I'm game

I never lose, I either win, or I learn..

[she-who-reads-fanfiction]

Hands up if you were the child that read thousands of books and as an adult you hit burn out and now only read stories about the same 2 idiots falling in love over and over as you don't have the brain power to get emotionally attached to new characters.

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

That... Would be me 🙋‍♀️

[teethapocalypse]

look at your phone lock screen. that's your reason to keep goin

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

Spot In! You wouldn't even imagine how Spot On this is

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

How I imagine they would have looked. Lance Corporal John "Jack" Robinson and Nurse Fisher. Both going through unimaginable horrors all in the name of freedom.

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

We might as well accept that our track record leaves a bit to be desired...

[mrgaretcarter]

[suigeneris221b]

Because I need to reblog. For reasons.

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

Ditto...

[arlome]

18 for the prompt meme?

Ask and ye shall receive, my dear!

One amnesia fic, coming right up!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22800274/chapters/58865593 

(It got too long to post here, I’m afraid)

[aurora-australis-tumbles]

Read. This.

That is all.

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

If you haven't read this already, make sure to... Soon and preferably somewhere private. It's SO... SO.. Let just say that I needed Kleenex lots of Kleenex. But don't dispair. Arlome truly nailed this ❤️

[jimmyhopper]

they’re h*rny, your honor!

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

HOT!!! HOT in here!!!

[lisbonsteresa]

I JUST - 

you can see, you can see the moment when she realizes what he’s doing. that he’s taking that step. that he’s putting himself on the line in the dorkiest way possible ffs jack your lead in was calling her ‘not a telescope’ bravo you dink. and she still makes a joke because hello have you met Phryne Fisher but the moment before she snarks?! you can see that she’s #shook and she doesn’t know how to respond at first so she falls back on her default with him but then he keeps stepping over the line, and like the line isn’t even there any more, it’s been scuffed away by his big stupid detective shoes and his soft and absolutely besotted eyes and the way his voice went all deep and soft and intimate as he asked ‘would you like me to improve on it?’ and then she lets her honesty, her longing, her pure and unbridled desire for him; for this; for what they could become together settle into her voice and she finally tells him, openly and honestly, that she wants this, god she wants this, ‘more than anything’

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

You...Have a way with words ♥️

[aurora-australis-tumbles]

if you still do the short fic thing, jack/phryne and #17 please!

Sure, Anonymous, though I think we can all agree the “short” part is hilarious at this point. 😂

meeting at a party whilst drunk au

---

Jack knocked on the door, his head pounding in rhythm with his fist. He winced, then quickly schooled his features; whatever was waiting for him behind that door, he needed to be in control when he met it.

“This lavatory's fully occupied!”

Jack cleared his throat and called out loudly in response, ignoring the way his throbbing skull protested the maneuver. “Police! Open up.” He knocked again and this time his head basically just knocked back.

Control, Robinson, he reminded himself firmly, you’re in control.

The door opened to reveal the last person in the world he was expecting.

Her.

Oh. Oh fuck.

The barest hint of recognition graced her lips as she greeted him with a smile and, thankfully, as a stranger.

Though, of course, she’s wasn’t.

***

The party is loud and hot and not at all Jack’s scene except his wife has just told him she is officially setting their divorce in motion so why the hell not come out tonight and get blotto on someone else’s dime.

That the someone else is an old friend from the army who can now afford it helps to ease Jack’s guilt a bit about the last part.

Still… the party is a lot. And Jack has had a lot. A lot. He needs some fresh air, or at least some quiet. He stumbles a bit at the top of the stairs and decides he’s not ready to brave them just yet. Luckily there is an empty room at the end of the hall, cool and quiet, and Jack makes it his sanctuary from the sanatorium.

He is swaying pleasantly on the edge of the tub, drunk but not sick, when there is a knock at the door.

“Occupied!” he yells, louder than he means.

The door opens anyway.

He blinks and stares at one of the most beautiful women he’s ever seen in his life.

“Occupied,” he repeats dumbly.

“Oh! Sorry! I thought you said ‘come in’,” she grins at him, then walks over to the mirror to adjust her makeup.

“Sorry, how does ‘occupied’ sound anything like ‘come in’? And further… more,” he slurs out the word, but tries to cover it smoothly, “why would you want to come in if someone was here?”

“It’s a paaaaaarty,” she reminds him via the mirror. “Anything goes.”

“This is exactly why we have a vice squad,” he grumbles and she laughs.

“Good thing I’m not the police, then.”

He doesn’t disagree.

***

“You must be the Inspector,” she said, just the slightest bit of surprise in her tone. Maybe he should have offered his title last night after all. “Apologies for my urgent call of nature.”

“This is the scene of a crime,” Jack reminded her with all the gravitas he could muster while still wondering if this was some kind of dream.

“Well, lucky for you, I'm wearing gloves.” She offered him her hand. “Miss Phryne Fisher.”

Nope, not a dream then; his subconscious wasn’t creative enough to come up with that name.

Jack took a deep breath, but all that did was give him a heady whiff of her perfume and fling his mind right back into the previous evening. Focus, man, focus! Policework! Detecting! Ask her a question or… something!

“I assume you weren't close to the deceased.”

Oh fabulous.

She let the non-question question slide and answered him anyway.

“Never had the pleasure, but by all accounts he was charming.”

***

She’s at the mirror, still fixing her red, red lips, with her back to him. He’s trying to be a gentleman, he really is, but all he can focus on is the long line of her spine, exposed and accentuated by a deep blue dress with a dip in the back so deep he feels like he’s falling.

That could also be the booze.

He tries to readjust his line of sight into one he can be proud of, but when he looks up he meets her eye in the mirror and she winks at him and that’s that; his ears are burning and it has nothing to do with the whisky.

***

“Do you think it was poison?”

And of course Hugh was already nodding. “Most likely…”

“We are yet to determine the cause of death,” Jack interrupted. For god’s sake, Collins…

He looked back at Phryne.

“Miss Fisher, I appreciate your curiosity for crime.”

“Well, every lady needs a hobby.”

“But please…”

And she’s back under his arm and examining the scene and Jesus Christ did this woman own any clothes that covered her back? She was still speaking though, brilliant insights he’d be lucky to get from any of his constables on a good day, so he forced himself to focus.

“... but the fetal position of the victim outline, although not terribly well executed, indicates a degree of pain rather than the flailing limbs one might associate with a struggle. And then of course there's the fact that death occurred after breakfast according to Mrs Andrews which suggests something ingested?”

***

“Are you drunk?” She’s finishing up her lipstick now, and returning the tube to her purse.

“I’m not not drunk,” he replies, and it’s the truth. He thinks. Grammar is hard.

She laughs and turns around to face him. “What’s your name,” she asks, leaning back on the sink, the dress leaning back even further to spotlight her every curve.

“Jack.” He answers before he means to, but everything is a little slow right now including his natural reticence. Oh well, in for a penny… “What’s yours?”

“Jaaaaaaaaack,” she stretches his name out like taffy as her head falls back and she looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t just give my name out to every handsome man I meet,” she tells the roof of the room and Jack realizes she is just as drunk as he is. Well that’s nice anyway. Equality and all that. She rotates her head around, swiveling it towards him conspiratorially as her hair swings a little in her face. “I’ve heard this is a dangerous town,” she whispers, her red lips inches from his own.

“Have you?” Jack whispers back and she nods. His eyes are on those red lips now, and Jack pulls himself back, physically and metaphorically, before he gives in to the urge to taste them. He is technically still married after all, even if he’s the only one who thinks so. “That’s too bad. Why stay in Melbourne then? Seems like a lot of trouble.”

“Oh, Jack… I like a bit of danger. And I bring my own trouble.” She winks again and he rolls his eyes, which makes the room spin, so that was a mistake. “Besides,” she continues, “I just got here.” She grins at him. “You’re my welcome committee!”

Jack raises a glass in toast, realizing too late that he doesn’t actually have a glass in his hand anymore. “Well welcome to Melbourne, Miss… Trouble.”

“Oh I like that. I might keep that.”

“I expect you will.”

***

“All wild surmise, of course.”

“Of course. Now…”

***

“Now what, Jack?”

“Now… what?”

“What happens next?”

“I don’t follow.” Which could still be the booze but he is beginning to think is just her.

“Well I like you, Jack. And I can tell you like me. So what happens next? Do you want to come dance with me? I promise I won’t step on your toes.” She stretches out an arm in invitation and he grabs her hand out of instinct and impulse and intoxication.

“Rejoining the crowd isn’t really what I had in mind, Miss T.” He doesn’t mean it the way it comes out, but it comes out like a proposition and he knows it immediately. He is opening his mouth to apologize when she raises an eyebrow and grins at him and he is suddenly speechless.

“Is that so, Jack?” She glances around the room. “Not my usual style, but when in Rome….”

“I…” His mouth is dry and his head is spinning and goddamnit he is still holding her hand! In response to his stammering she merely raises her left leg and places her high heel-clad foot beside him on the tub, the slit of her dress falling downward as she does, exposing her shapely leg up to the thigh. Duty and desire both flair up within him and Jack swallows, hard, realizing that if he doesn’t stop things right fucking now he is going to snog this woman senseless in his mate’s upstairs bathroom.

Would that really be so terrible?

Couldn’t he… just this once...

But duty says ‘no’ and desire warns ‘not like this’ because he may be drunk but he is still Jack.

Regret writ large across his face, he musters every ounce of self-discipline he possesses and slips his fingers under her ankle to move her foot back down to the floor, his hand holding her silk covered leg a full five seconds more than is required.

Not that she complains.

She doesn’t say anything, in fact. Just smiles at him, serene and sweet, her eyes full of good humour, compassion and understanding. Understanding for… him. He is frankly startled by how much she seems to understand. Her senses are surely as dulled by the booze as his and yet she is clearly still sharper than most people he knows and Jack suddenly has his second realization in as many minutes: under different circumstances he really would have liked to have known this woman better.

She doesn’t draw out the moment, though, just releases his hand (why was he still holding it??), smoothes down her dress and heads to the door. She pauses when she reaches it, though, and with her hand still on the handle, turns back to address him one last time.

“It was very nice meeting you, Jack.”

“You too, Miss Trouble. I know it goes against your name and your nature, but try to stay out of it?”

“Not a chance,” she assures him with her third drunken wink of the night and he laughs in spite of himself. “Thanks for the welcome, though. And Jack?”

“Mmmm?”

“Next time you corner me in a lavatory, I expect you to make it count.”

And then she is gone, leaving him in quiet, though not in peace.

He really should have gotten her name.

***

“Do you have a card?” she asked, feigning coquettishness, that same humour from last night still in her eyes if one knew where to look. “In case I need to call the police. Because I'm a woman alone. Newly arrived in a dangerous town.”

He swallowed, and reached for his cards. Time to lay down the law, so to speak. “I plan to make this town less dangerous, Miss Fisher.”

“Good. I do like a man with a plan. Detective Inspector Jack Robinson.”

And then she was gone, leaving him in quiet, though not in peace.

He tapped his remaining cards against his hand absently. Beside him Hugh looked confused.

“Huh,” he noted in his very Hugh way. “Your cards only say J. Robinson, don’t they? I wonder how Miss Fisher knew your full name.” He frowned, giving it real thought and Jack knew he should redirect the lad but his brain was too busy desperately processing the last 90 seconds.

“Although,” Hugh continued, “I suppose Mrs Andrews might have told her.” He chuckled. “Funny that she asked for your card if she already has your number.”

Jack’s head was suddenly pounding in a way that had nothing to do with his hangover.

Oh she definitely had his number.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

| Short Fic Ask |

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

Fabulous !!! Gimme more 😍

[bluespacetoucan]

Guess who’s back, back again ! My last MFMM video received a warm welcome, thanks again for that, and many asked for more, so here I am with a brand new crackvid : “The One Where Phryne Fisher Is Ridin’ Dirty”

In this video, you’ll find Phryne Fisher ridin’ dirty, Jack Robinson having trouble focusing, and Hugh Collins being shooketh. There is also one gaudy night, a terrible amount of bad puns, my awful Photoshop skills and too many obscure vine references… Have fun !

(Youtube link for better quality)

[not-a-telescope]

This entire video is hilarious but you had me dead at WHAT ARE THOSE???

[whopooh]

This is FANTASTIC @bluespacetoucan ! I am shoketh! And that “the gaudy night we got” 😂😂😂

I love it so, so much!

[scruggzi]

Jack experiencing a fatal error had me snorting coffee out of my nose 😂

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

Brilliant & Hilarious 😂😂😂

[whopooh]

Thoughts about Miss Fisher and Antony and Cleopatra

I saw Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra from National Theatre on Youtube the other week, and I really want to talk about the parallels between Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and the play – since this is the Shakespeare play that is most referenced of all in the show. Having finally seen the play, I want to explore this a bit!

Antony and Cleopatra is very present in MFMM. In “Ruddy Gore”, when Phryne challenges him to perform, Jack quotes lines about Cleopatra from the play for her and to her: 

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale  Her infinite variety: other women cloy  The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry  Where most she satisfies. 

It’s beautiful and so fitting to Phryne, and to Jack’s view of Phryne, and the way he speaks the last line is amazing (it also stops perfectly before the quote starts talking about “vile” things). Later, in “Murder in the Dark”, Phryne tries to persuade him to dress up as Antony to complement her Cleopatra in the masquerade. Jack replies with another quote from the play, suggesting he would then become “The triple pillar of the world transform’d / Into a strumpet’s fool” – one of the harsh characteristics of Antony being in Cleopatra’s thrall. Phryne dismisses the charges, pointing out that he is rather a single pillar, and has been for rather too long. (Especially poignantly put since he has only been divorced for a few hours at this point, which Phryne doesn’t know.) Finally, when they find the corpse in “Murder à la Mode”, Jack quotes a line from the play after Phryne has shown him the pearl: “He kiss’d, – the last of many doubled kisses, – / This orient pearl”, rather suggestively apostrophing the closeness between them (the pearl is a token of love sent from Antony to Cleopatra) and at the same time making a cunnilingus joke. Phryne smiles and diffuses the tension by pointing out that even Mark Antony probably wouldn’t want to kiss that pearl (which has just been used as a murder weapon).

So, you want me to perform, Miss Fisher?

For a reference, then, this is used unusually consistently.

Why? I would say that it’s used in several ways. Most easily, it’s a way to show the depth of Jack (he is more than “just a copper”, he knows his Shakespeare) as well as of Phryne and her flirting  – which also shows how well-matched they are. It brings out the sensuality of Phryne, and the energy between Phryne and Jack and how it could become much more, by bringing out the likeness to one of literary history’s famous love couples. But most of all, it interests me how the play simultaneously works as a parallel and a contrast to the duo we are watching – and how that says so very much about what the show is doing.

Antony and Cleopatra, National Theatre (Sophie Okonedo and Ralph Fiennes).

The parallels are many. Most strongly resonating is, I think, that both are love stories about adult, mature, accomplished, and independent people, who happen to find a strong passionate love in an age far from the teenages of Romeo and Juliet. They are capable, they have their own lives already before they meet – and then they meet someone they feel passionately about, and that love is depicted as so very tangible and real. Both Cleopatra and Phryne offer sensuality, pleasure, and fun to a person usually ruled by duty. Cleopatra is famed for her beauty, but also for her cleverness and capability (even if Shakespeare downplays that part, I’d say), and Phryne is as beautiful as she is clever. They are not afraid of “what people think” and very alluring to a man of honour who is used to follow the male order of the army and the police, accustomed to carry an “armour”. Antony and Jack are both competent, handsome, and worth to be admired. They are bound by duty, and by promises.

And this is where the contrasts take over from the parallels – because what is made of this are two very different things. Antony and Cleopatra, despite all the love, will end in tragedy, because love overrules duty. Antony will lose everything because he abandons the duty-bound ideal for pleasure and love (and a lot of horniness, to be frank), a chosen path that cannot be allowed in his world. [Note: It is very clear, though, that the characters around him still admire and love him, both his allies and his enemies; they simultaneously seem to feel he has gone astray and admire him for what he was.]

But this is not the case with Jack and Phryne. MFMM is not a tragedy, and the development of the plot shows us (and Jack) that a man can choose sensuality and love without losing his dignity. To go along with Phryne and her shenanigans is not to lose the path of duty, but a way to both complement and enhance it. Where Shakespeare’s play puts the male and the female as a kind of opposites, where the struggle between them threatens to bring the male down, in MFMM it is a mutually beneficial meeting.

“To be or not to be Mark Antony, that is the question.”

It is really notable in MFMM how the “norm” on the male/female division is challenged and proved to be unnecessary. We have all noted how Phryne and Jack have traits that traditionally are seen to belong to both genders, and they are mixed up in a great way. Phryne doesn’t lure Jack away from something, she is not dangerous or allowing lust to override rationality. Rather, with Phryne the creators have taken what could have been that, and completely upended it, filling it with so much humanity, care, and interesting traits. Phryne is utterly female, but she is not female in a way that is opposite, dark, threatening, or alluring like a siren. She may look like Cleopatra, but she is no Cleopatra.

And by this I don’t mean to downplay the power of the character Cleopatra – she is interesting and there are many nuances also in her, of course. But she is still depicted as the downfall of an honourable man – the fact that he follows her is his flaw, taking away his bravery and leadership to instead disastrously follow her lead: “My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings, / And thou shouldst tow me after: o'er my spirit / Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that / Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods / Command me.” 

This is not what Phryne does. She is not here to apologize, but she is also not here to be someone’s flaw or downfall.

In Antony and Cleopatra, the talk about male and female, and the threat of them becoming mixed or swapped, is really overt. More than once, Antony is depicted in female terms and Cleopatra in male, and since the outcome is tragic, this has the potential to be seen as a bad thing [the power of the characters, despite the tragedy, can also say the opposite, that it can be seen as a good thing but in the wrong world, but I’ll use the first line of thought here]. One example is this description of Antony: “he fishes, drinks, and wastes / The lamps of night in revel; is not more man-like / Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy / More womanly than he.”

And this will be my final point here, that this mixture of gendered traits is a parallel with MFMM – but in MFMM this is unanimously depicted as something good. The fact that Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries in this sense isn’t anything like (for example) Antony and Cleopatra is its real strength, and a place where the show feels so incredibly hopeful.

“Come on, Jack, Just one gaudy night,” Phryne says, echoing Cleopatra’s “Come, / Let’s have one other gaudy night” in the play.

Oh, and one more point! In the play, when Antony is going to war, Cleopatra helps buckle him up. In the show, Phryne helps to unbuckle Jack, or at least his tie, at the masquerade. That is such a fun parallel, and we get to see Jack a bit dishevelled – but again, this never compromises him, and when they need to chase a murderer, he is instantly ready to work.

*

PS. I would love to hear your thought about this! Please feel free to both agree and disagree or pick out other parts of the parallel!

*

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

Excellent analysis !

[lorelaigilmoure]

#the yearning!! the heart eyes!! the sexual tension!!

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

URST...

[not-a-telescope]

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

The Phryne equivalent of "hold my beer"

[lorelaigilmoure]

#this scene is *chef’s kiss*

[missingmissfisher]

Must reblog. For science.

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

Always for science

[missfishermoviefans-deactivated]

Roger Lanser on Instagram: “Blue Ray out today. Special Feature you don’t get anywhere else, great commentary from me, Roger Lanser and director Tony Tilse.”

Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears DVD & Blu-Ray 

Available now in Australia

DVD: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/miss-fisher-the-crypt-of-tears-2020-dvd

Blu-Ray: https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/miss-fisher-the-crypt-of-tears-2020-blu-ray

Available now in the UK

DVD: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Miss-Fisher-Crypt-Tears-DVD/dp/B085RTJ4WX

Available June 5 in the US

DVD or Blu-Ray: https://www.acornonline.com/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi?action=DETAIL&ITEM=XD5702&q=Miss%20Fisher%20and%20the%20Crypt%20of%20Tears

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

Brilliant 😃

[purplelephantsarewrong]

phryne + flirting with jack

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

😏

[aurora-australis-tumbles]

Heey can you do 40 (exes) for phrack?

Oh Anonymous... this went in a direction I don’t think either of us expected. 😂Hope you enjoy it anyway and thank you for the prompt!

For the prompt, “exes meeting again after not speaking for years au”

---------------------

There is a space, on the handlebar of Jack’s new bike, that is just wide enough, and just flat enough, to seat a person while it is in motion.

That is her spot.

Together they ride through the uncharted wilds of North Richmond, the jungles of Fitzroy, the shorelines of St. Kilda. And when he is with her, Jack feels like a true adventurer, a pirate of legend, an explorer of old.

(He isn’t sure who is the captain and who is the first mate, but he suspects they are trading roles with every voyage. He is surprisingly comfortable with this.)

She does a good job of holding on without impeding his view, but sometimes, on the really tight corners, he has to lean forward, his face precariously close to her breasts, so he can see where they’re going.

One those days he makes sure to thank Great Uncle Ted in his prayers.

Well, Uncle Ted and the ice cream man who wouldn’t take her IOU.

Jack had stepped in, offered to pay. She’d declined, told him she didn’t require assistance. He’d then suggested her could see her home, if she wanted, and one look at his bike had her accepting that proposal.

Six months later they spend all their spare time together.

They are an odd pair, from the outside. He’s relaxed, scholarly, funny, sweet. She’s skittish, shrewd, sarcastic, restless. He loves school and thinking about the future. She’s brilliant, but not studious, and can’t plan past the next hour. He’s respectful, she’s defiant. He laughs easily, and she doesn't, but when she does… oh when she does it is earned. He’s from a large, loving family who he speaks of often, but doesn’t even know if she has relations other than a cousin she mentions with a kind smile. He is an open book. She’s never even told him her surname.

But they share a wicked sense of humour, care about the same causes, are both explorers at heart.

They see each other.

His mates think her wild, but she’s not. What she really is is unconstrained, and the distinction may be lost on his friends but to Jack it is everything.

She is everything.

He thinks he might love her but he’s both too juvenile and too precocious to commit to the term. He doesn’t even know if he’s her only… friend. But he would gladly be her boyfriend, her proper boyfriend, if she’d let him.

Not that they’re always proper. He doesn’t lose his virginity to her, but he comes awfully close.

He is just working up the nerve to ask her to make it official when she tells him she is going away. She is only 16 but there are many more years of sadness in her eyes as she says it.

“Where?”

“Europe,” she tells him, but doesn’t elaborate.

He feels like he’s been sucker punched by an entire continent.

“Maybe I’ll see you there,” he manages through the hurt. “I’ve been thinking of enlisting.”

They meet one more time after that, and he gives her a gift. Something he’s been holding onto for a while.

“I can’t take this,” she tells him, knowing its value instinctively.

“You must,” he replies. “How else will you get away with it?”

“With what?”

“Everything.”

She laughs, truly laughs, and then she cries and he holds her and kisses her goodbye.

The poets make this part seem much more noble.

“Will you… do you think you’ll write? I’d like it very much if you did.” It is murmured into her hair, but she doesn’t answer. He knows she doesn’t make promises she can’t keep, but in this case...

“Just one then,” he negotiates. “When you arrive. So I know you’re safe and alright.”

“Jack… I’m not.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that so he just holds her tighter, and eventually she leaves.

His handlebars always feel empty after that.

The world has changed, though, and he feels duty bound to change with it.

He enlists, asking his parents to please pass along word if he receives any letters from Europe.

He doesn’t.

---------------------

The years pass, eventful and mundane, and he never hears from her. Assumes he never will. So when he next lays eyes on her, two decades later and at a crime scene no less, it is a shock to all his senses.

He is trying to keep up as she spins her theories like spiderwebs around the room, but in the end he is just caught in them himself.

She plays the whole thing so coy he’s not even sure she knows who he is.

The idea hurts more than he thought it would.

Still, it would be understandable; Jack feels like several lifetimes have passed in the intervening years.

He eventually finds his footing though, manages to evict her from the room and avoid her as much as possible after that. Calls her Miss Fisher to maintain distance and propriety despite the fact that he once had his hand clumsily up her skirt in the middle of the Fitzroy Gardens.

And then the case is over and good thing too because he’s not sure his nerves can handle much more of this.

When she announces her new occupation he actually spits out his champagne.

He goes to see her in her hotel room that evening, not even caring if she remembers him or not.

She answers the door with a smile and welcomes him inside. As he’s removing his hat, she leans back against the door and crosses her arms.

“You know you used to throw pebbles against my window. I don’t know what to do with this knocking on the door nonsense.”

Oh. So she does remember.

He shrugs without turning to face her. “You’re staying on the top floor,” he reminds her. “And my arm is 20 years older.”

She laughs, easily he realizes with a twinge of something he can’t quite name, and asks him to remove his coat and have a seat.

He does, but keeps his coat on; some situations require armor.

She sits across from him and he gives her a nervous smile. “So…” he begins, uncertain how to actually begin.

“It’s been a while,” she says, saving him a little, and he barks out a laugh.

“Yes,” he agrees.

“It’s good to see you,” she says, and he can see she means it.

“It is. I’ve often… I wondered how you were. I’m glad you’re…” He huffs out a sigh, annoyed at his own tied tongue. He feels seventeen again and not in a good way. “You seem well,” he finally settles on.

“I am. As do you. A Senior Detective Inspector. Impressive.”

“Uh, yes. Yes. Thank you.”

“And useful.” She gives him a gleeful grin, and that look hasn’t changed since they were teenagers. “Looks like we’ll be working together.”

“Yes, about that.” Beguiling smile or not, this is his opening and he has something to say. “Have you thought this through, Phryne?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you don’t have the best track recording for sticking with things.”

“Excuse me?” She seems piqued and he rushes to continue.

“You’re… don’t get me wrong, I know it seems fun. And you always did like a lark. But crime — victims of crimes — they’re not just a distraction.”

She fixes him with a serious look. “And I would never treat them as such.”

“Oh come off it. You’re flighty. Which is fine. Charming even. But this line of work… this isn’t another book you’ll never finish or scarf you’ll never complete. I know you and — ”

“You do not.”

Now it is his turn to be affronted. “Excuse me?”

“You barely knew me at sixteen. You do not know me now. And I’ve really outgrown lectures from men on who I am and who I am not.”

She stands up and walks over to the door, opening it and making it clear he is no longer welcome in her residence. He nods and puts his hat back on. As he passes her he gives her one more long look and that’s when he really sees it. The change in her. The skittishness is gone, replaced with pure resolve.

He leaves, assuming, once more, he’s unlikely to see her again.

And then he gets a call from an irate local sergeant.

He tells himself her involvement is not the reason for his, and for a while he even believes it. He certainly has no plans to use her, except this kid is being so recalcitrant and has obviously been through the ringer and he remembers this one time back in Collingwood, when they came across a lost little boy and Phryne had been so gentle with him. She’d known exactly what to say to calm him and he figures what the hell, maybe she’s still got the magic touch.

What she actually has is a car she uses to kidnap the victim's daughter and one of his suspects.

But when he goes to welfare, and speaks on her behalf, it is with the memories of both that lost little boy and Jane’s smiling face in Phryne’s kitchen.

He gives up on avoiding her. It isn’t worth the effort or bromo-seltzer.

Her intervening years are revealed to him in bits and pieces, and he responds in kind. An ambulance driver and a digger. A pilot and a picketer. Still single and still a marriage.

When he sees her portrait, the first thing he comments on is her hair.

“You still had it long then.” He’d always liked it long.

“Mmmm. Sometimes I miss it.”

He looks up at her and offers a small smile. “Well, for what it’s worth, I think this suits you now.”

When he finds out about her sister, he’s devastated. So many puzzle pieces fall into place, so many odd moments from their time together then that make sense now.

He wishes she’d told him, of course, but he understands why she didn’t. All he can do is be here for her now.

And when she reaches for his hand at the grave, he is.

All in all, he is genuinely enjoying their time together. Thinks she is too. It gets a little more complicated after his divorce, but it’s mostly just innocent flirting. He remembers that from the early days of their first acquaintance and relishs it just as much this time around.

Until she goes too far. Withholds evidence, shields a murderer, lies to him. He’s had it and he tells her as much.

He semi-apologizes, admits he’s giving her up. Hopes she doesn’t cry.

She doesn’t.

“You’re not sorry, you’re a coward,” she accuses.

The words sting and he lashes out in kind. “Why, because I don’t let you get away with everything anymore?”

She glares at him. “I don’t need your protection, Jack. I’m not a child!”

“Well you could have fooled me. This is suddenly feeling very familiar.”

“Stop it. This isn’t the same at all.”

“Of course not; this time I’m the one leaving.”

“And ask yourself just why that is. This isn’t about a stocking or a car crash. You look at me and you see all the possibilities of your youth and you’re angry because you just had to confront losing them for a second time.”

It’s an astute observation, but not quite accurate. Doesn’t account for what he actually cares about losing. Doesn’t account for her.

“And what do you see, Miss Fisher? A safety net? Something to be taken for granted, a distraction until the next adventure without even a letter to let me know you’re alive.”

“Fuck off,” she spits out.

“Gladly.” He turns to leave, and she shouts at his still turned back.

“I never promised I’d write.” He pauses in the parlour doorway, but doesn’t turn around.

“You never promised anything, Phryne. That would have been too much like something real.”

He leaves, for the first time hoping he won’t see her again.

The case at the college is excruciating. They get through it, but it's a close thing, and the irony of it ending with them both on a bike is not lost on him.

But he finds he does not wish to never see her again after all.

They share an alcohol-fueled accord after it is over, negotiate the new terms of their fractured partnership.

She makes the suggestion after the third glass.

He agrees after the fourth.

He meets her on the airfield the next morning, and is ungenerously pleased to see she is just as hungover as him. They share some of Mr. Butler’s tonic in companionable silence and wait until they are both fighting fit.

And then they fly.

It is an experience unlike any Jack has had before. He finds he rather agrees with Mr. Hugo as they dip and swoop in the air; he feels the thread of the infinite and he loves it.

Eventually they land and Phryne grins. “So how did you like my handlebars, Jack?”

“I liked them very much, Miss Fisher. Very much indeed.”

He walks her back to her car, and she turns to face him. Takes a deep breath. “I did write,” she confesses and he is literally stunned silent at the revelation. “Heaps of letters. I just couldn’t bear to send them. You said you were enlisting and… I was afraid they’d be returned. And I found the thought unbearable. I decided it was better to live in hope.” She reaches into her pocket and hands him a small wrapped item.

A beaten up sheriff's badge.

He never thought he’d see that again either.

“It was real, Jack. It was. But so is this. It’s different and it’s new but it’s real. And we’re missing it.”

He looks at her. Really looks at her. Not the distant, foggy memory of his first maybe love, but the living, breathing, remarkable woman in front of him.

What memory could compare to that?

He returns the badge to its rightful owner and asks her a question.

“Miss Fisher… may I buy you an ice cream at the foreshore?”

“No,” she tells him for the second time in their acquaintance. He nods. Accepts her answer this time as he had the first. “But I’ll buy you one.”

He smiles and it feels lovely and odd in the sun. “It’s a date.”

It is.

The first of many.

So much has changed in 20 years. They have changed. But they get to know each other again, anew, and find that much has not.

They still share a wicked sense of humour and care deeply about justice.

They still see each other.

Jack’s virginity hasn’t been an issue in a long, long time, but eventually what he does give her is his heart, and when he does he knows she will protect it. (She still has the badge after all.)

And now he knows he loves her.

There is a space, on the corner of Jack’s desk, that is just wide enough, and just low enough, to seat a person while he is working.

That is her spot.

It always has been.

| Short Fic Ask |

[slowlybutenthusiastically]

Absolutely amazing!