Note: Right my dears, I believe this may be my last chapter on this story and I must say the thought of ending it is a rather painful one to me. I am planning on doing a sequel at some point but I'm going to take a break for a while as I need to make a start on my reading for my second year at Uni at some point soon and I still have another fic that I have been meaning to finish for quite a while now. Don't worry, I am going to do a few one shots here and there so that I'm not completely going to disappear from your lives but my presence will be lessened by quite a large amount I'm afraid. To those of you who have stuck with me right from the very start I honestly cannot tell you how much your loyal readership has meant to me and I hope that you have enjoyed reading this fic as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed the inner workings of my mind where Vastra and Jenny are concerned and thank you for all of your amazingly supportive reviews, all of which I have read (numerous times) - each one brings a smile to my face and brightens my day considerably. So I guess all I have left to say is that I hope you enjoy my final chapter and please don't hate me too much for the ending (you'll see what I mean when you get there).

Love always (and I really do mean that!)

Shadow of a Black Rose xxx

~.~.~.~.~.~

"I should probably go an' wake daddy, 'ell 'ave to be gettin' to work before too long." Vastra and Jenny had finally retired to bed at around two o'clock that morning but still they had not properly slept. For the three hours that they had been curled up in their bed the two women had been alternating between whispered conversations, short naps and soft petting and it wasn't until Jenny had heard the clock in the hallway downstairs striking five that she had even given her father, who was still looking after the baby, a second thought.

"Work? Jenny it is still pitch black outside." Jenny laughed as she tucked herself tighter into Vastra's body and the girl propped herself up on one elbow so that she was looking down at the Silurian. As she surveyed the half dozing form of her fiancé so close by her side Jenny shook her head and she leaned down to press a kiss to the smooth scales covering the woman's forehead. Sometimes she forgot how different the two of them really were. Vastra had never lived a single day of hardship in her entire life. The woman had practically been royalty among her tribe back in her own time period and from the second that the Doctor had found her in Victorian London the time lord had assured that Vastra was given the best situation possible to live in. Jenny, on the other hand, had not been quite so lucky and (although it didn't happen often) sometimes she was struck by just how clueless Vastra was when it came to the life she had once led.

"You're so bleedin' upper class aint you."

"And what exactly is so wrong about that, hm? I have given you a better life, have I not?" Nodding slowly Jenny tried to sit up but the hold that Vastra had around her waist was too strong and the Silurian only tightened her grip as she felt her darling girl attempting to move away.

"Vastra come on! I know you don't get 'ow important it is for 'im to be there on time but we really 'ave to let 'im go. Besides, I miss Aria. Don't you?" It was strange to Vastra how much she did actually miss the child but she wasn't quite sure that she was ready to voice those feelings just yet. She had never thought that she would be the mothering type. It had never even occurred to her how quickly she could grow to love something so small and dependant. It was not usually a common trait of Silurian warrior women to breed due to the dangerous nature of their role in society but since the first time that Vastra had held her beautiful little daughter in her arms she had begun to feel sorry for all of those women she had known who had and never would be mothers. From that very first time the Silurian had held Aria she had fallen in love with the child completely, a love she knew would never go away.

"Do not ever think that I do not miss her when she is not with us," the Silurian murmured, still holding Jenny tightly in her arms and peppering soft kisses down the side of the girl's neck, "and do not ever think that I do not wish that she could always be with us, every second of every day. But sometimes we must remember that we need time for ourselves as well." With one last kiss pressed to the girl's lips Vastra uncoiled her arms from around Jenny's waist and the girl sat up. Swinging her legs out of the bed Jenny got up and dressed as quickly as she possibly could. She didn't bother with her hair, it would make no difference to her father anyway.

"Which room did you tell daddy 'e could stay in?"

"I offered the guest room to the right of the nursery but I believe he decided to stay in the nursery itself. He worried that he would not hear Aria if she woke in the night and was not close enough." Jenny laughed a little. Her father always had been a worrier. She remembered once when she was very small, before she started working, she had asked her father if he would take her to see the docks where he worked. A boy who lived next door had been bragging about how his father took him to see his work at least once a week and every time the boy would come back with all sorts of bits and bobs that he found lying around on the floor. Jenny's father, however, had downright refused to allow Jenny anywhere near the place.

"My job aint no joke lass," he had said, " an' them docks aint no place for a sweet thing like you, you could get seriously 'urt there." Although Jenny had known that the likeliness of anything actually happening to her while her father was there to protect her was very slim her father had still refused. No matter how much she had begged and pleaded and tried to reason with him the answer remained the same. John Flint simply wasn't the type to take risks, particularly where his daughter was concerned - apparently the same went for his granddaughter.

"I'll be right back, shall I bring breakfast with me?"

"That would be lovely, my dear."

Jenny swept from the room, noticing as she left that it had almost been a quarter of an hour since she had said that she should wake her father and, knowing that he would be late if she didn't hurry, she immediately turned and hurried towards the door to the nursery. She knocked once on the dark wood but there was no reply, in fact, there was no sound of movement from inside the room at all. Perhaps her father and daughter were still sound asleep. Jenny knew that her father was a deep sleeper at the best of times, and if Aria had kept him up for much of the night then there was no telling if the man would hear her knock at all. Unfazed by the silence the girl knocked again a little harder. Still there was no response. Jenny didn't really know what to do. If she had been waking her father while still living in the family home she would simply have entered but since she had left she no longer felt close enough to her father to do something so bold. On the other hand, it was her home that they were in and it was her own daughter's nursery that she wished to entre, surely no one could fault her for allowing herself access.

"Daddy?" The girl opened the door slightly but she didn't step in. She could see the light of the fire in the grate as it fought desperately to hold onto life in the early hours of the morning but with the glow beginning to dim Jenny had trouble seeing anything else. Hesitantly she tip toed into the room and knelt down by the side of the fire. She threw another piece of wood in to fuel her only source of light and with a poker gently prodded at it until the flames began to lick up again and the light in the room increased. "Daddy, you need to..."

As Jenny turned to face the crib and the armchair that she had assumed her father would be slumbering in she immediately realised that everything was not as it should have been. There was no one in the chair. Her father was nowhere to be seen. Where was he if he wasn't there? For a second Jenny wondered if he may have left for work already but she was sure that he wouldn't go without at least telling herself or Vastra, and if he had already gone then who had been looking after Aria. Jenny's heart stopped in her chest as the thought entered her mind. Immediately she rushed over to her daughter's crib and peered over the side.

"Aria?" Jenny's voice got caught in the back of her throat and she froze, staring down into the crib. The baby wasn't there. A thousand thoughts and fears seemed to flood the girl's mind all at once and she didn't know what to do. All she could think of was her baby. It was in that moment that panic started to set in. If her father was gone and so was her baby then there was definitely something bad going on. Something or someone had them, Jenny was sure of it.

Jenny turned to leave. She had to tell Vastra. They had to do something. The girl had barely taken three steps, however, when she caught her foot on something hard and heavy and all at once she found herself tumbling to the ground. Jenny's head collided with the hard wooden floor with a smack and , groaning slightly, she closed her eyes as a painful pressure seemed to push against her brain. What the hell had she fallen over? She lay motionless for a few minutes, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes in the hope that it would subdue the pain and as it began to dull slightly Jenny slowly pushed herself up from the floor. Her dark eyes scanned the ground and at first the girl couldn't see a thing. Jenny would have missed it all together had it not been for a very well timed stroke of luck and as the flames in the fire flickered in a very specific way Jenny caught a glint of something in the darkness. Immediately the girl was on her hands and knees and she crawled towards the glinting light. Her delicate little fingers closed around the object and, with a lot of effort she slid whatever it was closer to the fire.

"Vastra!" Her voice broke as she shrieked the Silurian's name and Jenny felt her heart jump into her throat as she surveyed the object by the light of the fire. Surely she was seeing things. Surely the object that had tripped her was not what she had thought it was. The fire grew brighter and bigger as Jenny furiously threw logs onto it in an attempt to clear the shadows. She couldn't accept that what she had found was what it appeared to be. As the flames grew however, she knew she could no longer deny it. On the dark, wooden floorboards of the nursery, laying motionless only a few inches from the spot where Jenny knelt, was a cold, lifeless arm made entirely of metal. "VASTRA!"

Within seconds the sound of hurried footsteps approaching the nursery reached Jenny's ears and the girl simply couldn't suppress her feelings any longer. As Vastra appeared in the doorway, only partially dressed with her dressing gown hanging loosely over her shoulders, her eyes fell on the image of Jenny, hunched over something on the floor, sobbing furiously with tears streaming down her cheeks and her arms wrapped tightly around herself. The Silurian didn't understand what was happening. Where was the girl's father? Where was Aria?

"Jenny?"

"They're gone..." Jenny sobbed. The words were broken and thick with tears and at first Vastra couldn't make out what the girl was trying to say. The woman hurried over to her fiancé's side and knelt down beside her, wrapping her arms around Jenny and immediately burying her face in the girl's neck.

"What is it my love? What is wrong?" All Jenny could do was point. Her words were lost in sobs and, as Vastra extracted her face from her love's neck she allowed her eyes to follow the girl's arm to the object on the floor. The Silurian's arms dropped from around Jenny in her shock and her heart stopped beating momentarily.

"You said they were gone! You said the Doctor blew 'em up! 'ow is this 'ere?! 'ow?!" Vastra was speechless. She could hear Jenny's shrieks and her sobs, she could see the waterfalls of tears gushing from the girl's eyes, but she didn't know what to say. The Cybermen were dead, she had seen their base explode from the TARDIS. There was no explanation as to how there could be a Cyber arm in their daughter's nursery, except...

"No." The Silurian's voice was barely audible but it was enough to get Jenny's attention. The girl turned on her almost immediately and her eyes were darker than Vastra had ever seen them before. Jenny was scared, terrified even, and Vastra could see the intent to kill in her eyes.

"No?! What the 'ell do you mean, NO?!"

"The Cybermen are dead, my love, I saw them die. But the man..."

"Don't you dare tell me 'e got away!" Jenny's tears were still flowing and she was shaking furiously. "If that man 'as our baby Vastra, so 'elp me god I'll..."

"Jenny, we thought he was harmless. We thought he would be nothing without the help of the Cybermen." Silence fell between them bar the sobs still emanating from the back of Jenny's throat. The girl felt as though her heart was being ripped from her chest over and over again. She felt as though her world was being torn apart at the seams. Her father and baby were gone. Her eyes flicked up to Vastra's face. She was angry at the Silurian, furious in fact, but she couldn't push her away as well. Vastra was all she had at that moment in time and, as much as she wished she could show her how angry she was that she and the time lord had let this happen, Jenny couldn't seem to do anything but throw herself into the arms of the woman she loved.

Vastra thought for a moment that Jenny would kill her as she launched herself towards her. She wouldn't have blamed the girl if she had. It was all Vastra's fault. She had told the Doctor to take her home. She had refused to go running after the deformed man in her haste to return to Jenny and make amends for keeping her locked up like a prisoner. She had let her fear of finding out why the man made her so uncomfortable stand in the way of her sense of logic and, in doing so, it suddenly all became clear. The same sense of dread that the Silurian had felt ever time she had laid eyes on that deformed being was filling her up once more, only now she understood. She had foreseen this happening. She had known all along that he would cause her family harm without really realising that she knew it and yet she had still allowed that creature to escape.

The feeling of Jenny's trembling body in her arms brought Vastra back from the pit of despair and self-loathing that she was dangerously close to losing herself in and she pulled the girl onto her lap, cradling her like a child and stroking her hair to soothe her. The Silurian couldn't lose herself now. Not when their child had been taken. Not when Jenny needed her more than ever before.

"We will find her my love, I promise. We will find them both and..." Vastra's voice trailed off as she caught sight of something in the corner of her eye. Gently she slid Jenny back onto the floor and, kneeling up, she slid a piece of paper from the mantel piece over the fireplace. "Oh god."

"What? What is it?" With her hands shaking Vastra handed the slip of paper over to Jenny and the Silurian felt tears brimming in her own eyes. The girl took the paper and looked at it closely, angling it so that the light hit it just right. It was a drawing of Aria's toy monkey and underneath in surprisingly neat handwriting was a single sentence that chilled Jenny to the bone.

'You took my chance at happiness, now I will take yours.'