The vast moors of northern England stretched out as far as the eye could see while a single carriage as dark as midnight clicked it's way through the Yorkshire foggy roads. Inside the comfortable coach, Madame Vastra spoke in a mysterious tone to an excited Jenny.
"According to my research, Sweetville's proprietor holds recruitment drives for her little community. She is only interested in the fittest and the most beautiful."
Jenny smiled as Vastra's tone became a little flirtatious near the end of her sentence, the happy couple leaning toward each other where they sat side by side on the velvet seat, but their romantic mood was interrupted.
"You may rely on me, ma'am." Strax beamed proudly across the carriage at his mistress, placing a hand on his heart.
The smile slid off Vastra's face as she looked at Strax in surprise before she answered very pointedly, "I was, in fact, speaking to Jenny."
Strax's own smile vanished and he repeated, "Jenny."
Vastra raised a brow while Jenny smiled politely and nodded; only to have her own smile removed as well when Strax barked sternly.
He sat back as though that set"If this weak and fleshy boy is to represent us," Jenny almost rose in protest but Vastra's hand stopped her, "I strongly recommend the issuing of scissor grenades, limbo vapour and triple blast brain splitters."
Vastra allowed Strax to finish triumphantly before she asked, blinking in her confusion, "What for?"
Strax stared at his mistress before he answered as though it were obvious, "Just generally. Remember: we are going to the north."
He leaned back as though that settled the matter while Vastra and Jenny exchanged looks before wisely deciding that some things were just better off left alone.
They left Jenny outside the meeting hall where Mrs. Gillyflower was recruiting people for her 'Sweetville'. After Jenny disappeared into the hall where she would sign up as one of the volunteers willing to move to Sweetville, Vastra whispered from under her veil.
"If our stratagem succeeds, Jenny will infiltrate deep into the black heart of this curious place."
"And how will she locate the Doctor?" Strax questioned, frowning slightly in thought.
"To find him, she needs only ignore all keep-out signs, go through every locked door, and run towards any form of danger that presents itself." Vastra answered firmly.
"Business as usual, then." Strax nodded and Vastra smiled.
"Business as usual." She agreed when a voice piped up from beside her.
"This is all very well and good, Madame Vastra, but I have just one question - why am I still here?"
Vastra turned to the very put out brunette beside her. Terry, now dressed in full Victorian attire, had sulked throughout the entire ride from London, disappointed at being kept back from going to save the Doctor but Vastra had an airtight argument to keep Terry at bay. Not that it made Terry any happier about ceding the argument but Vastra didn't mind. She found the young woman's antics highly adorable and if it weren't for the fact that she was already happily married Vastra would have been tempted to seduce the pretty pout off Terry's face. As it was, the Silurian merely smiled indulgently as she patted Terry's cheek.
"Now, now, we've been through this, Terry, and you heard what I just told Strax. The Doctor would have our heads if you were to end up in any form of danger."
"Will all due respect, ma'am." Terry replied rather dryly. "I'm quite certain the Doctor's dragged me into far more trouble and danger than you and I are ever likely to concoct."
"While that may be so, he is unlikely to see it like that and I would much rather keep Jenny and Strax from his childish temper as much as possible, if you would please."
Vastra smiled brightly from beneath her veil as she answered and she tucked Terry's arm under her own to firmly lead the Time Lady away from the recruiting hall before Terry could be tempted to sneak in after Jenny. Terry reluctantly allowed the Silurian to lead her away while Strax trailed behind them, looking for all the world like a dutiful butler.
"You are quite lucky that I happen to know about this particular adventure, Madame Vastra. Else you wouldn't have been anywhere near as successful in convincing me." Terry told the other female, and Vastra laughed.
"My dear," Vastra replied lightly, her blue eyes glittering like the beads of her dark purple dress. "If I had wanted to truly convince you, I would have succeeded and you would be far less dressed."
A few hours later
Terry walked down the steps of the apartment Vastra had taken out for their stay in the North. Despite the luxury that surrounded her, the Time Lady was far more interested in the fan Vastra had gifted to her and she examined the fine edges of the dainty-looking accessory. Satisfied with the design, Terry flipped the fan expertly open and closed a few times, her tutelage from Queen Elizabeth the Second herself coming in very handy as the Time Lady handled the weighty black fan before tucking it away in her skirts.
Terry stepped out into the parlor, where she paused when she saw Strax holding a wide fan of his own as he flapped it above an unconscious man who lay on the comfortable sofa.
"Who is this?" Terry asked as she walked up and Madame Vastra lifted her gaze from the photograph of the Doctor in an eye she had been examining.
"This is Mr. Thursday." She explained as she gestured at the dark-haired man.
"Ah."
Terry nodded in recognition while Strax explained in an aggravated tone, "It asked for permission to enter and then it fell over. What are we to make of it?"
"Not to worry, Strax." Terry reassured with a smile. "He was merely caught off-guard by your unrivalled looks."
"I suppose I am quite handsome." Strax agreed thoughtfully.
Vastra interrupted the pair as she said absently, still staring at the photograph in her hand, "I imagine Mr. Thursday wants to know what progress we are making. The question is, how did the Doctor's image come to be preserved on a dead man's eye?"
She rose, flapping the photograph before her thoughtfully.
"It's a scientific impossibility."
"Perhaps." Terry agreed lightly, but Vastra wasn't deceived by the Time Lady's casual tone. "Although the evidence clearly suggests otherwise. So, conclusion?"
Vastra turned her thoughtful gaze on Terry as she responded slowly, "Something scientifically made it possible."
Terry grinned while Vastra straightened brusquely.
"And we must discover what that is. I wonder how Jenny is getting on." Vastra gazed off into the distance in her musings but both women turned to Strax as the Sontaran piped up.
"If she hasn't made contact by nightfall, I suggest a massive frontal assault on the factory, madam."
As Vastra and Terry stared at Strax in dumbfounded silence, he paused before adding in the hopes of reassuring them, "Casualties can be kept to perhaps as little as eighty percent."
"Sounds quite promising." Terry said dryly, her sarcasm completely going over Strax's head.
Vastra however held the responsibility of actually taking care of Strax and so she suggested, "I think there may be subtler ways of proceeding, Strax."
Strax's enthusiasm dimmed and Terry swore he was sulking when he answered. "Suit yourself."
"Do you think Jenny will have found the Doctor by nightfall, Terry?" Vastra asked as she looked at her friend.
Terry smiled.
Meanwhile
As a matter of fact, at that very moment, Jenny had indeed found the Doctor. Unhappily, he was in a far worse state than she could have imagined. His entire skin was dyed a dull red and it appeared to have become hardened rubber rendering him almost completely immobile. Every shuffled step forward clearly brought him pain and his mouth was almost permanently hanging open at an awkward angle (which explained why he appeared to be screaming in the photographed image she'd seen) that made speaking almost impossible.
Not that it had stopped him as he continued to make moaning noises and attempted to communicate his words to Jenny. Somehow, the brunette woman figured out he wanted to enter a metal cubicle hidden in a side room to the factory where Jenny had witnessed people being dunked into a red goo the same colour as the Doctor's skin.
Now, Jenny stood waiting and on alert in case she needed to hide should any of the guards she'd seen wandering about find them.
She didn't have to wait long as, not a few minutes after the Doctor disappeared into the metal cubicle with his sonic screwdriver, the door was flung open and the usual Doctor bounced out delightedly.
"Ah! Missed me?" The Doctor beamed and Jenny also smiled.
"Doctor!" She greeted far more happily than when she'd happened upon him earlier.
Unfortunately for her, the Doctor was now also a lot more energetic even compared to how he was usually. His long time rendered immobile and mute had clearly made him very excitable as he dashed about while crowing triumphantly and making it almost impossible for Jenny to follow.
"Jenny. Jenny, Jenny, Jenny, Jenny! Just when you think your favourite lock-picking Victorian chambermaid will never turn up. Jenny!"
Jenny gasped as the Doctor suddenly took her into his arms and swung her effortlessly into a deep dip, whereupon he kissed her soundly. And while not exactly passionate, to say it was chaste was perhaps understating it.
In response, the instant he'd righted them again, Jenny - face contorted into a cross frown - slapped him. Hard.
The force of the blow spun the Doctor around on the spot and he worked his jaw against the pain but it only seemed to delight him even more as he sighed, "You have no idea how good that feels."
"Shame on you!" Jenny scolded as he turned back to face her. "I thought you were married!"
"Oh, is my angel with you?"
The Doctor's eyes lit up instantly because he knew Jenny only brought up his wife when Terry was around; none of the Paternoster Gang enjoyed his sulking if the Time Lady was mentioned when she wasn't. Although Jenny noted the traces of concern in his gaze beneath his obvious joy.
"Is she safe? Is she all right? Where is she?"
"Calm down, Doctor." Jenny ordered. "She's with Madame, but you have to explain how you ended up here."
"Right."
The Doctor suddenly remembered what he'd been doing before becoming stiff as a board and silent to boot, until Jenny's rescue.
"Mrs Gillyflower. We've got to stop her. Reunite with my angel. And then there's Clara. Poor Clara. Where's Clara?"
"Clara?" Jenny repeated in confusion, wondering who on Earth Clara was because it couldn't be the young woman who had died on Christmas. But the Doctor had already turned away, clearly meaning to dash off.
"Doctor, wait!"
"Can't." The Doctor answered as he dashed off. "Clara. Got to find, or else Terry will have my head."
"What happened to you?" Jenny yelled after him in exasperation. "How long have you been like that?"
The Doctor came skidding back to her, her sharp tone having been enough to convince him that she had no intention of moving until he explained.
"Days, weeks, don't know." The Doctor shrugged. "Long story. I'll keep it short."
Some days or weeks earlier
The Tardis materialized in a corner of Yorkshire and the Doctor bounded out as he declared delightedly, "Okay, so…"
He trailed off a little as he realized where they were.
"Not London 1893. Yorkshire 1893. Near enough."
"You're making a habit of this, getting us lost." Clara commented dryly as she looked about while the Doctor scolded the Tardis silently behind her.
"And by the way, where'd Terry go? It was so strange how she vanished this time around, I could have sworn she was there a moment before she was suddenly gone."
"You're imagining things. She always disappears, remember? The important thing is she appears again."
The Doctor patted the Tardis and swung an arm around Clara's shoulders.
"And I've gotten much better at not getting lost than I used to. Oooh, I once spent a hell of a long time trying to get a gobby Australian to Heathrow Airport."
"What for?" Clara asked, puzzled, and the Doctor shrugged.
"Search me." He answered blithely.
Clara eyed him.
"Don't think you've managed to distract me, Doctor. I know you changed the subject." Clara narrowed her eyes. "There was something strange about Terry's disappearance this time, wasn't there? That's why you keep avoiding the subject."
The Doctor grimaced, but he was saved from having to answer when a feminine scream rang out across the town. The Doctor and Clara stopped in their tracks instantly and they exchanged looks.
"Brave heart, Clara." The Doctor murmured before the pair hurried in search of the source of the scream.
Present
"We found people gathered around a corpse in the canal and met Edmund. The only man to think something was wrong. He told us about Mrs. Winifred Gillyflower, a prize-winning chemist and mechanical engineer who suddenly decides to open up a match factory in her old home town."
The Doctor spun on his heel and pointed at Jenny.
"And no one who ever went in came back except for corpses that appeared in the canal, dead from unknown causes and with their flesh bright red. The Crimson Horror, the good man at the morgue called it. And in the eyes of all the dead, an image of the last thing they saw, captured like a picture. Impossible, except if the body's chemical composition was massively corrupted. Say, by some kind of venom."
"Venom?" Jenny repeated in confusion and the Doctor nodded frantically.
"Of course, Edmund suspected it was linked to Sweetville so Clara and I made a plan. Well, I made a plan."
At Jenny's skeptical expression, the Doctor amended, "Well, a sort of plan. Well, it was something."
With that, he took off again, leaving Jenny to run after him.