If Jack Robinson had been forced to describe his life, the word "ordinary" would have been an accurate representation. Nothing spectacular. He remembered his mother reading him fairy tales before bed when he was a boy, fanciful stories where the hero always won, but with a moral always weaved into the fable. Perhaps once upon a time in his youth he'd had dreams of glory and success – most children did – but they'd mostly been fantasies that had been tempered with reality. Nice to imagine but unlikely to ever be manifested.
Even as a teenager, courting his bride-to-be, his pragmatist nature knew the future would take hard work. He and Rosie had sat on a bench in her parents' garden, curled up together, and in between the serious conversations let their imaginations wander. They would travel the world, ingratiating themselves into all corners of society, meeting the famous and the infamous, too popular for their own good and seeing even kings and presidents fall at their feet. Jack and Rosie would usually then fall into fits of giggling and the reverie would fade into mist. As well off as Rosie's family was, she was marrying a poor Constable, and they both knew the only glittering galas they would see would be the ones read about in newspapers and magazines. But they were convinced that they had no need of material things as long as they had love and each other. At least, that's what Jack believed.
Reality, in the form of The Great War, had hit them both squarely between the eyes, and neither had come out unscathed. Rosie had needed to escape and Jack let her go because he knew he was no longer the starry-eyed boy she'd fallen in love with. Nor was he interested in climbing the ladder of success within the police force or changing careers to rise in the social stratosphere as she had hoped he would also want. It was guilt hung around his neck like a millstone because he could not be what she'd expected and for so long after she left, the weight of it kept him from moving forward.
Jack stopped believing in fairy tales; if he'd ever given them credence at all. They were lovely stories to tell children, to let them escape the world to whatever fantasies existed in their minds, but the road map to such magical lands had been lost to him years ago. Reality was what he focused on now. It blunted the pain. The world lost its color and had become an infinite variety of gray. He didn't stop living, he just stopped finding the wonder in it all. And with the constant rotation of robbery, murder, vandalism, blackmail, etc., it was difficult to see anything as being miraculous.
So when The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher appeared out of nowhere to upend his "ordinary" life, at first he disbelieved that such a person was of any substance. She couldn't possibly be real. Like the Aurora Australis: a flash of brilliant color to dazzle the eye and make you puzzle as to how the world really works but quickly vanishes and becomes folklore to all and sundry thereafter.
But she didn't vanish. And she proved over and over again that she was pure substance. She was brave, she was headstrong, she was tender, she was sultry, she was light through a prism and Jack was beginning to see color again.
The first few cases together made him wonder if she'd stick to sleuthing. She had a knack for it, though woefully untrained, and her instincts were impressive. As he got to know her he saw that hidden part of her that he suspected she only showed to select individuals that had earned her respect. Little by little his thoughts became consumed by her and if she'd ever think of him as more than just someone who was useful to her as an officer of the law. He wondered if he'd ever be enough to earn her love as well.
He wasn't sure when he'd made the decision to woo her. To play the long game and hope his gamble paid off. He wasn't a gambling man, he was a serious man, and this was the most nerve-wracking thing he'd ever done. The "ordinary" in Jack reared its head at his most vulnerable times. What would she ever see in him? He wasn't wealthy, he had no desire to join the upper echelons of the class system, he wasn't well traveled (although not for lack of desire), and his idea of a good time did not involve jazz clubs, dancing until the wee hours of the morning, flirting with anything that had a pulse, or staying just inside the lines of legality.
And yet, Phryne seemed to see the longing in his soul that yearned for something different, something extraordinary, even if he had no idea how to achieve it. She pushed him to expand his horizons, sometimes unwillingly, often vacillating between experiencing pure adrenaline or pure boredom. In the solitude of his home, when he contemplated his day, he laughed that he'd discovered the actual difference between the two.
When she told everyone she was flying her father back to England in order to reunite him with her mother, Jack's heart stopped for a split second. He had finally made his romantic overture and she had responded. She hadn't laughed him off. He thought they'd have time to pick up where they'd left off and in one announcement all his plans crumbled into dust. A panicked decision to race to the airfield to see her one last time paid off beyond his wildest dreams. A kiss that no fairy tale could have retold, it was so far beyond that. His very soul seemed to expand so that it felt as though his mere body couldn't contain it.
Then she flew away, taking his heart with her, and leaving him watching the small aeroplane until it vanished into the immense blue sky. He prayed for a safe journey. For a joyous reunion. For a rapid return. For a future with this impossible woman.
Six months. His chest felt cavernous and cold without his heart. She had sent small pieces of it back to him in joyful letters and telegrams, but the puzzle was far from complete. Phryne's arrival in England had taken longer than planned due to weather, mechanical difficulties, and a wandering father who she threatened to put on a leash if he so much as thought about disappearing from her view. One letter told of Henry, a floating craps game, a one-armed Romanian named Vlad, and, after his heavy consumption of an alcoholic beverage she couldn't even begin to pronounce much less spell, literally dragging her father back to the plane to make a quick getaway. Jack laughed until he cried although he felt sure Phryne was finding no humor in the situation.
Her letters after that were much more calm, even anxious to see her mother again, and her descriptions of the world from thousands of feet up sparked his imagination. She'd threatened once to take him flying and he'd promptly rejected the offer, but now wondered if he shouldn't see what all the fuss was about. Perhaps witnessing life from the clouds gave one a perspective that couldn't be felt if your feet were forever on terra firma. He'd accused her once of always having her eyes skyward, but maybe he should do the same occasionally?
It wasn't until Constable Collins knocked on his door with a telegram that he snapped out of his reverie. He briefly wondered how long he'd been daydreaming but as his caseload was mercifully light at the moment, he'd allowed himself the luxury of playing mental hooky. His heart rate sped up when he opened the telegram and read the following:
LEAVING ENGLAND TOMORROW STOP HOPEFUL RETURN IN THREE TO FOUR WEEKS STOP WILL SEND MESSAGE CLOSER I GET TO HOME STOP IVE MISSED YOU STOP PHRYNE
"Collins!" he barked.
"Sir?" Hugh poked his head in the door cautiously but noticed his boss was smiling.
"You can tell your wife to alert the masses." He held up the telegram. "Miss Fisher is coming home."
On the day Phryne landed back in Melbourne, the trial of a murdered beat reporter from The Argus kept Jack from joining the others to meet her plane. He'd been called to testify in court and his testimony was on its third day. Unfortunately, the barrage of questions from both the plaintiff and defendant's attorneys was almost never-ending. When court finally adjourned for the day, it was late and Jack was exhausted. The telegram she'd sent the day before was in Jack's suit pocket, and he kept wanting to pull it out and re-read it.
Before he could get to his motorcar and drop off some paperwork at the station before going to St. Kilda, he got word that there had been a break-in at the Observatory and his presence was needed. Swearing under his breath, he slammed the door of the police car a little too forcefully and drove a little too fast to get to the newest scene of the crime.
The area had been dutifully roped off by his men and as he looked at the damage to the building he found one of the astronomers pacing back and forth in front of the doors, anxious to get back inside.
"Pardon me, Inspector, but can you tell me when we'll be able to resume our work?" The bespectacled man could have made coffee nervous.
"I'm sorry, sir, but when we find out the extent of the damage to the building and equipment, we can let everyone back inside. Please be patient." Jack moved to push past him, but was interrupted yet again.
"It – it's just that – we'll be able to see the Southern Lights – the Aurora Australis – from here in Melbourne tonight. It's such a rare thing as normally they can just be seen from Tasmania or New Zealand. We have so many experiments and viewings with the large telescope planned and the Lights will only take place for a short period of time."
Jack's expression softened and he took a deep breath. "I will do what I can to speed things along. I'm sure everyone would like to see such an amazing spectacle."
By now it was after 10:00 pm and the vandal who had caused all the damage had been found at a nearby pub, highly intoxicated and bragging to everyone in earshot that he'd just wanted to wreck the place for the novelty of it all. Frustrated, Jack sent several of his Constables to pick the man up and take him to dry out in the cells until morning when he could be questioned and booked.
He felt it was too late to call on Phryne now; she'd be exhausted from her trip and was probably tucked up in bed, sound asleep and glad to be in her own home. He hoped she was well. He hoped he'd see her tomorrow.
Slowly walking across the lawns of the campus the heavens seemed to shift and suddenly glorious colors swam and rippled across the skies. The emerald green and fire red of the Lights sparkled and haunted; Jack's jaw couldn't help but drop at the phenomenon. He'd lived here his whole life, but had never seen the Lights so bright. Mesmerized, he simply stood and drank in the radiance, a soft smile gracing his face.
He didn't know how long he stood there. Time had no meaning. He felt like a boy again, and he wanted to laugh at the wonder before him. He heard nothing until...
"The Aboriginal people said the Lights were the 'dancing of the gods' and feared them. But I've always thought them to be rather wonderful, myself."
A waft of French perfume filled his nostrils and he lowered his eyes from the glories of the universe to find an even more beautiful sight standing in front of him. Phryne smiled and pointed skyward. "It's a lovely welcome home gift, Jack. You've gone all out."
He gave her a small grin. "What to get the girl that has everything? Flowers were too mundane and I already gave you my Buffalo Bill badge."
"A kiss would have sufficed."
"I'll file that away for next time."
She lit up brighter than the Aurora. "Next time is now."
This time she pulled him close, wrapping her arms around his neck and meeting his lips with her own. The Southern Lights bathed them both in a soft glow as they welcomed each other back from being abruptly parted for so long. When they pulled apart, he kept his arms around her waist, unable and unwilling to let her go.
"I thought you'd be home with a group of people celebrating. How did you know I was here?" said Jack.
"Hugh got a telephone call from someone at the station and they told him what was going on. Your name was brought up as the detective in charge and when the party wound down and you still hadn't arrived, I thought I'd find you myself."
"Well, I did announce my romantic overture here, so I suppose it's fitting this is where our reunion brought us." They both couldn't help but be wistful at the memory.
"I promise, Jack, this time there's no polonium-laced eye drops or homicidal relatives to grab my attention away."
"No, just an amazing astronomical show that I don't mind sharing the stage with." He looked up at the stars again. "It's like something out of a story book."
"Maybe," she murmured, "but our story is better than anything in a fairy tale. Now shall we start the 'happily ever after'? He laughed and then kissed her again like he'd dreamed about for so long.