AN: I want to give Sam a huge thank you for her constant help with this story, and I'd like to thank Megan too for her words of encouragement on tumblr.
Star-Crossed
At eighteen years old she had seen more blood, death, and agony than she ever could have imagined. War was not as she had been led to believe. But with it she also saw a lot of love. Love in whispers of the dying for wives, children and parents at home. Love for the men still out in the trenches, love for the men that would never come back. And love for her.
She was young and beautiful -though you wouldn't know it caked under layers of sweat and mud and blood that was not her own- and so many men died in her arms; but so many were saved by her hands.
Their gratitude deluded itself into love, and they told her promises that they would take her home with them to America, England, Australia. They would marry her, live happily together, story after story, love after love. She let them kiss her and hold her. She craved the distraction, the press of hot lips against hers soft or desperate; it always drowned away the horrors, just for a moment. And briefly she could forget.
And so she welcomed their affection, their kisses and touches and whispered promises she could barely hear as she clung to their strong bodies and moaned. Many made love to her, kissing her lips and dreaming of a future without war and bloodshed.
She let them; she gave them what they needed, be it her patience, her listening, her warm lips or an invitation into her skirts. They deserved to be comforted, to have these hopes, dreams she could never see coming true. Because they were going straight back out into that endless war and they might not be so lucky as to escape death twice.
And with so many that loved her; there was just one she thought perhaps she loved in return.
She was trying to reach a man, yelling in pain and covered in blood, but gunfire had not ceased and warm arms pulled her down into the mud of a trench, a body covering hers as shots rained out and the man's yells suddenly stopped.
"I could have saved him!" she yelled, struggling to throw the larger man from her body, but he persisted, holding himself firmly over her as he waited.
"You couldn't." He said, "You would only have been killed with him. Stay down." And with the harsh order ringing in her ears he shifted, straddling her stomach as he peered over the trench with his gun and returned fire.
Young Phryne could only watch, as the man leant above her, shooting at the enemy with a fierce determination in his eye; taking his revenge for his fallen trench mate.
He ducked down again as more shots rained toward them. He was breathing hard his gun against the sandbags behind her head, his face close to hers as he crouched for safety, still sitting astride her.
"They'll stop soon, won't they?" Phryne whispered, and her saviour shrugged.
"They might."
"And if they don't?"
He didn't speak. Just straightened up and began to fire once more.
Eventually the shouts and the gunfire stopped. Phryne's ears were ringing, and the man climbed off her, offering her his hand as he pulled her to her feet and lead her back to her ambulance.
Wordlessly she climbed inside, thinking of the poor man she'd heard die in battle. It was strange how holding a man's hand as he succumbed to his wounds felt nothing like lying helpless in the mud as the screaming cries of a man ended with a bullet. Furious in her grief she wiped at her tears, leaving streaks of mud across her cheeks.
"Who was he?" she asked,
"Anthony Rodgers."
"He had a family?"
"A wife. A babe."
Phryne sighed, sitting in the back of her ambulance with this stranger. He pulled a flask, and opened it, passing it to her. She swigged, gagging at the alcohol, but swigged again, feeling the burn down her throat.
"Thank you."
He nodded and accepted his flask back, drinking from it too before putting it away.
"I need to check on my men," He told her, and then to Phryne's surprise he grabbed her check, tilting her head up to look at him with piercing determined eyes.
"You could not have saved him." He told her firmly, "If you need to blame someone for his death, I suggest you blame the men that shot him. Or me, for choosing to save who I could, rather than watch a young nurse die trying to save a doomed man."
Phryne nodded, just barely and the man dropped his hand.
He turned and began to walk away. Phryne shook herself, but a thought struck her.
"Hey!" she called, jumping from the ambulance to her feet.
He turned, looking at her curiously as she wiped her hands on her uniform.
"I'd like to know who I'm blaming."
He looked at her with a frown but then smiled suddenly. It was small and weak but it was a smile, endearingly lopsided and completely captivating.
"I'm Jack." He said,
"Hello, Jack." And with that Phryne turned, climbing back into the driver's seat of her ambulance and moving off, leaving Jack standing behind her, raising his hand in a small wave before returning to his duties.
She didn't see him again, the man that saved her life, until four months later when the tables turned and it was his life in her hands. Blood slipped through her fingers as she worked, red and bitter in the air as she gave him harsh orders. He can't die in her arms, he absolutely cannot. He's a soldier and he needs to fight, fight his own body and she is right their fighting with him.
Somehow she managed it. He survived.
"We're even," she told him idly, as she sat next to his small bed, holding his hand "I've saved your life now too."
"And I thank you."
She squeezed his fingers and stood. "I have to go," she told him resignedly, "I have other patients to tend to."
"Of course."
With a sigh her fingers slipped from his and she walked away.
Returning to her ambulance Phryne spent the rest of the day by the front line. Wounded men streamed into her care one after the other, bleeding and crying, covered in mud. She did her best, bandaged their wounds, drove them to have emergency operations, held their entrails with her fingers, desperately hoping mercy would come and stop their pain.
But the end of her day she was covered in fresh layers of muck too ghastly to bare thinking. At the hospital she walked mindless, ignoring those that suggest she change or bathe. There had been so much death in the day, and she was drawn without question to the life she had saved.
Her hands were covered in dry blood, but she reached for him, feeling for his pulse and sighing in relief as the comforting beating of his lifeblood rushed by her fingertips.
Jack woke with a stir, and jumped at the sight of her. She'd removed her nurse's cap, and her hair was falling from its bun around her mud streaked face.
"Good God, what happened to you?"
"I had patients." She murmured.
"You look like you are a patient. Sit down,"
Phryne sat, then moved her hand over his to hold it instead.
"I'm glad you are well." She murmured, watching his hand as her fingers danced slowly across his skin.
"I am too." Jack told her, "And so grateful to you."
He reached out and gripped her fingers tight in comfort. "You need to rest. Eat, wash; recover."
"Sometimes I wonder if any of us will recover from this war." She whispered, but then she looked up to meet his eye, "But you are right, Jack. I need to sleep. It all starts again tomorrow."
With a smile that didn't begin to reach sincerity she stood again and dropped his grasp, moving to the door of his private room.
"Hey," he called, and she turned with a frown.
"I'd like to know who saved me."
Phryne just smiled tiredly, "I did, Jack." And she left.
The next day saw her visiting him again at the end of her long day, though this time she took the time to wash away the muck and change into clean –or at least unstained- clothes.
He lit up as she stepped into the room, smiling that same lopsided grin from his place in bed. "Hello!" he said as she stepped closer, taking a seat in her chair by the bed.
"Afternoon, Jack. Good day?"
"Utterly boring." Jack admitted, "Though they did give me a wash down." He didn't get such luxuries very often, often wiping his body down with a bucket of freezing water barely cleaner than the mud he stood in.
"Are you saying I missed out on sponging you down?" Phryne pouted, "I'll have to take note of when you're next due."
Jack blushed and Phryne smiled, changing the subject, "If you are bored I could bring you some books. It is likely after all that you will remain here for some time."
"I'd appreciate that."
And so she did, returning the next day not after hours of suffering and prayers, but in the morning. Dressed in clothes that had once been fine but were now faded, patched and well worn from constant use she arrived at the hospital on her day off and made her way directly to Jack's bedside.
In her arms she held books, as many as she could find, and she set them on the side of his bed with a happy smile.
"I didn't have particularly a lot in the way of choices, I'm afraid." She explained, "But I thought these may be to your interests?"
Jack reached for the top of the pile and opened it. It was a book of poetry, and he frowned slightly, reading the words with strong concentration.
"My French isn't what it should be," he admitted, setting the book in his lap.
"Well then," Phryne was quick to say, snatching the book up, "I will have to read for you, and you will learn."
She selected a poem and read it out, the French words falling delightfully from her lips. When she was finished Jack gave her a short and amused round of applause and she bowed in her seat dramatically, smiling.
"Encore," Jack told her,
"Bis," Phryne corrected, "Ou autre." But she smiled and began to read again, though this time she stopped after each line and took a moment to translate as best as she could into English.
Again Jack clapped as she finished, and Phryne smiled, "I believe it is now your turn," she said, passing him the book.
He chose a different poem, and spoke aloud in his passable French; unaware of roughly half of the words he was saying, but able to guess most of the pronunciations correctly. Phryne clapped for him enthusiastically when he was done, then ordered him to go line by line and translate.
Jack struggled, taking it slowly and making mistakes that had Phryne clutching her sides with laughter before she could recover enough to try and prompt him into correcting himself. Jack laughed with her, his embarrassment at his errors hugely overshadowed by the joy he felt hearing her laughter. It had been so very long since he'd heard anyone laugh quite as freely as that, and even longer since he had felt like joining in on it.
Quite by accident Phryne ended up staying by his bed the entire day, leaving only when he became too tired to participate in conversation.
And from then she was drawn to him completely. She visited him each day, reading with him, sharing jokes, bringing him tea when she could and all the while refusing to share with him her name.
"I cannot simply continue to call you Nurse," Jack said one midmorning as she ducked into his room for the beginning of her shift and took about checking on the patient.
"Why not?" she asked, smiling at him as she began changing his dressings,
Jack winced, groaning as the movements caused paint to shoot through him. Brushing off her concerned look Jack pressed on, "Because it's started to become ridiculous. I've known you a week, you saved my life. Damn, I've saved your life. I'd like to have something to call you."
"So find something to call me," she said, grinning at him before she completed her tasks. "You'll have all day to think about it, I'm on the ambulance today."
And she left, leaving Jack glaring petulantly after her.
/
She'd worked over time, a hard and seemingly endless day. Again by its end her white uniform was stained and her skin itching to be scrubbed raw. It felt like she'd never be truly clean again, some days.
A patient she'd brought to the hospital just minutes ago lay dead on his stretcher and a doctor sighed in regret. He was just a boy, probably no older than Phryne herself, and angry tears burned at her eyes.
Frustrated and somewhat nauseated by the stench of blood she found herself a private lavatory with a working sink and washed her hands furiously, until her skin ached and glowed pink with irritation. Next she tore off her cap and apron, discarding them to the floor as she shook with heaving tears. Slumped to the floor she hid from the world, shaking and crying as around her the night brought only more pain and suffering.
By the time she stood it was well into the night and the hospital was dark. Collecting her discarded things Phryne stood, left the lavatory and wandered the halls passing beds of sleeping and fevering men tended to by other nurses that knew the look in her eye all too well, and spoke not a word.
Collecting a lamp from the corner of a ward Phryne continued on, her way lit by the flicking yellow glow. Soon she stepped into the familiar room, like a moth to the flame, and she sat, setting the lamp on a table by his bedside. Wordlessly she watched him, considering the rise and fall of his chest until his eyes snapped suddenly open, meeting hers in the light of the lamp and she swore in surprise, jumping back.
"Why are you awake?" she demanded,
"Why are you in my room in the middle of the night?" he countered,
Phryne deflated, slumping back in her chair, unspeaking. Jack watched her, and then pushed himself up to sit in the small bed.
"Lady with the lamp;" he mused quietly, "Seems I have my very own Florence Nightingale."
She met his gaze and Jack reached out a hand. Phryne took it gratefully and they both squeezed.
"Would you like me to read to you?" Jack asked her softly, "I spent my day practicing,"
Softly Phryne smiled, and Jack reached for the book on the table next to the lamp, opening it to a page and reading softly. He spoke the words in a low voice, and Phryne closed her eyes, letting them wash over her and enchant her like they'd never done before.
When he finished, she sighed, opening her eyes to find him watching her. His eyes were dark and longing, but he held back, turning away when he saw her looking.
"Thank you," she whispered,
"You are welcome. But I believe it is late, and your day has been long. You need rest."
Reluctantly, Phryne agreed. She stood and collected her lamp as Jack replaced the book to the table.
"Goodnight, Jack." She murmured, resisting the urge to reach for him again.
He didn't resist however, or perhaps couldn't, and he took her hand in his before raising it to his lips and surprising even himself as he kissed her.
"Goodnight," he told her in the same low tones he'd read with, "My Nightingale."
The days continued in much the same way over the next few weeks. Phryne spent days, and sometimes nights, shrouded in the acrid smoke of mortar shells and gunfire; bringing hope to the dying and helping those who might be saved. Each day she visited Jack, checking on his recovery; watching him grow stronger.
Sometimes she felt the futility of it all. Making him better just to send him back out there once more.
They discovered similar tastes in music and art. They read together and occasionally sang together when the distant sounds of bombing became unbearable. All too soon the doctors declared Jack was ready to return to the field of war and Phryne realised she did not want to let him go.
She entered his room the night before he was due to be officially discharged as a patient. He was sitting up in his bed, using one of her books to lean against as he wrote by faint lamp-light and didn't look up as she walked quietly in. Phryne caught a glimpse of the top of the letter 'My Dearest Rosie' and promptly looked away, sitting down and noisily scrapping the chair as she shifted it across the floor.
Jack started, quickly tucking away his letter as he realised who was at his bedside.
"Miss Nightingale!" he exclaimed,
Phryne smiled, "Hello Jack, I see my book's continuing to get good use."
He blushed slightly, "I was just writing to my family." He said, "To let them know I'm returning to the front."
Her smile fell and Phryne looked down to her hands. They fidgeted in her lap, pulling at a loose thread in her long casual skirt. After several long moments of silence she looked up, resolutely forcing her anguish down and pushing a smile onto her face.
"I never did give you that sponge bath."
Jack snorted, "No," he said rather gratefully, "You didn't."
"There's still time," she offered impishly, smiling as Jack began to splutter.
"I don't think that will be necessary."
Phryne laughed, but the lightness in her heart fell heavily and quickly as her laughter faded and silence grew once more.
Wordlessly she reached out her hand, and he reached out his, their fingers entwining with practised ease. They stayed like that for the best part of an hour, neither daring to speak when all that filled their minds was that this was likely goodbye. Tomorrow Jack would return to war, and then... nothing, they didn't know.
There were no hopes, no dreams to be had. Their comfort could not be sought. Not with words, not now.
Phryne sniffed, and the tears that had been stinging at her eyes for the last minutes finally fell. Without hesitation Jack squeezed her fingers and pulled her, making her stand and stumble forward until she let herself fall to sit on his bed and into his arms. He held her as she wept, and tears of his own ran over his cheeks and into her hair.
It did not surprise him that as their tears cleared, and minds ached from inactivity Phryne sat up from her place at his shoulder and turn her face toward his. It did not surprise him that she stared at him, into his soul, with her own completely bare in return. Her face was lax and her eyes deep, looking into his before dropping to his mouth, and he swallowed reflexively letting his eyes fall to her lips as well. He watched as they parted slowly, the dry skin sticking until she moistened them with the tip of her pink tongue. And then she was closer and he was closer, and he could feel his heart hammering in his chest.
When her lips were no longer in view his eyes flicked back to hers, and they watched each other before both moving as one, lids closing and mouths meeting.
She whimpered immediately, her hands reaching for his neck, holding him closer, letting the sensations roll through her. All that mattered in the world was this moment. His hands clutching at her small waist, her fingers slipping into his hair, his kisses warm and inviting as she climbed into his lap.
They didn't speak. Not a word.
Her hair came loose, falling freely around her shoulders and he reached for it as his buttons were undone. Phryne stripped him of his layers and he kissed along her jaw to her neck, mouthing at her skin until the silence broke with her moaning his name.
He pulled back then, and Phryne smiled, stroking her fingers along his cheek.
"Jack," she murmured again, "Undress me?"
Jack could only nod, his fingers fumbling until her small hands came to rest over them, steadying them, and slowly he peeled away at her layers too. But the bed was small and her clothing awkward. Phryne had to climb from his lap and stand, dropping her long skirt and stepping from her shoes as he too pushed back the covers and stripped his bottom half from his pyjamas. In his underwear, the front undone to his waist, his arms free from the sleeves as they item hung from him. Jack sat on the edge of the bed, watching her. He couldn't tear his gaze away, so struck by the image of her there before him. She smiled, almost shyly and held out her hand.
"My Nightingale," he murmured, taking her hand and bringing it to his mouth to press it with a kiss. "How pretty your plumage is."
His lips moved to the inside of her wrist, and kissed there too. Then he kissed all along her arm, pulling her in to stand between his legs as he went higher and higher until he reached her neck, and she bent down, turning her head to his. She grasped his fingers against her skin, and pulled them from her neck, leading them to slide down her body, over her girdle, until resting at the garters holding her black stockings.
He unhooked each strap slowly then prompted her to lift a foot to his lap. With great delicacy he rolled each stocking carefully down her thigh and over her knee before sliding it from her leg and placing it to one side. He repeated the same for her other leg, and when she lowered her foot back to the floor, bare-legged, he paused, uncertain.
Phryne looked at him, her hands coming to the ribbons holding her girdle in place, and she pulled them loose until the item could be pulled down her body. Jack swallowed thickly as she bent to step from the girdle, her loose underwear, all she had left on, allowing him a glimpse of her breasts otherwise hidden beneath.
She stood and placed the girdle with her clothes and her stockings in the chair she usually occupied, then turned back to Jack and waited.
"Sit down," he said, moving down the bed, and she sat next to him her hand falling to his knee. Jack swallowed, then surged forward and claimed her lips once more.
He kissed her with an urgency he'd never quite felt before. Perhaps it was the thought that he might not act at all if he didn't act quickly, or perhaps it was the looming goodbye on the periphery of his mind. Jack wasn't sure, but Phryne did not voice a complaint. In fact she met him with equal vigour, her hands clawing slightly at the muscles of his chest and his back, clutching him close as he pushed against her and she fell back to the pillow.
His body was warm and heavy about hers, and she let her thighs part to accommodate him, moaning into his mouth as he held her, and kissed her.
"Jack," she whispered, "Oh Jack,"
His mouth found her neck, and she sighed, her hands running down his back to push his underwear from his hips and as far down as she could reach. Naked, with Phryne's hands on his backside, Jack groaned.
Phryne sighed her response and moved one hand to pull him back for a kiss. "Make love to me, Jack," she murmured, her lips still brushing his with every word.
"Yes," he nodded, his voice hoarse and breathy. He kissed her, "Yes, I will."
Holding himself up over her on the bed Jack reached between their bodies. Phryne's legs parted further and Jack's hand moved to open the gap in the crotch of her combinations. His fingers brushed her thigh and Phryne gasped, watching him as his gaze dropped to the dark curls between her legs. His fingers boldly ran through the hair before lowering and touching wet flesh, swollen with arousal.
He rubbed at her with his fingers, and she keened beneath his touch, a hand of her own coming to grip his arm tight as she pleaded for more.
More than happy to fulfil that request Jacks hand moved from her vulva to grasp at his shaft, and he shifted closer, lining up with her, before pushing forward into her warm wet heat. She cried in satisfaction and he felt his face fall to her shoulder as he groaned. He took a moment to collect himself, so enraptured by the explosion of senses; the touch of her, the smell of her, the mere proximity of her body to his.
She began to squirm beneath him, her hands clutching at his buttocks in frustration. With great effort Jack began to move.
His thrusts were long and slow to start with, but as they continued Phryne's noises became less breathless and more vocal. Great purring hums and moans, calls of his name he smothered with kisses, and like fuel to a flame they urged him on, faster and faster.
His lips traced over her skin, tasting her and drinking her in. She gripped his hair, pushing him downward as her legs wound over his hips, allowing him to change his angle, and his kisses to reach the neckline of her drawers. The fabric would not be pulled to reveal her breasts to him however, and he groaned against her chest before kissing her over the fabric instead.
Sucking her nipple through the linen Jack heard her shout a word he'd never before seen fall from a lady's lips, and shocked, he looked up at her. His movements stilled and she whinged, rolling her hips against his and making him choke on a groan.
"Do you trust me?" she murmured, kissing him softly as she rolled her hips to his again.
Jack could only nod, words lost to him by the hypnotic sensations her body put through his. He saw her smile, felt her hands at his chest pushing him up until he had to shift his legs and sit, their bodies still joined.
Phryne pushed herself up onto her elbows then reached out a hand, "Help me up,"
He did, grasping her hand and pulling her firmly up, his eyes closing on a groan as her legs tightened around his waist, forcing her to sit most intimately in his lap. Her arms twined around his neck and Phryne kissed him until he was pliant against her lips.
"Hold yourself up, darling."
He did so, leaning back on his hands and Phryne's own pulled away from him. With a smile she pulled her arms inside her combination drawers, then pushed them one after the other through the neck line so the top half of the garment fell, hanging under her bust line where a ribbon held it to place.
Breasts bare, she pulled Jack back to her, kissing him softly while manoeuvring her legs to hold herself up so his head could dip down, and reach her breasts.
He kissed her skin, dragged his tongue over the dusky pink and pebbled nipple then sucked it between his teeth, wanting suddenly to mark her. Leave her with the memory of his mouth on her body, his touch on her skin.
Phryne moaned into the night, her lips starting a rolling and glorious rhythm that had them both becoming more and more desperate as the minutes passed. She clung to his neck and back and he clung to her hips, guiding her along, groaning into her bosom, listening to her increasing cries until suddenly her hips gave way to spasms, her muscles fluttering and seizing and she threw her head back with a guttural cry.
With a jolt of his own he yelled into her chest and spilled inside her, the two of them left panting, wrapped into each other's arms as sweat ran down their bodies.
They stayed curled together for a long while, slowly regaining their breaths, their senses. The euphoria of their climaxes began to dwindle and wither as reality crept back into mind. Slowly they settled to lie down, and Jack pulled Phryne close so she lay half over him, half next to him, their legs tangled beneath the sheets he pulled over their bodies.
Sleep threatened them, and they fought back, clinging to these moments, to this last night of opportunity.
"Do you have a lot of family waiting for you in Australia?"Phryne whispered softly, her face cradled over his chest, watching her fingertips as they traced lightly across his ribs.
"Yes."
"Tell me about them?"
Jack frowned into the dark. His lamp had flickered out sometime after their love making; neither had bothered to relight it.
"What do you care for my family?" he asked,
Phryne shrugged, "I don't know. I suppose I want to hear that you'll be loved. When you return."
"I will be."
"Do you promise me?"
"Yes."
She smiled and he reached a hand up to her own on his chest and squeezed her fingers, soothing her. He swallowed, trying not to think to heavily but murmured into the dark.
"Will you be loved?"
"In a way." She paused, sighing out as she considered what to say, "My parents are in England. They were so angry when I left to come here. War is not a place for women, and driving an ambulance, even worse. Though how they expect the men to survive long enough without us I don't know. As for when I return... I believe they will be grateful, and they will boast of my good deeds. And then I'm sure my father will set about trying to display me to society so he can marry me off to a good family and I will no longer be his problem." She wrinkled her nose, "I don't much look forward to it. I may just stay in France, or else travel elsewhere. As long as I do not reflect solely or poorly on him, he does not care."
"I will love you." Jack told her, his voice clear and determined, "For everything, saving my life, my soul. And my family, my- ...I will tell them of the nurse who saved me, and they will love you."
His arm around her body held her a little tighter and she curled closer, dropping a kiss to his chest.
"Thank you," she whispered.
She closed her eyes and sighed, pausing to breathe him in before she spoke again. "I should probably go. It's late, and it would not suit either of us favourably if we're found."
Jack groaned, rolling to his side so he could hold her with both arms, her face tucked into his chest. "Yes," he murmured, though he made no move to let go.
"I wish things were different Jack, I really do."
He swallowed thickly, muttering muffled words against the top of her head, "So do I."
Phryne sighed and tilted her head back, finding his eyes in the darkness. Seeing his face, so close to hers, regret etched across his features, it tore at a piece of her, and her vision began to blur with tears. "Promise me, Jack," she whispered thickly, "Promise me you'll keep yourself safe."
"Of course," he closed his eyes against tears of his own and pressed his forehead to hers, "I promise."
She kissed him, desperately and quickly, and tears ran between them, moving from cheek to cheek as they pressed themselves together.
"And you, Nightingale?" Jack asked her, "You will keep yourself safe and out of harm's way?"
Phryne lay back down and laughed. "Never, Jack." She whispered,
She ended up staying another long hour, managing to talk Jack into pulling his underclothes and sleepwear back on properly, and then staying with him, her own underclothes pulled back over her shoulders like it should be, but otherwise undressed. He held her close and she dared not close her eyes, but listened to his slow breaths, his quietly murmured words; a poem from her book he'd learnt by heart.
Eventually he drifted to sleep, and Phryne peeled herself gently from his grasp. She dressed herself in the dark, and sat in her usual chair to pull her shoes on and tie the laces. As she stood, ready to go and beyond exhausted, she realised she did not want to go. She did not want to leave him, not at all.
Swallowing thickly she rummaged for a match, and relit the lamp by his bed, so as to watch him, for just a little longer. And if she fell asleep in this chair, well at least they were both dressed.
But instead of turning her gaze to face him, the glow of the lamp had Phryne looking to the pen and paper tucked under her book. She picked up the book with a smile and selected a blank sheet of Jack's writing paper, carefully not looking to the letter folded on top of the clean sheets.
Pen in hand she licked her lips and thought carefully.
Darling Jack, she wrote, I know it is likely I will never see you again, and while I regret our parting deeply, and will miss you so terribly, I believe that is best. I will carry these memories we have made together so preciously as I move forward with my life, and I hope you can do the same. Because while I will not tell my family of our tales, I will make sure you are loved, and never, dear Jack, forgotten.
I want you to return home and be loved and happy and free from this war. Keep yourself safe, my darling, and live well.
Your Nightingale
She folded the letter from prying eyes and stood once more, setting it in her chair with the book and his pen. And with a last, long look at the man she'd come to know so well and care for so deeply, Phryne collected the lamp and left. His lady with the lamp no more.
/
She was driving the ambulance the next day, and she spent every minute looking for him amongst the wounded, her heart in her throat with panic that he was not safe. But of course, she did not see him, and when she returned to the hospital to end her shift, she refused to let herself walk back to his now empty room.
"Oh! Phryne!" a voice said as she'd begun to make her leave.
Phryne looked around to see a woman she'd become close and fast friends with. Elizabeth was abrupt and witty, an excellent doctor and a great comfort to Phryne since she'd first arrived in France and the shock of war ran into her with the force of a train.
"Yes?"
"This was left with me, I've been told to pass it on to you." And she held out a book. Phryne's book. The one she had left in Jack's room.
Refusing to be so affected by such a thing, Phryne reached for it, accepting it into her grasp with a nod. "Thank you."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes slightly, watching her young friend carefully, "You're welcome." But Phryne had already walked away, and the words were not heard.
He'd torn a page out. It was the first thing Phryne noticed that night, curled up in her cold bed, book in arm. He'd taken their poem. But he'd left her something else. His words scrawled into front cover of the book, a reply to her letter and she read it a dozen times over.
Dear Nightingale,
I do not believe I never had the pleasure to know your real name; it is a mystery I will ponder for the rest of my life.
To meet such a light during this darkness is not a fortune I expected to have. You have saved me –physically of course, and for that I will remain forever in your debt regardless of our previous meeting- but more importantly, mentally and emotionally. I will return home from this war a shadow of who I was before it, but even that shadow would not have been possible if I'd not met you. You have shown me love is still possible within a world of hate, and I may not know your true name, my Nightingale, but you will be forever in my heart.
Yours, Jack
/ Epilogue /
Jack's letter continued to comfort her through the last hard months of the war. And afterward, when Paris was rejoicing, when her ambulance unit had disbanded and she was alone in France without two centimes to rub together, it was his words that kept her spirit alive and gave her the confidence to model for money; to live without care or worry. The war was over, and Phryne decided she may never be serious about anything again.
After a day spent drinking and modelling for her new friend Pierre, Phryne left his house planning to stumble back to her cold home shared with women who'd no doubt warm her with their alcohol and their wit. But with a little extra money from dear Veronique, her plan quickly changed, and she decided to take a train and shorten her walk through the Parisian winter.
Sitting on the train, Phryne leant her head against the window, watching the world go by when the train came to a stop two stations before hers.
She was mildly surprised to see it so busy, full of men, soldiers, no doubt about to begin their journey back home from the long hard war. Sitting up a bit for a better view, Phryne wondered of their stories. So many of them, she may have even tended to some of them in her ambulance.
It was on that thought that she spotted him.
She gasped, suddenly leaning forward and pressing her face to the glass. Could it really? Was it him? It was, she decided, and without a further thought she stood from her seat and pushed past the woman just boarded to reach the door, jumping from the train to the station as the whistle blew, signalling its imminent departure.
Suddenly lost in a sea of men Phryne looked wildly around. When, with a great leap of her heart, she saw him again, she froze.
Jack. Her Jack. He had survived.
But by the time she could unfreeze, he'd disappeared. The station was swarming with men; all of them boarding the same train on the opposite side of the platform, and with a panic Phryne scanned the crowd. Desperately she pushed through people, looking in all directions, glancing at all faces and moving on the moment she saw it wasn't him.
The men on the station began to thin as they moved onto the train. Frustrated, Phryne felt ready to kick the closest wall in her anger. She had a chance to speak to him again and she had missed it. Her train had long since left, and with the platform now nearly empty, it was clear his was about to leave too.
Dejected, she began to walk along the platform to the station, to find out how long she'd be waiting for her next train. But as she walked, head down to hide the stinging tears she refused to acknowledge, she stumbled, and one of the last men still to board caught her arm.
"Merci." She murmured, and the stranger smiled with a nod and walked passed her.
She watched him as he boarded the train, and the door was closed and locked behind him. Through the windows Phryne saw him walk down the carriage to an empty seat, directly across from a hunched over man reading a letter. The man looked up as the stranger sat, and Phryne gasped.
"Jack!"
Phryne ran the few yards along the platform, moving as close to train as she could and reached out, tapping the glass with her hand as she called his name again. He looked up with a frown, then saw her and simply gaped.
"Jack!"
Jack rushed to stand, and looked wildly for a way to open the window, to reach her, speak to her. His lips were moving and Phryne cursed, unable to hear him.
"Jack," she murmured, placing her hand against the glass. "Oh darling Jack, you can't hear me can you?"
The window could not be opened, and Jack looked out at her, staring with unabashed longing. He placed his hand over her own, flat against the glass and Phryne watched his lips as he spoke, trying to read his words from the movements.
"It's you," he murmured, "Really you,"
She nodded, smiling through the tears running down her face. "You're alive, darling. Oh Jack."
A shrill whistle sounded and Phryne winced.
The train slowly but surely came to life, and as it began to move Phryne pressed her fingers firmly against the window, walking along the platform with it. With her spare hand she wiped away tears.
"I don't want to say goodbye again." She whispered, trying to both watch Jack's desperate face, and keep her eyes directed to where she was walking.
The train began to pick up speed, and Phryne began to run, holding up her skirts as best she could as she struggled to move faster and faster. But the train was too powerful and Phryne could not keep up; her hand slid away from his and fell.
Through the window Jack shook his head, watching her as she tried in vain to catch him. Struggling for breath she gave up and stumbled to a halt. Tears dripped down her face, and resigned, Phryne did all that she could. She pressed a kiss to her fingers and blew it to the wind, simply watching the train as it took her love further and further away.
end