Jenny's face there would be another as clear as day. The ape's reactions to everything she was being told were so out of sync with how any other human would react that Vastra was having difficulty processing the situation. She was prepared for fear, misunderstanding, screaming and running and possibly even attempts on her life but she was not prepared for a human sat before her, listening intently and actually taking the time to understand her. The Doctor hadn't prepared Vastra for this. In the past months he had spent time teaching her how to deal with normal human reactions to a creature such as herself in case anyone were to see her true nature by mistake, but he had not taught her how to react to such acceptance. Speechless, the Silurian looked to the Doctor, wordlessly begging him to explain his own differences so that she would have time to process this new and different ape.
"Oh!" The Doctor seemed to snap out of the trance he had fallen into while watching the two women and the oddly frozen look that had been on his face melted away to a smile. "Right, my turn. I'm a Time Lord Jenny. Not from this planet actually, my home planet is a long way away. I'm not as interesting as Vastra here, I just fly around in my TARDIS - the blue box you mentioned. I visit different planets and different times and well basically try to help people who need it."
"Right," Jenny said, frowning slightly as she processed what she had just heard "so neither o' you are 'uman, and you" she looked at the Doctor "that box o' yours is what found me in trouble?"
"Well, in a way I suppose. More often than not I just stumble upon people who need help by chance but I suppose the TARDIS does have a bit to do with it, yes."
"And you," Jenny turned to Vastra who was still having difficulty understanding what was going on, "you killed all them men who were about to..."
"Yes." Vastra cut her off abruptly, not wanting to complicate things further with the possibilities of what could have happened to the girl had she and the Doctor not been there. Jenny nodded slowly. She thought she was at least beginning to understand what was going on, even if there were still a few blanks to be filled in. There were still so many questions that she wanted to ask but as she looked through the glass walls of the greenhouse it began to dawn on her how late it had got and how long it had been since she should have been home. If the sky was anything to go by then the sun was about to rise. A new day was beginning and Jenny hadn't even been to bed yet, and what about her work? The matches she had dropped were still scattered along a street somewhere, they would be useless now. Realising this Jenny's eyes widened and she stood up abruptly.
"I 'ave to go." She announced looking around to find where she had left her purse.
"Let me take you home," the Doctor offered, standing too just as Jenny located her purse "you must be exhausted. It's late and you've had a long day, all of this can't be helping."
"'ome? Are you mad? I 'aven't got time to go 'ome, I need to be back on the street working any minute an' I don't 'ave any matches to sell after what 'appened last night!" Suddenly it dawned on Jenny what the loss of those matches meant and she wobbled unsteadily on her feet as though she may faint. "Oh no..." she whispered, her eye line dropping to the floor. "My wages... I'll not get paid for months after losin' all them matches... 'ow are we supposed to eat?!" The Doctor and Vastra both regarded her with shock. Neither seemed to have the faintest idea what she was going on about. As she looked at both of their blank expressions Jenny realised that she would have to explain things more simply if she were to make either of them understand how bad this was for her. "I'm a match girl." she started simply but it still didn't seem to get through to the pair in front of her. "I sell matches to make money. I know that mus' be somethin' you're not used to, what with your bein' so different an' livin' in a place like this." She looked around the greenhouse and back into the large furnished room she had been in before. This really was worlds away from the life Jenny was born into.
"You mean to say that you do not even have enough money to feed yourself?" Vastra asked, a look of disapproval on her face. Clearly Jenny was going to have to explain this better to get any sympathy from her new acquaintance.
"I can't afford to feed myself, my parents or my little brother. An' my employer won't pay me for months once I tell 'im what 'appened to the matches I was supposed to sell." Jenny could feel tears welling up in her eyes and she had to fight to bite them back as it all became too much for her. "It's all very good for people like you who 'ave money to burn ma'am but some of us 'ave to work ourselves near to death jus' to feed our families for a week"
"So why don't you work here?" Vastra and Jenny both turned to look at the Doctor in surprise.
"Excuse me?" Vastra asked frowning slightly as the Doctor smiled at her.
"You heard me Vastra, why don't you give Jenny a job here, working for you? You've been saying yourself for weeks how lonely you get when I have to pop off and you're always complaining that in your time you had humans to clean and prepare meals for you. Jenny could be your maid. She could do everything humans used to do for you and act as a companion when I can't be here to keep you company." Vastra continued to scowl at the man who had been helping her since she had been awoken from hibernation. Part of her hated him for even suggesting such a thing; he knew how she felt about the apes, why would he suggest that she take this one in and pay it for its efforts. She wanted to set him straight but she was sure that anything she said would go against what the Doctor had taught her about how not to offend humans.
"May I have a word with you in private?" She hissed, dangerously close to losing her composure.
"Is there a problem Vastra?" She stiffened, staring at the Doctor, realising that he was going to make her say what she had to say here in front of the girl if she wanted to say it at all. She cursed the Time Lord over and over again in her head, why did he have to be so difficult. Leaning closer to him, she dropped her voice to a low hiss in the hope that the girl would not hear her so clearly.
"You know how I feel about the apes Doctor, I do not want one living in my home and preparing my meals. It is her kind who killed my sisters! Why should I trust that she would not find some way to kill me?" The Doctor gave his Silurian friend a warning look. He had been sure that she was beginning to come around to the human species as a whole. Jenny in particular had seemed to gain a certain level of empathy from Vastra that the Doctor thought he would never see her express. He was sure that if any human could change Vastra's mind about the species, Jenny was that human.
Once again a small cough from Jenny cut the pair off and for the first time the pair found that the human girl seemed to entirely understand what was going on. Her eyes held a mix of emotions from annoyance to anger, hopelessness and some sadness. Vastra was shocked that such a primitive creature could feel so much in one moment.
"She doesn't want me 'ere does she?" Jenny asked simply, nodding to Vastra. "What is it? Now that 'uman kind are more advanced than they were in your time you think that we've automatically all become a threat to you?"
"Jenny, Vastra has..." Jenny held up a hand cutting the Doctor off mid-sentence. Vastra's frown deepened as the man fell into silence. No matter how many times she herself had tried to interrupt the Doctor when he was speaking she had never managed it, but this girl commanded his silence with a single movement of her delicate, fleshy little hand. How did she do that so well.
"She can speak for 'erself." Jenny stated, turning her gaze on Vastra, locking her eyes on the Silurian's own. "Well? That's what you believe isn't it? That we would all kill you given 'alf the chance? You're scared I'd try an' murder you in your sleep or somethin' like that." Vastra stared at her. Had she really hurt the girl so much through her simple refusal to employ her? Honestly, Vastra had never known that apes could be so feeling. It was so different from what she had imagined the men who had murdered her sisters had been capable of feeling.
"Well," she muttered "from what I have seen of your species it does seem to be likely"
"An' from what you've seen o' me in particular?" Jenny tried to avoid smirking at the frozen look of shock on Vastra's face. She was sure that the other woman had not been expecting her to use herself as an argument in defence of her species. Vastra barely seemed capable of speech, so Jenny continued. "I 'aven't shown any intent to 'arm you 'ave I? And I am certainly not afraid o' you. So why would you think so badly o' me?" The Doctor laughed a little and looked at the woman he had been tutoring as of late. It was the first time he had seen her without a single bad word to say about a human. He had been right about Jenny, for some reason she got through to Vastra on a level he hadn't even been capable of.
"Well Vastra, I think our friend Jenny here has made her point quite nicely, don't you?"
"Quite" the Silurian muttered, averting her eyes from them both. "Even so, there are things she must learn before she can work in this house, things she must understand." She looked back at Jenny curiously, Jenny almost felt as though she was looking right through her. "And there are things I must learn about her."
"Right then, in that case I'll leave you ladies to it."