The alarm goes off at 5:45 am exactly, just like every morning since the Silurians stopped taking injections.
Fiona turns off the alarm, puts on her glasses and opens her mouth.
Alaya opens the side table drawer, pulls out a thermometer, shakes it and puts under her wife's tongue.
Fiona closes her mouth.
Alaya hands her wife the clock to watch the second hand.
Alaya pulls out the calendar, graph paper and pencil. She does the same thing every morning - she watches Fiona hold the thermometer in her mouth and moves close enough to watch any mercury movement.
Fiona likes the closeness but has to control her mouth and no smile.
After a few minutes Fiona removes the thermometer and announces the reading.
Alaya writes it down on the calendar, makes a tic on the graph paper and both begin to examine the new data. There are changes, which isn't what they hope.
Fiona puts on her housecoat, glasses and slippers. She goes over to the vanity and from the top shelf pulls out a clipboard with notes. She heads into her old bedroom which is now the family's gymnasium. She looks at her notes and begins her search where she left off. On her hands and knees feeling for loose boards starting from the twenty-fifth section towards the window. She rolls back the padded mat and to check each floor board section with each roll.
'Nothing. Damn.'
She makes notes, goes back to her bedroom, puts the clipboard back on the shelf, takes off her glasses, slippers, housecoat and returns to her wife's coolness.
Alaya pulls her wife close, "Any luck?"
"Nae," Fiona whispers a response with a touch of irritation.
Alaya smiles as her wife's irritated untamed hair takes over the pillow, it seems the hair matches the emotions of her Scottish wife.
They soon wake and go down to breakfast to see the mothers sitting in the warm kitchen drinking tea and holding hands.
"We don't usually see you both up so early on a Sunday." Alaya teases.
Vastra shoves her graph paper and calendar in Fiona's hand, "Please look at this."
Fiona and Alaya look at the mother's graphs, calendar to double check.
"I am sorry I have to ask," Fiona looks to the mothers, "Same time every day?"
Both nod.
"The same amount of sleep?"
Both nod.
"Do you feel ill Mother Jenny?"
She shakes her head no.
"To be honest I had wondered. I mean have you not noticed your hair?"
"My hair?" Mother Jenny looks at Fiona puzzled and walks out to the landing looking in the mirror. "It looks the same as it always does."
Fiona smiles, "Count for me your grey hairs."
"Oi, don't remind a woman she is getting older." Mother Jenny returns to look at herself in the mirror. "Vastra! Look!" Vastra comes to her side, "Vastra help me take down my hair." The few pins come out and they both examine the long hair.
"There are no greys!"
"Alaya, please retrieve my medical bag from my desk." Fiona requests, "Mothers please return to the warm kitchen and Mother Jenny sit down for me."
Alaya returns with the large black bag. Fiona opens her medical bag open and pulls out a stethoscope to listen to Mother Vastra's stomach. She attempts to cool the drum with her hot breath, "Sorry, this will be a little chilly."
Vastra is by her wife's side, holding her hand while waiting for any information.
All is quiet as Fiona places the drum on various locations on Mother Jenny's stomach.
Fiona places the stethoscope in Mother Jenny's ear and moves the drum to the right side and a few seconds then the left.
"Now Mother Vastra your turn, " Fiona moves the drum to the exact locations.
Fiona takes back the stethoscope and listens again. She looks up to the Mothers and nods. "Did you hear?"
"Very strong heart beat, just like a Silurian," boasts Vastra.
"Mother Jenny, has anyone in your family ever had twins?" Fiona smiles while waiting for an answer.
"I don't know my family tree very well."
"That isn't one heartbeat, it is the beating of two."
"Our child has two hearts?" Mother Jenny gasps.
"No Mother Jenny, you are having twins."
Vastra grabs the stethoscope and listens again. "How can you tell?"
Fiona whispers, "The one on the left is deep while the right is softer."
"Twins?" Mother sits back and stares into nothing, "Twins?".
"It is nothing to have a large batch, Silurians lays multiple eggs we should be proud." She pulls her wife close with a such a grin it would scare any child away.
Marginal consciousness would the best way to describe Jenny. She just sits in disbelief.
Vastra moves herself face-to-face with her Jenny, "Dear Jenny Flint, this is wonderful news. Yes, twins."
Jenny looks at her wife, "Why must my pregnancies have to be such a surprise. Why can't I just have another before contemplate a third?"
"Twins might not be common, but it is quite natural to have twins." Fiona comforts Mother Jenny.
"Come with me dearest," Mother Vastra leads her wife for more privacy in the drawing-room. "Help me build a fire."
"We will start breakfast. Mother is eating for two ... three." Alaya smiles at her Mothers.
"Let me keep these for a moment," Mother Vastra holds on to the stethoscope.
Fiona and Alaya watch from the kitchen as they get their last opportunity to peek as the door closes of the drawing-room. They witness Vastra gently putting the stethoscope into her wife's ear placing the drum on the heartbeats. Jenny begins to cry and soon a smile.
Fiona cuts mushrooms and starts to tear herself.
Alaya stops cutting the raw meats trays and runs over to comfort her, "What is wrong?"
Fiona turns to Alaya, "Forgive me, I am jealous."
"We shall keep trying, being with you is such a gift. If we never have any offspring I am every so happy. I love my Scottish wife."
"Am I ... we ... can we be doing something wrong?"
"I don't know." Alaya holds her wife close. "It could be me. I am half-human, maybe my bacteria isn't strong enough for procreation."
"No it is exact potency as your Mother's. I have see the blood samples." Fiona looks into her wife's eyes, "I am terrified to request this ..." Fiona looks down and whispers, "Please talk to your Mother Vastra and find out if there is a ..."
Alaya smiles at her wife's sudden shyness but terrified at the prospect of Fiona's next words.
"...position or technique ... which is more potent." Fiona moans as she buries her head in her wife's chest. She continues to talk but with each word Alaya's chest scales vibrate, "I just don't understand. They might have the solution."
"I am sorry your words tickle my scales," Alaya lets out a giggle. "We will ask. I will not have that conversation alone."
Fiona looks up at her wife, wipes her face, kisses her on the lips and cleans her hands and finishing preparing breakfast. "I just want to let you know," Fiona concentrates on the food in the frying pan, "I am have no issue with the way we are intimate."
"I know dear." Alaya jumps as she just got her arse pinched by a red-headed Scottish married woman.
Breakfast is served and the four women have much to plan as their family will expand by two in approximately four to five months.
After Fiona cleared the dishes she sat down next to her Alaya. They both look at the Mothers.
Mother Jenny notices and pulls her wife back to her seat. "What is it?"
Alaya and Fiona begin to blush.
"So, we are curious." Fiona says in such whisper Alaya could barely hear.
"What?" Mother Jenny leans in, "Please attempt another pass just a little louder."
"We are curious." Fiona says louder but now keeps her head down.
"About what?" Vastra quickly laughs at how uncomfortable the two women have become. "Out with it to release your agony."
"This is agony." Alaya pulls her wife close.
Fiona looks to the wall and rattles out of her mouth, "What sexual positions do you practice. We are concerned we aren't doing it right."
Jenny and Vastra burst into laughter.
Fiona and Alaya shrink back into their seats, both with faces of deep red tint.
"We are serious."
"You are?" Mother Jenny taps her wife shoulder. Vastra looks at Jenny with a smile, "Apparently they are serious."
Vastra snaps her head toward the two women across the table. "Oh."
Silence.
Alaya grabs her wife hand for comfort.
Silence.
"I don't know how to respond," Mother Jenny looks to Vastra for assistance.
"I don't know either. Which is more important to know our intimacies or theirs?"
Jenny's eyes get wide, "We don't do anything unusual. Do we?"
Vastra shakes her head no, "The bacteria enters the body through fluid exchange. Do you exchange fluids?"
"We kiss and touch each other."
"To a satisfactory end."
Both nod yes.
The energy in the room has altered from playfulness to uncomfortable as all four shift in their seats.
Jenny begins to blush while Vastra scales turn a bit darker green.
Silence
"We have no literature, books or resources to understand the ... bacteria exchange. We assumed just stopping the injections should be efficient enough." Fiona looking to her wife for encouragement.
"Silurian's have two ..." Vastra starts to begin a lecture on Silurian anatomy.
Fiona interrupts, "She has three."
Alaya smiles and nods, "It is true."
"Three?" Mother Jenny's curiosity has been awakened.
"Crown, belly button and genitalia." Fiona answers in her Physician mode.
"Belly button?" Mother Vastra turns to her wife, "I don't have one of those. Does yours produce pleasure?" Mother Jenny shakes her head no. Looking back to Alaya, "What is that like?"
Fiona responds for her wife, "It is one of the few places that is exclusively human."
"What are the other places that are human?"
"Feet and hands. I prefer the crown, the other are not as intoxicating or as intense for my Alaya"
"Oh?" Jenny is leaning in as if they were in a secret club "What do you do?"
Fiona gets quiet and looks up to the Mothers, "I ... drink in the scents, play with the folds of skin orally. Underneath the folds I discovered the blooming bulbs. I call them bulbs because they start out small and the grown as the scent increases." Fiona stared into Vastra's eyes as she tries to convey the personal information as if she is talking to another Physician. "It is a radically difference of intensity compared to other parts of Alaya's body. As I am human I have more Erogenous body part, but I am limited to my genitalia for my ... pleasure. There is full circle of excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution." Fiona looks to her wife, "I don't mean to sound so scientific about this. Know this, my wife is a gifted and generous lover. We have no issue with intimacy, it is about getting the bacteria into my blood for fertilization."
Jenny leans over to Vastra, "Do you have the bulbs?"
"I don't know. It could be a human quality."
Fiona looks to her wife and smiles, 'I hope they aren't human qualities. My wife thinks herself Silurian, she likes spoils of our intimacy to be Silurian.' She looks to Jenny, "Is there anything other than kissing and general intimacies?" Fiona blushes, "I feel like I am invading your privacy, but I need to know? Anything other than what schools girls talk about in the changing rooms?"
"I don't think so."
"You like to be nibbled on your buttocks, even when I leave mark with a bite."
"No, everyone does that." Jenny is remembering her mother and father's playfulness with grabing her mother's buttocks.
Fiona smiles. "I like to pinch my wife's buttocks, but I have never found mine to be sensitive enough. It must be genetics." She holds her wife's hands tighter.
"Alaya has never bit ..." Fiona's eyes light up, stands up and looks to Mother Vastra, "May I please use your laboratory? I have a hypothesis. Want to help?"
Mother Vastra stands up and they walk to the laboratory side by side, "What are you thinking?"
Fiona stops in her tracks, "Alaya dear, I will need your assistance. Do you mind?"
Alaya jumps up. "You coming mother?" As she looks to mother Jenny, "Please?" She puts out her arm and her mother takes it and they follow the two to the laboratory.
"I was thinking about the buttocks." Fiona continues to discuss with Vastra her thought process.
"Surely the human buttocks isn't the link to fertilization."
They enter the laboratory. Fiona respectfully ask, "May I lead this?"
"No, but if you leave a mark, skin is punctured. That puncture might be the difference in how the bacteria is passed."
"The blood stream!" Vastra blue eyes get wide, "Of course. What do you need from me?"
"I need blood samples and mouth cultures from both you and my Alaya."
Fiona quickly gets slides cleaned and prepared.
Mother Vastra pricks her finger and a single drop of blood drips onto the glass slide. She hands it to Fiona who places a thin glass cover and places on the table. She takes a piece of paper and marks a "V" with a pencil.
Fiona cleans, with alcohol, a thing long medical spatula, waves it dry, and tell Mother to open. She scrapes the inside of Mother Vastra's mouth and places the mucus onto a glass slide, covers with a second slide and places it next to the blood sample.
"My dear Alaya, we will to exactly the same with you."
Alaya nods.
Soon there are four slide two of blood and two of mucus. One of each by a paper with the letter 'V' and by the letter 'A'.
Fiona and Vastra set up their individual microscope.
"First let us compare blood samples."
Fiona places the 'A' blood sample slide on her microscope while Vastra does the same with 'V' slide.
Fiona and Vastra go back and forth continuously to view the blood samples.
"There is no difference." Fiona remarks.
"I agree."
"Alaya would you like to see?" Fiona holds out her hands for her wife to join her. Alaya smiles and quickly looks in both slides, compares not once but four times. She looks to her wife smiling, "They are the same."
"Now the mouths." Fiona looks to Vastra.
Fiona places the 'A' mucus sample slide on her microscope while Vastra does the same with 'V' slide.
Fiona and Vastra go back and forth continuously.
"Exactly the same." Fiona remarks and Vastra smiles.
Fiona immediately blushes, "Therefore we can assume that the main differences of our intimacies is my wife has not broken my skin and if you have, what I am calling, bulbs have not been ... investigated orally." She looks to her wife who is also blushing, "At least that is for now all I am comfortable disclosing."
"I would not mind learning about your mating rituals." Vastra says while shrugging her shoulders, "I find it as a scientist fascinating."
"Mother Vastra," Fiona looks directly into her powerful blue eyes, "I wish I was brave as you, but this conversation was quite taxing on my emotions. If this does not produce the effects we desire within three months, you and I shall talk scientist to physician." Vastra begins to talk but Fiona puts up a hand to stop her, "We need to document this information, especially since this concerns our family members. Would you be willing to collaborate at a later time?"
Vastra responds with defeated body language, "I accept and look forward to our future scientific research." She offers a hand to shake.
Fiona shakes Vastra's hand and then pulls her in for a hug. "Thank you for understanding."
Fiona turns to her wife, holds our her hand and exits the laboratory, "What shall we do with the rest of our afternoon? I do not have off for anther ten days."
Alaya smiles, "Rio Cinema showing a suspense called, The Quiet Little Angel."
"Perfect!"