Vastra had wanted to stay with Jenny, really she had, but the smell of blood had been too much. The Silurian had felt broken as she pulled herself out of the room. Jenny had been crying and clinging onto her hand so tightly. Please don't go. The sound of the girl's voice pleading with her kept circling around her mind and Vastra wished with all of her heart that she could go back into the room without being a risk to everyone in it, but she couldn't. Damn it! Damn her species and their ridiculous feeding habits! If it hadn't been for that she could have been in there holding Jenny's hand, kissing her head and reassuring her that everything would be okay. Instead she found herself pacing back and forth outside the bedroom door, desperately wishing that she could stop hearing her darling girl's cries and groans of pain.
Somehow it seemed to have slipped the Silurian's mind that she was supposed to be angry with Jenny. Every thought of their argument and the docks and the man who the Doctor had been speaking to seemed to have been wiped clean from her memory as panic had set in. It wasn't until Vastra had slid down the wall opposite the bedroom door and was curled on the floor with her head in her hands that she began to recall any of it. She heard heavy footsteps to her right coming from the staircase and slowly she lifted her eyes until she caught sight of the worker from the docks.
As John Flint rounded the corner in pursuit of the Doctor he had not been expecting the sight that faced him and he had to double take to assure himself that he wasn't seeing things. There was a woman curled on the floor with her back pressed against the wall but she was unlike any woman that he had ever seen before. Her skin appeared to be cracked all over and there was nothing natural about the shade of green that tinted it. In place of hair her head seemed to extend further than and normal skull would and as she looked up at him he noticed how her eyes were an unearthly and yet rather beautiful shade of blue. He wondered who she was... what she was. It wasn't until he looked at her and what she was wearing a little more closely that he began to understand what was going on. He recognised her from before when he had witnessed his daughter's collapse. The woman was Jenny's mistress, Madame Vastra.
The man took a step back as Vastra regarded him closely but no words were issued from his lips. The Silurian could sense the scent of fear on the air and she simply couldn't suppress a snort of contempt. He clearly had no idea what was going on. His expression was blank but he was definitely uncomfortable. She wondered if he knew that the pained noise emanating from the bedroom were the sounds of Jenny having the child. She wondered if he even knew who she was or about the relationship between herself and Jenny. The one thing she didn't have to wonder about, however, was why he was afraid. Apes were all the same, they took one look at her and immediately began to fear for their lives – well, all but Jenny.
If Vastra had been faced with the man only ten minutes previously she would have ripped him apart without so much as a word but for some reason she simply couldn't do it as she looked upon him then. Her expression was just aggressive enough to warn him not to upset her but she knew in her heart that she wouldn't do anything to him. It wasn't his fault if Jenny didn't love her as she had said she had, and besides, Vastra wasn't entirely sure what she believed about the situation with Jenny and herself any longer. The girl had seemed so genuine when they had been speaking before and suddenly Vastra had found that she was no longer sure what she should believe. She didn't want to think that Jenny would lie to her or hurt her. The girl had even called her out on her own avoidance of the truth; surely it would have been hypocritical of her to do so had she been lying herself. But still Vastra was scared. No, she was terrified. It wasn't that she didn't trust Jenny; there was something else that was fuelling her fears. There was something else that was making her question whether or not the girl really did love her or whether the child that she was bringing into the world at that moment was hers or not. A part of Vastra buried deep down still didn't believe that Jenny could truly love her even after everything that they had been through together.
"What are you doing here?" The Silurian had to know if her fears about the man were true. She couldn't stand the uncertainty any longer it was driving her to the point of insanity.
For a moment John didn't reply. He could still barely believe what he was seeing. This was the woman that his daughter had spoken of in such an endearing way. The creature before him was the woman that Jenny had allowed herself to be ousted from her own family for. This was the woman that his beautiful, kind hearted, special little girl had fallen in love with. It just didn't seem real to him. He had always known that Jenny was different and that she saw people differently to most but this really was something else. Did she not see what he saw? How could a woman who looked as this Madame Vastra did be anything but a monster?
"I needed t' know tha' my Jenny were okay."
"Does she sound okay to you?!" Vastra hadn't meant to be so harsh but something inside of her had snapped. Perhaps it was listening to Jenny in so much pain and being unable to help her that had done it. She felt guilty for leaving her. She felt worse knowing that it may not even be her child that the girl was giving birth to. The man had taken another step back and Vastra had to force herself to take a few deep breaths so as to keep her temper in check; she knew that getting angry would benefit no one, least of all Jenny. "Who are you?"
"John Flint. 'er father." For a moment silence fell between the two. Vastra was staring at the man almost in disbelief but flicking her tongue out to sense the air she was quite sure that he was telling the truth. Was he the reason that Jenny had been down by the docks? Had Vastra been thinking badly of her darling girl while all the time Jenny was just seeking comfort from her father? The Silurian felt sick to her stomach and in that moment she began to hate herself a little. "I take it from th' state o' you tha' you're 'er mistress... 'er..." Vastra nodded. She didn't need him to clarify; Jenny had told her enough about her last conversation with her family to know what he was going to say.
As both Jenny's father and lover fell silent once more an almost strangled sound came from inside the room and Vastra visibly flinched. She turned away from John and began pacing again, her fingers fidgeting nervously with the lace on the bodice of her dress and her eyes downcast. The woman was mumbling under her breath in a language that John didn't understand and he wondered what she was saying. He coughed to try and get her attention but Vastra didn't even look up. He hadn't imagined that she could care so much. To look at the woman he would have thought her to be one for logic and fact over emotion but apparently he had been wrong.
"You okay?" It was almost an illegible mumble but Vastra managed to make it out well enough. She stopped pacing for a moment but didn't look up.
"My heart is breaking just hearing her in pain but there is nothing I can do for her."
"Why aint you in there?"
"Too much blood." For a moment the main raised his eyebrow in surprise. The creature didn't seem the sort to be squeamish about blood but then the thought dawned on him. If this woman was not human (which he supposed she must not be considering her appearance) then perhaps her feeding habits differed from those of humans. The thought made him tense up and Vastra sighed. Apparently Jenny had not got her exceptional compassion from either of her parents if this man was the one who was more accepting. "You think I am a monster."
"I didn' say..."
"You did not have to." The Silurian took a step closer and John immediately sprang back away from her. A sad smile passed over Vastra's features and she shook her head softly. She didn't know what she had expected but of course the man feared her. There was a reason she was forced to cover herself in public and pretend that she had a skin condition – Victorians simply were not ready to accept the existence of other life forms or species'. "I am going to tell you something Mr Flint, and I would like you to pay very close attention when I do. I understand that you are afraid of me and that I make you uncomfortable. I cannot judge you for that. Your kind are not yet developed enough to understand a species such as my own who live off of blood and raw meat and look and act in different ways to you. It is only natural for you to be afraid." For a moment Vastra paused and attempted to take another step towards the man. It made her smile that he didn't back away but he was still giving her a wary look. "I know that I am not something that you are capable of understanding but I can tell you something that is exactly the same in me as it would be in any human. I feel love just as you do. Mr Flint, I love your daughter with all of my heart and hearing her in pain is tearing me apart but I know that she will be okay, whether I am there or not. I would never have left her side if I did not believe it to be best for her."
John was frozen by shock as he observed the lizard woman. He had never expected such compassion and intelligence to come from her. A part of him was beginning to wonder if he may have allowed himself to judge Vastra too quickly, after all there had to be something more to the woman for Jenny to have fallen so deeply in love with her. Vastra clearly loved the girl too and, quite frankly, John could hardly refer to the woman as a monster when she had removed herself from his daughter's side purely out of fear that she wouldn't have been able to control herself. She had placed the girl's safety before her own peace of mind despite the fact that it was clearly making her more than a little anxious – no monster would have done that.
A long silence passed between the two before anything more was said. Vastra continued to pace back and forth while John simply stared at the bedroom door in a mixture of confusion and horror. Without having to so much as look at him Vastra could tell that the sounds coming from in there were bothering him. Victorian men were not accustomed to being in such close proximity to women giving birth and the Silurian had a sneaking suspicion that it was not what Jenny's father had been expecting of it at all.
"'ow d'ya fink she's doin' in there?" John finally broke the silence between them and Vastra looked up at him as she snapped out of her own thoughts. A slight fog seemed to have glazed over her eyes but as she heard the man's voice it quickly began to dissipate and she allowed herself to smile ever so slightly.
"I am sure she is doing wonderfully. She is getting tired though; I should imagine that she just wants it to be over."
"'ow can you tell tha' she's tired?" A frown creased the man's brow and he looked back at the door with a perplexed expression on his face. Every groan and scream sounded the same to him. All he knew was that they meant that his little girl was in pain.
"Listen to her breathing. Before she was panting quite heavily but now she does not have the strength to do so, so her breaths are shallower. Jenny's breathing always becomes shallow when she is tired anyway but that... well, it is simply obvious to me." A fond smile graced the Silurian's lips and she too looked towards the bedroom door, only there was no confusion on her face. Everything had gone quiet and for a moment Vastra's heart stopped as she began to worry that something had gone wrong – but then she heard the baby crying.
~.~.~.~.~.~
As the bedroom door swung open Vastra immediately started towards the room and only stopped when she came face to face with the Doctor stood directly in the centre of the doorway. She had been expecting the time lord to put on a poker face to worry her (he enjoyed doing that) but she was surprised to find as her eyes scanned his features that he had that dorky grin of his plastered on his face in a way that was almost disturbing. On seeing her he immediately hugged her tightly and whispered in her ear, "you have a little girl."
A little girl. They had a little baby daughter. Vastra's heart was beating at a mile a minute and her mind was all over the place. She wanted to go to Jenny but the Doctor was still holding her tightly and didn't seem to be planning on letting go if he could help it. A couple of times Vastra tried to extract herself from the time lord's grip but to no avail and it wasn't until she managed to manoeuvre his abnormally large head out of the way that she caught sight of her darling girl.
It looked as though the Doctor must have been doing a little cleaning up in the time it had taken him to call her back in because the bed in which Jenny was sat was once again made up to the girl's perfect standards. There wasn't a single hint of blood in sight and, although Vastra had no idea how the Doctor had done it she was thankful to not have to worry about controlling her primal urges. Jenny herself was sat on her side of the bed, propped up against an extremely comfortable looking pile of pillows with the sheets neatly laid over her and what Vastra could only assume was their blanket clad daughter resting against her chest. As the Silurian scanned them both over with her eyes to reassure herself that everything was okay she couldn't miss the look of exhaustion in the girl she loved. To look at Jenny momentarily it would have been easy to assume that it had been weeks since she had had the child – she sat fairly straight and her hair was tied neatly back off of her face so that she could smile down at the baby in her arms happily with nothing obstructing her view of her first child; however Vastra couldn't miss the hints of weariness in the girl. Jenny was pale, both from blood loss and exhaustion. She was breathing incredibly slowly and while her eyes were fixed on the baby in her arms the Silurian could see how every now and then they would slip out of focus slightly. Aside from the girl's tiredness, however, everything else seemed to be perfect.
"Doctor..." Trying to pull away from the time lord once more Vastra began to lose her patience and she pried his arms away from her as she hissed his name. The Doctor blushed slightly as he realised that he had probably been hugging the Silurian for a bit longer than was necessary and he immediately stepped aside, chuckling to himself slightly.
"Sorry, got a bit lost in the moment..." Vastra didn't hear him. As the Doctor began to speak she had already slipped past him and was making her way over to the bed. Reaching Jenny's side the woman leant down and pressed a kiss to her darling girl's head, smiling ever so slightly as she pulled back and perched herself on the edge of the bed.
"I am so sorry my love, I know you wanted me here but I just..."
"The blood. I know." Jenny's voice was soft but light and she gently slipped her free hand into the Silurian's. "I'm aware I was a little irrational but really you can 'ardly blame me, I was about to give birth for 'eavens' sake." She giggled a little and her eyes slowly wondered back to the little bundle in her arms. "She was worth it..." Vastra felt the girl's grip tighten on her fingers and she allowed her own gaze to follow the path Jenny's had taken to the child. A tiny pink face poked out from within the folds of the soft white blanket wrapped around the baby. Her eyes were closed and her breathing steady but still Vastra felt uncomfortable. The child looked human. 100% human. There was not a single scale on her, nor an alteration in the colour of her skin. She was pink and soft, with soft dark curls just on the top of her head and two little shell-like ears that matched her mother's. Vastra felt as though her heart was shattering all over again – what had Jenny done? "Isn't she beautiful?"
"She's certainly very human." Vastra's voice was cold and sharp and as she said it she withdrew her hand from Jenny's grip and stood up. The girl's eyes flicked up to look at her but Vastra wouldn't remove her own gaze from the child. It was as though her whole world was falling apart again. She had just started to think that maybe she had been wrong, that Jenny would never do that to her. The child's appearance suggested otherwise.
Jenny didn't understand what was going on. Vastra's mood along with her own had been all over the place for a short while but why was she acting so coldly towards the baby? She was her daughter – their daughter. Admittedly the baby looked more human than Jenny had been expecting but that couldn't be helped, surely Vastra could see that.
"Well, I know she looks 'uman but 'er genetics aren't."
"Are they not?" Finally Vastra looked back at the girl and Jenny immediately understood what the other woman was thinking. Tears welled in the girl's eyes and she absentmindedly held her baby closer to her chest. The child stirred, sensing her mother's discomfort, and her little eyes fluttered open. The baby didn't cry, didn't even make a sound, she just stared up at Vastra with those little bright blue orbs that made the Silurian's heart stop. They were her eyes, only not, staring up at her in intrigue. "I... I..."
"'ow could you?" Jenny's voice broke and the tears that had been gathering in her eyes immediately began to seep from the corners and roll down her cheeks. "'ow could you think that I'd be with anyone behind your back?! 'ow could you think that of me?!" Vastra couldn't find her words, she just kept stuttering, trying to find some way to express how sorry she was. The tears were practically streaming down the girl's cheeks as the Silurian continued to stutter and for the first time since opening her eyes the baby seemed to notice that her mother was upset. Her head tilted away from Vastra to face Jenny and her tongue (much like Vastra's) gently flicked out and tried to stop the flow of tears from her mother's eyes. At the sight of it Vastra seemed to lose her ability to speak altogether, she just stared at the child and then at Jenny.
"Jenny, I..."
"No! No, don't you dare! Don't you dare try an' get out o' this with all your excuses an' your reasonin'."
"But I..."
"I don't want to 'ear it Vastra! Just... get out." Vastra didn't move. Jenny had managed to force herself to stop crying for her daughter's sake but she continued to glare at the other woman. She couldn't believe that Vastra had thought what she had even for a second and a part of Jenny wished that she had the energy to get up from her bed and hit her. She loved Vastra, she loved her with all of her heart and the woman had actually thought that she would betray her. Jenny couldn't even bare to look at the Silurian but still she did. She glared until finally Vastra broke and within seconds she had practically thrown the Doctor and Jenny's father to the ground as she rushed from the room.