When Did You Know?

Author: Firebird

Rating: T

Note: This was just a little something that popped into my head. I liked the idea that Jack would have had both his own and Phryne's feelings firmly pegged before she had a clue that there was anything more than lust involved.


"Do you know when I first knew I loved you?" Phryne asks one night, in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

Jack gives her a tender look and a gentle kiss. "When?"

"It was the night Murdoch Foyle took Jane. I walked in and saw the details of his crimes pinned up all over the walls at the station. You must have been at it for hours, trying to make sense of it all, and for the first time since Janey was taken I felt like I wasn't alone. Because you believed me."

He remembers that night well enough that he doesn't want to dwell on it. "And when did you realise that I was in love with you?"

She smiles. "When you had Hugh lock me in a jail cell so I couldn't go running off after Foyle."

He's surprised and yet, in a way, he isn't. Trust Phryne to overlook his love in a myriad of more conventional gestures, and yet to find it in being falsely arrested.

She props herself up on her elbow and gazes at him. She still can't entirely believe that this man loves her as much as he seems to. She had never stopped to consider that someone like him might feel so much for someone like her.

"What about you?" she asks. "When did you first realise that you loved me?"

He reaches up and cups her cheek. Again, the memory is not a happy one.

"When Rene Dubois put a gun to your head and his lips against your face." He shakes his head. "I was furious, and I knew it wasn't because he was a criminal threatening a civilian. I hated him the way a man hates someone who threatens the woman he loves."

Even given the way he had kissed her that day in his efforts to shield her from Rene's gaze, she's surprised. How long had they known each other at that point, she wonders? A couple of months perhaps?

"That was the day you first kissed me," she remarks, and he nods. "When did you know that I loved you?" she asks.

Ever pragmatic, he smiles. "When did I know? When you told me, of course."

She smiles back at him. "Alright. When did you suspect?"

He raises himself up on his elbow, so that their faces are once again on the same level. "When you made a point of telling me that Lin Chung would no longer be a guest at your table."

She lowers her gaze. "That was before I knew that I loved you."

He nods. "I know."