The usual warnings: A bit of violence, a bit of swearing, a few drugs and later on maybe a little sex. If they'll live. We'll see.

Chapter 1: A Time To Mourn

His hands shook as he slammed the car door shut. In all probability he shouldn't have driven himself here. However, it didn't matter, he had to get through this even if his legs hardly carried him. Hugh Collins greeted him with a shower of friendly, dutiful words that meant nothing right now. Jack liftet his hand in an attempt to fend off his loyal Constables misplaced enthusiasm. „I just wanna see her." Everything else was of no consequence. The car looked strangely unharmed for its nightly incident with a tree but the screen had shattered and where the wheel should have been was a formless pile of human covered by a sheet. His heart clenched in the Inspectors chest as he noticed the blood that had seeped through it. It was of the exact colour of her lipstick. Suddenly he wasn't sure anymore if he could get through this. His hand clasped at his mouth, searching for some form of comfort. 'Please, please, let it not be true.' He heard himself beg silently to a god he hadn't spoken to in ten years. It had become his mantra in the last hour since he had gotten the cryptic message of Miss Fisher's crash. 'Please let it not be her.' Probably, god heard a lot of this kind of prayers. Jack had never asked her if she even believed in god. Why hadn't he asked her? Now he would have to arrange her service and he had no idea. Jack tried to remind himself of breathing. No, of course not. Her aunt would take care of that supported by Miss Williams. Mr. Butler would be his usual helpful self and make sure he was just drunk enough to get through the funeral. What flowers did she like? He'd never asked that either. What was appropriate to lay on the grave of the woman you'd loved, but never told her? Jacks heart broke at the thought that he'd never have a chance to sit in her aquamarine colored salon again, drink expensive whisky out of her crystal and ask her what flowers she liked. He would buy her roses. Red ones. People may talk whatever they liked. He returned to the present, felt the tears burn in his eyes dimly aware that Collins was still watching him. The bloodstain on the white sheet stared at him accusingly. He needed to see her, needed to understand that it was true. Miss Fisher was dead. A hundred times he had rescued her from insane killers, from poison, daggers and guns and she would go ahead and die in a stupid motor car accident. The irony of this would have amused her. Jack took his hat off and then a deep breath. He needed to lift this sheet, see her with his own eyes. In sudden resolve his clammy fingers gripped the cold fabric. Jack's knees threatened to give out under him. The womans face was white, just like the sheet covering it; the red lipstick still immaculate; the blue eyes open; a big bruise had formed across her brow where a trickle of blood had dried on the pale skin. She looked strange, like from a different star but it was undeniably... Phryne.

Jack awoke with a start, his heart hammering in his chest. The bright moon threw dark shadows over his cold, empty bed. In nights like this one he wished he wouldn't sleep alone. The Inspector dragged old, flat air into his lungs to calm himself. Just another nightmare. The conclusion didn't seem to stop the tears streaming down his cheeks, however. Deflating, he let himself fall back onto his pillow and rubbed a sweaty palm over his wet face. "Real men don't cry." His father had always said. Turned out, he had been wrong. Jack had shed more tears in the last two weeks than he cared to remember. He also had drunk too much as the empty bottle on his night stand, glittering quietly in the moonlight, reminded him. An act his father would have approved of alot more. Neither gave him any comfort. He's had an abundance of nightmares ever since the war and it hadn't seemed strange to him that Phryne Fisher had been part of them since he had met her a bit more than a year ago. Their shared cases had led them into many dangerous adventures, often barely escaping their doom. He had regularly dreamed of not reaching her in time, finding her with a slashed throat, Murdoch Foyle standing over her dead body. Sometimes she'd hurt herself on a poisoned book and he couldn't help her, other times she went limp in Dubois' arms with a bullet hole in her flawless skin. But it had been alright, he had awoken, breathed deeply, reminding himself that dreams were just dreams and brushed it off – till two weeks ago. The day his most passionate wish had come true. It hadn't been her there in the motor car wreckage, just some murder victim that he didn't care as much about as he usually would have. He had still stood there frozen to the spot as Miss Fisher had stepped out. Her words had swept over him without really reaching him. Jack had waited for the relief to come but it hadn't. Instead he had gotten more and more angry. How dare she stand there, lecturing him about his job while he had been barely holding on, already picking the flowers for her funeral? A tiny part of him knew that he was being unfair, that she couldn't know. But it hurt that she didn't even seem to understand how scared he had been, how much he was in shock in the face of losing her forever. Miss Fisher just had babbled on about foul play and northern goddesses and he knew he'd answered her, but he had no idea what he'd said. It didn't matter. Phryne was alive but something inside of him, had died.

That night he had awoken crying for the first time in years. It was as if Miss Fishers faux death had opened the dams in his head and everything had come flooding back. The day he'd found that his best friend had died in the trenches. The funeral of his mother. The day his mentor DI Johnson had lost his job in the force. The look on Rosie's face when she had gotten into the car. The first time he'd buried his knife into the chest of a young German soldier... Every last bitter painful experience was suddenly raw and fresh again. Everything that had taken years to bury beneath his calm exterior was back and he knew it was her doing. During the war he had shut down, built the walls around himself that protected him. Phryne had torn them down stone by stone, exposing him. And yes, he had enjoyed it, feeling the sun on his face again for the first time in, oh so long. But she also had made him vulnerable. The message of her death had shook him to the core, taken his breath away. When he had sat awake that night, sipping an emergency glass of whisky with shaking hands and staring at the half moon hanging in the branches of a tree, he'd understood: He had been fooling himself all along. Somehow, deep down, he'd always believed to be safe as long as he kept his distance, refused to be tempted by her. But a woman like Phryne Fisher didn't wait to be invited. Jack had slammed up his shields as fast as he could manage, had hidden his resolve behind his anger but it was way, way too late. He was in serious trouble.

With a swift gesture Jack whipped his sheets aside. The hot air in his bedroom was suffocating, the silence deafening. He sat down on the edge of his bed and wiped his tired eyes. There was no point in thinking about it any further. Neither would he be able to go back to sleep. He might as well get to the station and try to wrap his head around the Browning-Case. After all Phryne wasn't the only thing able to give him a headache. Victor and Brad Browning commanded probably about a third of the criminal activity in Melbourne. Cocaine, alcohol, murder, blackmail and ladies of the night. You name it, the Browning-Brothers had their dirty fingers in it. No policeman had dared to touch them for years; even Sanderson, the debuty commissioner and Jacks former father in law, had his troubles getting closer to a solution. That was until three days ago when Victor had been found dead in an alleyway a pattern of stab wounds in his chest that would've made every needleworker proud. And somewhere in his gut, DI Robinson knew that he was holding the thread that would let him finally unravel the network of the Browning Empire. He just needed to find the right angle to pull. Furiously the Inspector brushed his teeth, trying to rid himself of the bitter taste of old whisky. Brad Browning would definitely not be any help at this. He was an arrogant, cold fish. His anger about his brothers death, however, had been real. Something was going on, things were slipping out of the ganger bosse's control and with any luck Jack would find a weak spot to finally shut him down. He dried his wet face and buttoned up his shirt. Right now he couldn't be bothered with a shave; not that his beard had really any time to grow yet. Critically Jack inspected himself in the mirror. A pair of red eyes surrounded by deep shadows, glared back at him. He looked like shit. The Inspector wasn't sure if that was Phryne's fault, the whisky's or Victor Browning's but he definitely needed to find some way to deal with all of this soon, preferably before he managed to destruct himself completely. He had seen good policemen go down before in the clutches of alcohol, often after personal tragedy. He wouldn't be one of them that much he promised himself here, in the dark of the night, before he slipped his coat on and pulled the door shut behind himself.

The moon dipped the tiny front yard into silvery light when the Inspector stepped out of the gate onto the rocky cobbles and turned his steps towards the City South Police Station. It was still warm even though autumn had set in. Wind ruffled through colouring leaves. In the distance a cat screeched, probably in fight over a female. Other than that it was silent. Till the shot tore the night in half. Jack collapsed where he had been standing, the pain overwhelming. While his hand clutched at his stomach that seeped warm, sticky redness, he had only one thought: Time to wake up. But he didn't.