Another Girl Another Planet XIX

Jenny

Jenny Harkness hadn't even returned to the TARDIS for more than ten seconds before she walked into Nerve Centre and was attacked by someone who looked just like her girlfriend, but who limped towards her and launched herself into Jenny's arms. Jenny was taken aback by Oswin basically jumping at her with her cane and her fake leg.

"And you wonder why people think you're in love with her," somebody remarked coolly, Jenny not even having time to take in who else was in the room. Or why anybody was in the room, for that matter – had Jack announced her homecoming and gathered the crew at four in the morning? She hoped not.

"I'm not in love with her, Ni," Oswin said pointedly, letting Jenny go finally. The Shadow had gone, given his Arcadian diamond by Jack, leaving Jack to be the one to drag Austin Cargill's limp body into the room by the elbows as though he were disposing of a corpse. Ashildr lingered at the back of the group, while Clara Ravenwood stayed right at Jenny's shoulder, silent and melancholy. She didn't want to say, but Oswin's hug had made the bullet wound on her arm agitated, and now she was trying not to wince.

In response to Oswin's claim she was not, in fact, in love with Jenny, Nios rolled her eyes, sitting on the sofa. It was an odd collective, she thought; Rory Williams, Martha Jones, Oswin, Adam Mitchell. And, the person she was most grateful to see, her father, Eleven, who looked unsure of whether or not he was allowed to hug her. She ultimately put him out of his misery and wrapped her arms around him for a few seconds, before she asked what was going on and why there was such a conglomeration in the living room.

"What's going on?" Martha asked suspiciously, not knowing who Ashildr was, nor Cargill.

"Isn't that Austin Cargill?" Nios asked, then she asked the Doctor, "Wasn't he in 1893, trying to kill Thomas Edison*?"

"He's a… friend of mine," Jenny lied. It would take too long to explain what Cargill was doing there, really, and they knew she wasn't telling the truth, but nobody really pursued it. She suspected that her father might at some point, though, but they all seemed preoccupied. "Just ignore him. He fell asleep. Why are you all awake?"

"The cat is giving birth," Rory answered. He seemed tired. He had probably been woken up.

"What!?" Jenny exclaimed, and Adam Mitchell pointed out for her an old cardboard box in the corner. When she squinted at it, she could just about make out the ginger fur-ball within that was the heavily pregnant Princess Sparkle Tutu. It made groaning noises, and she flinched. She was sometimes very glad she couldn't get pregnant. Apart from if a facehugger was involved. "Are you all just watching it?"

"Yeah, it's gross," Oswin said, beaming. Jenny didn't say anything, just turned to Clara to speak to her very softly, touching her arm for a moment.

"Maybe you ought to go wait in my room? You might unnerve the cat if you're in here, and you can't go home while the lock is broken," she half-whispered. Clara did not say a word, she was still very out of it after the events of the last few hours of the evening, and probably dreadfully tired. She nodded and assented, drifting away in her quiet, vampiric fashion to leave the room. Jenny watched her go with a rather forlorn look on her face.

"Why is Clara staying?" the Doctor inquired. He was in pyjamas. Presumably he had been disturbed by the chaos of Princess Sparkle Tutu going into labour – it was rather a dramatic occurrence. At least, going by the way the cat was growling, it seemed that way.

"The lock on her front door is broken," Jenny answered.

"…Why?" Oswin asked, "What have you done?"

"I haven't done anything!"

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," Ashildr muttered, and only then was she noticed by the people in the room.

"Who's that?" Eleven asked first, eyeing Ashildr with not unwarranted suspicion. She was a very suspicious-looking character, generally. Jenny sighed, forced to answer.

"This is Ashildr. An ex-girlfriend of Clara's. She's the one who stabbed me the last time I regenerated," Jenny explained briefly. She didn't think that through. She should not have told her father that Ashildr had killed her before, because the fury that rose in his eyes almost scared her – and Jenny was never frightened of the Doctor. "But – it's alright now, dad," she said quickly, stepping between Ashildr and the Doctor, "I told you about it, Cargill framed me for the Polaris Death Charge. Ashildr stabbed me because she thought I was responsible. But now she's going to come with Cargill and I to the Homeworld Alliance in the morning so that I can have my name cleared."

"I am?" Ashildr, who had heard none of this, asked.

"Yes," Jenny said through gritted teeth, "That's alright, isn't it, father?" The Doctor narrowed his eyes and glared at Ashildr.

"If you hurt her again I'll throw you into space," he said definitively.

"That's if Clara doesn't beat you to it," Ashildr remarked, "And what kind of company am I in?"

"Oh," Jenny introduced the others when prompted, "This is Rory, Martha, Nios, Adam Mitchell, my dad – obviously – and Oswin, the smartest girl in the universe. Please don't talk to her."

"Why can't she talk to me?"

"No one wants to talk to you," Nios quipped, and Oswin pretended to be offended.

"What's with the scarf?" Oswin changed the subject, nodding at Jenny and her soft, woollen scarf she had put back on now, along with her fancy new long coat. The broken Porsche and the jukebox were still on Clara's driveway in Hollowmire.

"…Clara knitted it."

"What are those blobs on it?"

"They're bats."

Oswin squinted, "Are they?"

"Yes, shush, it was made with love," Jenny snapped at her, "Leave it alone." Oswin raised her eyebrows.

"Well you're in a mood."

"Yes. I am," was all she said, "I'd go to the Alliance right now, but I'm tired and worried about Clara."

"What's happened to Clara?" Adam Mitchell asked, looking away from the yowling cat for a moment. And then Jenny sighed, and decided she had best just tell them lest Rory overhear certain things later and get the wrong end of the stick. So, as quickly as she could, she explained the bare minimum; the bare minimum being everything that had happened after the Master had shown up at Clara's house, not mentioning at all her business with the Irish mob.

"He called her a monster? That's awful," Martha said.

"Almost makes me feel bad for the woman who stole my wife," Jack grumbled.

"Shut up, Jack," Jenny said coldly, shaking her head, "I'm not in the mood to put up with you if you're going to be pathetic."

"Bloody hell, calm down," Martha told her, "I thought this version of you was supposed to be nice? Or have you regenerated again?"

"No, I have not regenerated, I've just had a bad day," she said. Getting shot, failing to save the alien possessing the form of Kitty Winthrop from being eaten alive by an alligator, then Danny Pink, Old Twelvey and Missy showing up… it was too much to handle. Not to mention her paranoia about Clara's feelings for her cropping up now, as she worried if maybe something between them had been broken in the last few hours. If only she hadn't gone to get that coat… "What have I missed?"

"Shitloads," Oswin answered, "Nios is a lesbian."

"You already texted me and told me that," Jenny said.

"Stop telling everyone I'm a lesbian," Nios said coldly.

"Stop being such a lesbian then," Oswin shrugged, "And I'm basically the god of the Cybermen now."

"Yes, a venture I wholly disapprove of…" Eleven muttered, "I went to a theme park. Also, Clara's father wants to meet you." Jenny was confused, until he specified. "In the Alphaverse. That one. Your… step-grandfather. He's very interested in what sort of a woman I'm related to."

"Great."

"We ended the Manifest crisis, as well, with some help from our old friend Liam Kent," Martha said, "Not that Oswin enjoyed speaking to him much."

"He just said a load of cryptic crap I don't care for," she muttered, though Jenny sensed there was something deeper at work. She wouldn't be surprised if Oswin saw a lot of herself in Liam Kent.

"Cryptic stuff like what?" Jenny asked, not wanting to repeat the word 'crap.' Oswin then made a very big show of clearing her throat to begin this story, though Jenny would rather quit the small-talk and just go find Clara as soon as possible.

"I'll repeat it, shall I? Perhaps my eidetic memory is good for something after all. Kent said, 'How is my creation doing?' when he was locked in his cell, and Martha said locking him away like that was inhumane, then he said, 'Drummond was my greatest failure, you know. I'd love for one of you to ask me what my greatest success is.' Elliott told him to shut up, Martha asked what success, Kent said something about me being Clara's favourite, and he didn't say much else until he sang, 'under the name of Jones,' at us. And I left," Oswin said.

"Hold on, he said what? His greatest success under the name of Jones?" Captain Jack interrupted, a note of desperation and urgency coming through in his voice. Oswin just sat idly by on the sofa now, after relinquishing Jenny from her earlier hug.

"Yeah. Probably just talking about Martha."

"N-no," Jack said, "Esther's his failure. Because she's not properly brought back to life. So… his success… Jones…" and then Jack grabbed his coat from over one of the tall dining chairs where it had been left and dashed out of the room. They all watched him leave.

"He's been acting so odd lately," Martha sighed, glancing at Jenny when she said that.

"Oh, I'm sorry for not wanting to stay in a dead-end relationship," Jenny quipped.

"Time to look at your thumb, I think," Martha countered, getting irritated at Jenny's sullen attitude. Jenny groaned.

"Why do you have to look at it? It's fine." It hurt.

"Is it? I pulled on it quite hard earlier," Ashildr said.

"Yeah – let's not tell my dad that you tried to re-break my thumb, shall we?" Jenny said as Martha went towards the kitchen cabinets to fetch a pair of scissors to cut off these bandages. "Do you have a death wish?" Ashildr was not the Doctor's biggest fan, obviously. She just crossed her arms. Rory and Adam still paid more attention to the cat, Nios merely observed, Oswin waited to make an inappropriate comment at any opportunity. The Doctor was watching Ashildr closely.

"C'mere," Martha said, holding out her hand to take Jenny's. Jenny relented, holding up her hand for Martha, who made a face, "It doesn't half stink."

"Where have you been sticking your fingers now, Jenny?" Oswin asked crudely. Jenny didn't respond.

"I just haven't changed the bandages," she said to Martha.

"That's grim." Then she began to cut through the wrappings carefully, not with as much aggression as Jenny feared she might use. She did not want Martha to find out about her new bullet wound, she'd rather get shot all over again than face Martha's wrath. Martha made things explode with her mind, and couldn't always control it. Understandably, that frightened Jenny. It would frighten anybody.

The thumb was revealed to the open air for the first time in nearly a week, and it was a sorry sight indeed. It was still a little swollen now, and she could feel it throb when she looked at it, the craggy, white scar from where the stitches had been blotched purple on the edges, the skin on the tip of her thumb a bit yellow. It didn't sit right, either; when she relaxed her right hand, her thumb was stuck awkwardly pushed back, and she daren't try and make a fist with it. Just the sight made her flinch.

Oswin nosily peered at it, and then said, "Flek made Mitchell a brace for his bad ankle the other day. If you want, I can use the same principles and material to make you one? Didn't all the ligaments get torn?"

"Yes, they did," Martha said, "Broke the proximal phalange and the metacarpal, dislocated it at the basilar joint. Ligaments destroyed. I told you, until you regenerate your thumb won't move properly again."

"That's nasty, how did you do that?" Ashildr asked, "I wouldn't have touched it if I knew it was that bad."

"I didn't do it, it was done to me, by a very angry Ukrainian," Jenny said, "A long story. Involves mutants and Chernobyl. Don't go to Chernobyl."

"I'll do you a brace," Oswin said.

"Are you not going to put more bandages on it?" Jenny asked Martha.

"No, just make sure you wash it, and the brace is a good idea, you do that," Martha told Oswin, then turned back to Jenny, "Wear it during the day, leave it off when you're asleep. I have a friend who's in physiotherapy, I'll ask them for what exercises you can do to help it heal."

"Brilliant," she muttered, "I have to go to talk to Clara."

"What about Cargill?" Ashildr asked as she made to leave.

"Uh…" she thought, then said to the Doctor, "You know the room Kent was locked up in last week? And where Clara was shut in after she got bitten by a vampire?"

"Yes. It's my ship."

"Show Ashildr where it is," then back to Ashildr herself, "You take Cargill there and you don't let him out of your sight or leave him at all until the morning, otherwise the Shadow will be after you again. I need you as a witness to the Alliance that I'm telling the truth about him scapegoating me or I'll be arrested on sight. You don't leave him until I come to get you. Feel free to knock him back out if he tries to talk, though. Understood?" Then Ashildr made a show of saluting very formally.

"Yes, Major," she said. Jenny cringed at this display.

"Don't salute," she shook her head slightly, and Martha laughed. "What?"

"The Doctor is always telling people off for saluting him." Jenny met Eleven's eyes for a moment.

"Sorry," she said to him, "I can't stay to talk. I have to check if Clara's okay. You understand." And she left promptly, before another word could be spoken to her about anything that had happened that day, not wanting to stay and watch Princess Sparkle Tutu produce her kittens, not even curious about where Jack had run off to post-haste.

Jenny had not seen her bedroom at all for nearly two weeks; that was how long her residency at her girlfriend's had lasted. But now she seemed destined to break that streak, and looked at the sky-blue walls and the soft cream sheets with a sense of mild disdain. Or maybe that was just her bad mood. Her bad mood, however, melted away when she saw Clara sitting down on the floor against the wall, head hidden in her arms. Then Jenny just stood, quite useless. She had never been good at this kind of thing; emotions. She thought, in retrospect, she must get that from her father somewhere along the line. What a pitiful trait to inherit.

"Clara…" was all she managed to say, and Clara looked up. Her eyes were red rings from crying, the black irises almost indistinguishable from her pupils. Jenny didn't know if Clara wanted her there, not really, but she took a risk and a deep breath and went to sit by her side. Clara did not object.

"He called me a monster," Clara stammered. Wordlessly, Jenny put an arm around Clara and pulled her into a tight hug, holding her shoulders while she began to cry again.

"He's gone now," Jenny said softly, "He was just a ghost, that's all."

"But he wasn't just a ghost, was he? He was him. He was Danny."

"Missy could have done anything to him," Jenny said, "The dead should always stay pretty in our memories." She didn't believe her own words, though. She had never thought a lot of Danny Pink, and rejecting Clara now on the basis that she was a vampire didn't seem too farfetched. And she thought Clara might know this, too, but pointing it out wouldn't do either of them any good.

"I feel guilty."

"What could you ever have to feel guilty about?" Jenny was surprised, and spoke with more tenderness than she had ever spoken to anyone with before. Clara sat up enough to look at Jenny, who couldn't stand to see her cry and who wiped her tears away with her unbroken hand.

"Because he asked me to choose."

"You don't have to choose," Jenny assured her.

"That's not what I mean. I mean that I loved him, at the time I never… I didn't think I would ever love anybody else, I thought the void he left when he died would stay there forever, and it wouldn't heal, that it would grow until there was nothing left of me anymore. That I might never recover, it would be like when mum died all over again…"

"And you don't have to pick," Jenny repeated.

"No, you're not… I feel guilty because I said all those things, and I meant them, but it wasn't a choice. I didn't even think about… it's just you. You're everything now. I could never leave you for anyone, or anything, and I feel like it should have been a choice because I said all of those things…" So Ashildr had been right in her prediction of Clara's 'choice.' Jenny didn't say anything, she couldn't, she just stared. To her great surprise, Clara smiled. "Look at you. You're always so oblivious to everything."

"What?"

But Clara did not answer that, she put her head back on Jenny's shoulder and began to say something else about Danny Pink. "He always told me he didn't do weird. A vampire must be too much for him."

"He's shallow," Jenny answered coolly. Clara didn't speak. Jenny sighed. "Are you okay to stay here tonight? You could always go to Sally and Esther's."

"I want to be with you. You won't go, will you? In the night?"

"I'm not going to leave you," she said firmly, "Not if you want me to stay. Ashildr is going to watch Cargill until the morning, then I'll go to the Homeworld Alliance tomorrow to try and clear my name. But I'm tired, and I want to make sure you're going to be alright."

"But if you want to see your father-"

"My father is twelve-hundred years old, he can wait a few hours to speak to me, I'm sure. Besides, he ought to keep an eye on the cat."

"Why?"

"Exposure to the time vortex is what creates Time Lords, especially when they're in the womb. That's what happened to River," Jenny said, "Who knows what Princess Sparkle Tutu is going to produce? Regenerating kittens?"

"I suppose what they say about cats having nine lives is true after all." Jenny laughed for the first time in hours. For the first time since they had left Viola's speakeasy.

"Are you alright?" Jenny practically whispered the question to Clara, still resting her head in the crick of Jenny's neck.

"I'm just sad. But I have you."

"You'll always have me."

"Anyway," and here, in the middle of her sentence, Clara yawned and curled up more, "If you base it purely off of scientific credibility, I'd have to pick you."

"Why's that?"

"You're the best shag I've ever had."

"…Thanks…"

*chapters 914 & 917