Author's note: This is the end of this fic. It obviously isn't the end for Phryne and Jack. Whether the show survives or not (do what you can on that, people), there are other authors, stories, and adventures for them. And even if, heaven forbid, this community goes quiet, we will take a piece of Jack and Phryne with us when we leave. It has been a pleasure to share my piece with you.

This fic started from an article I read. Apparently isolated people have a higher death rate, not from choking on frozen dinners, but from the emotional burden of aloneness. I'd been marathoning MFMM, and I thought, Jack would understand that. But Jack, for better or worse, doesn't exist. His ending is safely beyond the grasp of the real world. So I wrote him, and Phryne, a happy one. And I've arrived at that ending only to discover it's more of a happy beginning. Thanks for taking that journey with me. Enjoy.

Chapter 13

Phryne made sure Jack had fallen asleep before she quietly slipped out of the parlor. DI Taylor was finishing up his notes in the dining room when she rejoined him.

"If there's nothing else, DI Taylor, Jack seems to be a light sleeper, so..." Phryne stopped just short of telling the man to leave.

DI Taylor pulled his face into a frown and gathered his papers, but it did nothing to disguise his obvious cheerfulness. No one could have missed Jack's slightly-too-tender smiles for Phryne, though his father willfully ignored them, but she wasn't sure why DI Taylor looked like a cat who'd caught a canary. She glowered at him, but he was apparently as impervious to Phryne's scowl as he had been to Jack's.

"Don't you have a killer to interview?" Phryne asked, with dangerous patience.

"Culver's not up to talking, at present," Taylor replied. His toothy grin was decidedly sinister.

"Resisted arrest, did he?" Phryne asked savagely.

"Something like that," Taylor replied. The men of City South had rushed into the abattoir to rescue their chief inspector, guns and batons at the ready, only to find the suspect already subdued and Jack barely conscious. The blow to their prides aside, no one was unaffected by Jack's injuries. They had lined up, an impromptu honor guard, as the stretcher had borne him out, their faces showing the fury and hurt Phryne felt. She imagined it had been a painful ride to the gaol for the criminal. She smiled viciously.

Phryne accompanied Taylor back to the hall, but she was already thinking about Jack, asleep in the next room. He hadn't eaten much, and was all this sleeping normal?

"Erhm," Will cleared his throat. Phryne realized she'd completely missed whatever he'd said.

"I'm sorry, inspector, what was that?" she asked, fidgeting. Mac would be by later, to change Jack's bandages, but Phryne decided she'd better telephone for a quick consultation.

"It's Will, please, Miss Fisher," he said, pausing again. Phryne tried another frown on the man.

"My wife died while we were away at war," DI Taylor said bluntly. Phryne blinked, her expression softening. "Jack did right by me, gave me somewhere to stay, even though he was having nearly as hard a time of it. And that woman..."

Phryne didn't have to ask who that woman was. She knew Jack's relationship with his ex-wife had dissolved when he'd returned to her a stranger with a deceptively familiar face.

"I know I overstepped," DI Taylor finally said. "But this time, I had to do something if I could." It was an explanation for his not-so-subtle manipulation, for using Jack's coat to shock her, but it wasn't an apology. And Phryne forgave him, because he wasn't apologizing. She wouldn't have asked forgiveness for protecting Jack either.

Phryne held her hand out to Will, and he shook it.

"Thank you," Phryne said, more for his loyalty to Jack than for his meddling. Phryne was completely confident she'd have gotten around to figuring out she loved Jack without anyone's intervention. Eventually.

Phryne posted Dot and her mending in a chair by the dining room window, with firm instructions to turn away any further guests before they knocked, and curled up in one of the armchairs across from Jack with a book to stare at blankly. Jack slept peacefully, while Phryne alternately dozed and fretted. Mac had reassured her that Jack was on the mend, but worrying about his health kept Phryne from worrying too much about everything else, all the unanswered questions.

Afternoon sunlight was warming the room when Jack stirred. He made an aborted attempt to stretch, flinched, then opened his eyes and looked around in momentary confusion. When he met her eyes, Phryne smiled reassuringly. Jack returned her smile but didn't settle back again.

"What?" Phryne asked, fear spiking in her stomach. She was on her feet and across the room to him in an instant, putting one hand on his forehead to feel for a return of his fever.

"Ah, no, I'm fine, really," Jack said. "I'm just done with lying around on my back." Phryne could think of half a dozen absolutely inappropriate responses to that statement, but she settled for a sultry smile as she helped Jack extract himself from the pillows and blankets. Jack tsk'd and ignored her expression.

"My parents?" Jack asked, once he'd swung his feet to the floor and sat up.

"I convinced them to step out for an afternoon at the foreshore, although your mother didn't require much convincing," Phryne told Jack. He shook his head ruefully.

"My mother doesn't miss much," he warned Phryne.

"She doesn't remind me of anyone," Phryne teased. Jack shrugged, not exactly disagreeing. Phryne thought he was more like his mother in temperament than Jack would ever admit, despite his superficial resemblance to his father.

Jack was looking at her with narrowed eyes.

"Should I invite you to sit in your own parlor?" he asked. Phryne was still standing awkwardly in the center of the room, having been unable to decide whether she should return to her chair or sit down with Jack on the couch. Phryne flopped herself down next to Jack, silently daring him to comment on her flightiness. He didn't, beyond one of his slow blinks.

The silence seemed very loud to Phryne, as it lengthened. Jack was frowning, lost in his own thoughts.

"Hamlet? Really?" Phryne asked, more to break the silence than to dispute his choice in desperate coded messages.

"I thought it was fairly good," Jack said a little defensively.

"Some of us have better things to do than memorize Shakespeare's entire body of work, you know," Phryne said.

"I'm sure," he replied, tone carefully neutral. Phryne bit her lip.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply…I know you have meaningful things to do," Phryne said contritely. Jack looked at her sideways, one eyebrow creeping up quizzically.

"You're confusing me again," he told her.

"Well if it wasn't so easily done…" she said tartly, before cutting herself off with a wince.

Jack was trying to frown at her, but Phryne could see his roguish half-grin hovering on the corner of his lips. Phryne blew out her breath in a windy sigh, and then laughed at herself. Jack was still Jack, whatever else had changed between them.

"It's a bit late to start treating me like I'm made of glass," Jack said.

"I was afraid you'd been broken," she said softly, finally relaxing enough to scoot closer to him on the couch.

"Not broken," Jack confirmed. He hesitantly put his arm across her shoulders, and Phryne eased her body against his, so their sides were touching. Jack's breath hitched, and Phryne checked his face for pain, but he only smiled a bit uncertainly. Phryne reached across him to take his other hand, wishing she could twine her fingers in his. Later, she thought. Later they would discover what all he could do with his exquisitely long fingers. They sat in a much more companionable silence, watching shadows track across the room.

"No more broken than usual, anyway," Jack said eventually. Phryne hadn't realized he was still thinking about her comment, while she'd been contemplating entirely more pleasant subjects. She wished he hadn't been. When he met her eyes, his were suspiciously moist. Phryne squeezed his hand.

"Thank you," Jack said.

"For what?" Phryne asked, confused.

"For...for finding me," Jack said. With a pang, Phryne remembered the surprise on Jack's face when he'd met first met her eyes from the abattoir floor.

"You didn't think I'd look?" Phryne asked, trying and failing to keep her distress out of her voice. Surely Jack didn't think so little of her?

"I believed that you would look…" Jack began, but he had to stop to swallow. "I knew you would look, it just kept running straight up against everything else I believed. I couldn't believe I'd be found."

Phryne shook her head, not understanding.

"I knew you would look," he bumped her sternum with their joined hands, "but I couldn't believe it would be for me," finished, with a sweeping gesture and grimace at himself.

"That. Is. Ridiculous." Phryne told him, startling a smile out of him. "I love you, Jack Robinson. And as I am unrivaled in sophistication and intellect, you must be too."

"Yes, we all know you have excellent taste in men," Jack said, resignedly. Phryne huffed at him, but he had reminded her of something she wanted to discuss. Actually, she didn't want to discuss it, but she felt they should get out in the open, before it could poison this…whatever it was they were building together. Phryne didn't have a name for it, but it was beautiful and precious, and she wanted to protect it.

"I'm sorry," Phryne began, "For the fight at the crime scene." As much as she hated to apologize, she owed Jack one, for what she'd said and for saying it in front of his colleagues. And worse, those angry words might have been her last to him.

"No, it was just as much my fault, I over-reacted to…" Jack stopped.

"Mr. Butler mentioned you stopped by, when I had a gentleman friend over for dinner," Phryne said as gently as she could.

"It shouldn't matter, I have no right…" Jack began.

"It does matter though," Phryne cut him off, before he could trivialize his own feelings. Whether he had a right to be upset or not, he had been. Needlessly, as it turned out.

"I won't lie to you Jack, I intended for the evening to end exactly the way you believe it did," Phryne began.

"I don't think I want to know," Jack said. Phryne kept talking straight over his protests.

"But it didn't go to plan."

"I really don't want to know," he said a little louder.

"While it's generally considered romantic to whisper a man's name during a seduction, it's most effective when you say the name of the man you are actually in the process of seducing." Phryne felt the hint of a blush heat her cheeks.

Jack's face was perfectly blank. Phryne arched her brows and waited for him to figure out what she was saying.

"You said..." his face morphed into complete incredulity. "Not...my name?" Phryne rolled her eyes and nodded.

Amusement warred with embarrassment in Jack's expression, but both lost to something more like pride as he shot Phryne a slightly self-satisfied smirk. She reddened a little more, but was glad for his reaction. For such an intelligent man, he really did have a few not inconsiderable blind spots, mostly around his own worth. Phryne wondered what or who had convinced him so thoroughly that he mattered so little. She hoped one day Jack would tell her, and also that he hid her pistol and dagger first, as it was likely to make her very angry.

"I love you Jack, of course your name is the first on my lips," Phryne told him, to drive the point home.

They sat quietly, though Phryne could practically hear Jack rearranging his preconceptions. Watching his face surreptitiously, Phryne saw Jack's brows come together with an almost audible click as he developed a question for her.

"Yes, inspector?" she asked, with only a hint of her earlier sass.

"Your face, when you decided not to shoot Robbie, when I told you…" he ran out of words abruptly.

Phryne could see how much even starting to ask that question had cost him. It brought tears to her eyes, to remember Jack curling up around his hurt, slipping away. Phryne had hoped against hope that she hadn't caused his withdrawal, but he'd seen her reaction after all, when he first told her he loved her.

"I was just...I am scared," Phryne said. There was so much more to say about the past, but not today. It would hurt Jack to hear it, and he'd done enough hurting recently. Jack startled her out of her contemplation by kissing her cheek.

"A shockingly rational reaction, I think," Jack said, and Phryne knew it was as close as he could come to admitting he shared some of her fears. She smiled as his breath tickled the hair on her neck. Phryne tilted her head toward Jack, and he rested his cheek against her hair with a quiet exhalation.

"Mmm," Jack said.

"Did you just make your 'favorite biscuit' sound at me?" Phryne asked him, amused by the comparison.

"Mmm," Jack replied. Phryne could feel him smile into her hair.

"What now?" Phryne asked after a while, hoping Jack would have an answer to the question that had kept her up most of the night.

"I don't know," he said.

"What, no plan?"

"I'm experimenting with the technique. Or lack of it," Jack said with mock sternness.

"Flirting with disaster?"

"Certainly with chaos, as often as I possibly can, Miss Fisher," he said. Phryne preened, as if he'd paid her the highest possible compliment.

"I'm flirting with seriousness," Phryne said without even a hint of it in her tone.

"You haven't been serious since 1918," he reminded her and she smiled at the memory. "And I've been nothing but," Jack added very quietly.

"I'm pretty confident I can help with that," Phryne said angelically. She kissed the tip of his nose as evidence. He snorted, then kissed hers in return. Phryne drew back a bit, rubbing her suddenly itchy nose.

"We still haven't solved what we're going to do about this," Phryne said, gesturing to the space between them. Jack tightened the arm that was now hooked around her waist, pulling her close again.

"I can think of a few things to try," Jack said, his voice a low rumble that she felt where their chests touched.

"Be serious," she told him jokingly, even as she tilted her head and offered him the long column of her neck. He obligingly kissed his way up to her face and nibbled her earlobe. Phryne smiled to herself. Jack was a biter after all.

"I thought maybe we could just...do the same things we normally do, only...more of them together," he said almost shyly.

So Jack had a plan after all. That was comforting, really. And it was a simple, reassuringly flexible plan. Phryne had no objections, except...

"There are a few things I insist we do together, and exclusively so," she allowed the huskiness in her voice to leave him no doubt what exactly she was talking about.

"Only a few?" he countered, but his body suddenly relaxed against hers. Phryne realized how truly worried he'd been as the last of his tension drained away. This was perilously close to a commitment, and Phryne generally avoided those at all cost, but if the price for being commitment-free was losing Jack, then the cost was too high. Besides, her policy of safety through emotional solitude no longer seemed nearly as effective or attractive as it once had.

"That should leave us some time for solving this mystery," Jack said, mimicking Phryne's gesture, though there really wasn't any space left between them.

"It is what we do best together," Phryne said, resting her forehead against his.

Jack shrugged noncommittally. Surprised, Phryne leaned back so she could read his expressive eyes. They were twinkling with a delicious mix of love and joy, along with a healthy undercurrent of desire. Phryne's stomach lurched even as an answering happiness flowered in her chest.

"We might discover something we do better together," Jack said, a smile blooming across his face. "After all, we haven't tried everything, yet."