Chapter Five
The Doctor sat there and laughed at Cass's question, even Mr Potato's offspring and the sweet looking woman where stifling their own humour despite looks of shocked surprise. Cass was inclined to believe that the only ones not laughing where her and the veiled lady.
"Ah, Madame, let me introduce my new companion – Cassidy Williams. She has a good nose."
"I can see that for myself Doctor." The veiled lady sounded amused.
Cass was glaring at the Doctor before she turned back to the three strangers. "Since giggling McGee over there seems a little rude I'll start over. Hello, I'm Cassidy but please call me Cass."
"I'm Madame Vastra" the veiled lady removed the veil with a flourish, revealing her glinting green scaled face, a forked tongue lashing out. She waited a second or too after her dramatic flourish before she continued speaking. "And this is my associate Strax, and my wife Jenny."
"It's very nice to meet you." Cass grinned at them all.
"Forgive my asking, but how did you know the Madame was a lizard?" Jenny asked, looking at Cass with wide eyes.
Cass tapped her nose. "Like the Doctor said, I've got a good nose for it."
"Well I see your taste in companion has not changed Doctor, you did always pick the pretty, young, talented one's." Vastra spoke to the Doctor as though the other three where not there.
The human part of Cass wanted to tell her about her rudeness, however her wolf told her to wait patiently – that Vastra was testing the waters of both Cass herself as well as her bond with the Doctor.
She couldn't, however, hold back the snort of laughter – pleased that the Doctor did the exact same thing beside her. "Young Vastra? Your eyes deceive you, in fact one of Cass's talents is to tell age."
Vastra looked at Cass with interest in her bright green eyes. "If it is a talent of yours, then by all means age me, Cassidy."
Cass's wolf growled, telling her she should be watching for danger rather than playing these games. Cass quietened her canine side and instead concentrated on scenting the lizard woman opposite her. It was harder for her to age someone like Vastra or the Doctor, usually she scented someone's magic and could tell their age from that, but they of course had little to no magic in them, so it took drastically longer.
"Ancient. No offence meant, but you smell like the old bones in the museum in London."
"Jenny then."
"I'd say twenty eight, but that was before she stopped aging."
Jenny grinned and nodded.
"That is almost impressive." Was Vastra's only response. Cass got the idea that this lizard lady did not like her.
Cass wondered if the Doctor had caught on to the feeling coming from Vastra because he shuffled towards her, his arm flu over the back of the bench seat going around her shoulders. Cass hunched a little, her skin warming, sensitive to the slightest touch because of the heat. She resisted leaning into the Doctor – commending herself when she did not give in to the temptation.
The Doctor cleared his throat under the glare of Vastra's green eyes knowing the intuitive lizard had picked up on his protective gestures towards Cass. "So Madame, why did you call us here?"
"Murder of course my dear."
"Why does it concern me?"
"Oh mysterious vanishing people who turn up a day later completely untouched, no bodily markings, and yet their spleens and hearts have been removed. Figured such a disappearing act was right up your alley Doctor."
Cass stopped listening. She knew they were talking but she was looking around the pub – which had been full of midday revellers when they arrived, but was now empty bar for three people and the bartender – none of them where speaking. Cass narrowed her eyes, understanding for the old ways her father had told her about rushing over her.
She cleared her throat gently and turned to the Doctor, pulling back a little bit because his face was closer than she had expected it to be. "I- ah. I'm going to- er – get some fresh air, that okay Doctor?"
He looked down at her, concern evident in the way he frowned. It had taken Cass a while to figure out the different frowns on his almost constantly frowning face, but she was good at is by now. "Is this something to do with-?"
"No. Yes. Maybe." Cass gave him a look before she headed out of the pub – seeing the Doctor and his associates lean towards each other at the table though she was unable to hear their words, she had no doubts they were asking about her though. However at that moment she had bigger things to think about – such as the three men following her with glowing gold, green and blue eyes.
Cass turned to the side of the pub, a small alleyway with a brick wall on the other side, filled with garbage cans and wooden crates. She turned once she reached the dead end – the wolf in her smiled maliciously.
"Who are you?" a blonde man asked, his voice gruff as his brunette associate spat on the floor and made Cass wrinkle her nose. "You didn't petition the pack to come into our territory."
"On a technicality I'm already a pack member – just don't ask me to explain because it's too complicated for your little minds – Bryce, John, Matthew." Cass named the three male werewolves she remembered from her childhood – they were in fact some of the first to contract the illness that killed them all in the end.
The three men looked shocked, sharing wary looks with each other – however just as Cass expected them too, they shuck the impossibility of her knowing their names as if it was as normal as morning porridge. "Not just a delicious trespassing female in heat, one who needs to learn her place too." Matthew growled.
At least eighty years of combat training these men were not familiar with gave Cass and upper hand when the three attacked her despite the dress she wore – and for that she was glad, in the old days she knew exactly what territorial bullying wolf shifters like these three did when they found an unclaimed female in heat. If she was honest the fight released some of her tension built up from the heat – she was glad since it lowered the possibility of her doing something stupid later.
Matthew the pig head who spat went down first, knocked out cold in a pile of trash. Which was when Cass heard someone call her name – she turned to see the Doctor, Vastra, Strax and Jenny at the mouth of the alley two looking shocked and surprised, Strax looked like he wanted to join the fray immediately, but the Doctor – his face was a thundering fury Cass had never seen before.
Bryce and John where between her and them, the shock of seeing her friends had caused them the upper hand. They knocked her off her feet in seconds – and while she was lying on her back, Bryce grinned and sent John after the 'witnesses'.
Which was when Cass felt the rage rise up in her. How dare they threaten her pack? The Doctor – and by association anyone he called a friend or family – was her family too, her pack. The rage overtook Cass- her dress ripped as the wolf surged forward. Cass, in wolf form, knocked Bryce from his feet before racing up the alley, diving on John and taking him to the ground right before he pounced to the Doctor - the shot Strax had aimed at John missing them both by a hair.
Cass felt John's ribs crack under the weight before she felt like she could get off him. He wouldn't be coming after them in a fighting condition anytime soon with five cracked ribs.
Cass approached the Doctor, head and tail down low in a submissive pose, he was only half turned to face her – he was saying something to the other three.
Something heavy landed on Cass's back suddenly and she yelped, startled when sharp teeth dug into the flesh and muscle of her left shoulder. Bryce had shifted to his golden/blonde wolf form after she knocked him down obviously. Unfortunately for Cass, Bryce had always been abnormally large even for a wolf shifter. She nearly buckled under his weight, his thick claws where buried deep into her sides and ripped at her flesh every time she moved to dislodge him. Cass saw Strax aiming his gun, but she ducked with Bryce on her back so the shot missed.
Instead she ran and rolled suddenly, dislodging him from her back bit having fair bits of her shoulder and sides ripped out by his teeth and claws. When Cass stood, Bryce was still down and struggling to stand again, she laid a large paw upon his throat to restrict his breathing and waited until he fell unconscious before she removed it again.
When she returned to the Doctors side this time, he was crouched down waiting for her.
"The enemy still breathes sir, would you like to dispose of them completely?" Strax asked, taking aim at the first unconscious male with his little gun.
Cass snarled.
"No. Not yet anyway. Cass, shift back – I have spare clothes for you." The Doctor pulled a thin, baggy looking dress Cass had insisted they bring out with them this time in case she did go wolf. Twice before she'd been stuck in wolf form on their adventures for a lack of clothing – and once she's saved his life nude.
She shifted back and pulled on the dress quickly – accepting the Doctors help when he pulled her up, she leaned on his afterwards – her blood was seeping through the thin dress, though she wasn't too worried. Wounds like that would heal soon, and it took her mind and body off the burning tingling thrill she felt at the Doctor touching her through the paper thin dress.
"Well Doctor, I see you outdid yourself choosing a companion this time." Vastra said calmly with a tiny smile.
"Madame I don't think now is a time to test Cass as a traveller, she's hurt." Jenny was on Cass's other side now, holding a tiny handkerchief to her shoulder where most of the blood was coming from. The handkerchief was little help, and Cass hissed as the pressing fabric touched her sensitive skin.
"Strax fetch the carriage."
"My scanner claims the dog-boy will have bled out before I reach the carriage."
"She won't." The Doctor sounded furious. "I will not let her die on me, you hear that Cass?" he tightened his grip on her until it was almost painful.
Cass coughed through a smile. "Idiot" she managed to mumble. "I'm not going to die, just let me rest and eat. I'll be fine."
And with that, she passed out in the Doctors arms.
The Doctor was sitting on the end of a double bed in a rather shabbily decorated room in the house Vastra, Jenny and Strax where renting for their investigations up here in the North East.
He was watching Cass sleeping through wide eyes, he couldn't stop his sudden thoughts.
She did not age. She healed vicious wounds within hours. He couldn't help but let his mind wander, Cass was the closest thing to a timelord he'd seen in many years – if he ignored the fact she spent much of her time on four paws.
"Doctor, the Madame is waiting for you." Jenny said from behind him suddenly. "Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on Cass for you."
The Doctor gave Cass a final glance, but left the room without saying anything.
Vastra waited for him in an equally shabby looking tea room. He sat opposite her, waiting as she quite calmly poured tea into little tiny china cups and handed him one. He dumped a lot of sugar in his cup before he took a sip.
"I know what you're thinking Doctor."
"I didn't know Lizards where physic."
"It doesn't take a physic to see when the lonely man has found his equal."
The Doctor said nothing, just sipped his tea and looked over the cup at Vastra.
"She does seem remarkably resilient much like yourself." Was Vastra's only comment.
"Just as stubborn too." He added, using the cup to hide his fond smile.
"But Doctor, you should not get your hopes up. Cassidy probably has a life of her own, she may want to get back to it eventually."
"Cass was a solider when we met – U.N.I.T where using her abilities to their advantage, but they were abusing her rights as they did."
"You don't consider the idea that Cass might have been alright with that, because it helped her protect the rest of the humans you cannot always be there for?"
The Doctor said nothing. He hadn't considered that Cass had been doing good from her side.
Vastra sighed suddenly. "Doctor I am not saying that the girl will want to go back to her other life, but you should keep that danger in mind before you get attached. Even then, she is no invincible. I am sorry I have to be the one to remind you of the fragility of yourself and your companion."
"Trust me Vastra" the Doctor said, glancing down at his hand and noticing Cass's blood still in-between his fingers. "You don't need to remind me."