"Perdition catch my soul but I do love thee! And when I love thee, chaos is come again." Othello

They arrived at St. Luke's hospital at 8:30 that night to a steady downpour of rain. Despite the pounding rain, Jack simply threw money at the driver and leapt out of the cab with his bag in hand, to run inside. Thankfully Mac was right behind him, thrilled to finally, hopefully, be able to know what was going on and perhaps even be useful to Phryne.

"Dr. Elizabeth MacMillan. I'm here to see my patient, the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher. I spoke earlier with Dr. Henderson I believe."

A well-dressed and jolly looking man with white hair and large, bushy bear like Santa Claus stepped forward to Mac with his hand extended to greet her. "Ahh, Dr. MacMillan, of course! I am Dr. Henderson, we spoke earlier! My, you certainly made good time coming in from Melbourne. I trust your journey was nice?"

"Yes, thank you. Now, I don't mean to be rude, but I will feel much better once I've been allowed to examine my patient and better assess her condition. What have you learned since we spoke earlier?"

"Of course, allow me to fill you in while we walk that way?" As they moved forward Jack caught the attention of the doctor. "And, may I ask who this is?"

"Oh, of course." With everything they spoke about on the train, they had not even begun to consider what his "cover story" so to speak, was going to be."This is Detective Inspector Jack Robinson with the Victoria Police. He is here… at the request of the family. It will be his job to investigate the plane and to ensure that it was no…"

"Not an act of sabotage or tampering, Doctor." Jack stepped in to assist her- who for an acquaintance of Phryne's, was not a particularly adept liar. Of course he wouldn't be permitted to see Phryne based on their ill-defined connection to each other- it was unlikely St. Luke's had a written policy concerning possible visitors who were "madly in love but had an ambiguously defined understanding."

The two doctors were speaking and he wasn't really able to follow what was being said, Henderson and Mac were speaking medical jargon, not a language in which he was particularly fluent. He heard something about "intercostal ribs" and "pneumothorax" and then they spent a few moments on oxygen levels- Jack had no idea if the number they mentioned was good or bad, not much of this made sense to him.

"How did surgery go?" Unable to wait much longer, he burst into the conversation.

"Ah. Well, we actually weren't able to perform surgery quite yet, we…" Jack looked at Mac, confrontingly.

"But you said that surgery was critical, they have to perform surgery to find the internal damage and repair it. Why haven't they done that yet? They have to find it and fix it or…"

"Inspector!" Mac interrupted forcefully.

Henderson interjected there, "Unfortunately, it isn't always quite that simple. Her injuries are… well, she was delayed in arriving to the hospital and in that delay, she lost quite a lot of blood while at the accident site. We need to wait for her blood pressure to pick up enough that its safe to operate. If we had operated when she first got her, she would have bled out with the first incision. We are giving her a transfusion and there are some medicines that increase the ability of heart to pump blood. She has been stable for a few hours now, although is still in critical condition. Nothing has gotten worse and we are almost to the point where we can operate. Inspector, we have given her excellent care, anyone on my staff is available to tell you the same in a formal statement, if necessary."

"What?" Jack was busy trying to process what he had just heard and make sense out of it with his brain that barely passed high school biology. "Oh, yes, I'm sure I'll be in touch as my investigation continues." He trailed off as they arrived outside of her room.

It was a poorly lit room, but obviously the hospital's nicest- it only had one bed and there were curtains on the windows. It seemed that Mrs Stanley actually could pull strings from nearly 500 miles away. Phryne was there on the bed, so small and frail without her high heels or bright red lipstick and perfectly styled hair. She looked small and battered. Jack worried for a moment that he would be sick at the sight of her, but he found a way to stifle it as he entered. She had bruises all around her face, including a black eye and what looked like a broken nose, which according to Mac, suggested she had hit her head on the steering apparatus at some point.

She had blood all over- dried, filthy blood. No one had found the time or felt the need to clean her beyond what was necessary. She was in a horrible, thin cotton beige gown with hideous purple flowers and he knew she would be mortified to be seen in it by anyone, even a doctor saving her life. There were stitches on the side of her face, right at the hairline, running approximately 1 ½ inches down her side, almost to her ear- he reached out to trace them, tenderly, with his hand.

There were bruises and cuts all along her arms, and according to her chart, they were pretty much everywhere else on her. Mac came in beside him and was clearly taken aback by the appearance of her indomitable best friend in such a condition. There were tears in both their eyes as Mac squeezed her hand saying, "God! She would be so pissed to be in that dress!" They smiled wanly at each other and then Mac got to work.

She poked and prodded, she took temperatures, checked the pulse, looked at cuts and bruises and tried to catalog the broken bones. At one point she had to examine some delicate and less accessible, far more infinite areas of Phryne's body and Jack found a way to occupy himself while she did so- if there was ever going to be a time he'd see certain parts of this woman, it most certainly wouldn't be under these conditions. While she was checking over Phryne, Jack was flipping through the preliminary accident report.

"Police called to scene with ambulance brigade #2417 after small bi-plane (one person in plane, aviatrix) had trouble with initial ascent. Upon inspection it appears there was a hairline fracture in tailfin which gave way and fell off- causing plane to lose balance and fly into grouping of trees located approximately 1 km from takeoff point in private yard.

"Small child in yard at the time of crash. Suffered from smoke-inhalation but has been treated in hospital and released.

Woman in plane refused transport by ambulance first responders. Called for ambulance to be given to small child and his mother first, she would follow in subsequent ambulance.

"Aviatrix initially responsive on scene, unconscious by the time the second ambulance arrived. Transferred to St Luke's Hospital.

"**Update: Aviatrix believed to be the Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher, resident of St. Kilda's, Melbourne, Victoria. Based on registration of the plane. Please contact Office of Williams and Sorenson in case of an emergency, please contact solicitor. Solicitor will contact: Dr. Elizabeth MacMillan, Mrs. Prudence Stanley, Detective Inspector Jack Robinson.

"***Update 2: No immediate evidence of criminal activity found in preliminary investigation. Family of private residence will not press charges if financially remunerated through airfield and/or municipality of Adelaide."

Jack was not particularly familiar with planes- he had never been in one and generally found them to be nothing but dangerous. But despite his vague understanding of Bernoulli's Principle and the ideas and drawings of daVinci. But from what he knew, she would have been somewhere between 500 and 1000 feet in the air when the tailfin broke off and she went into a downward spiral towards the trees of the backyard. Mac, who had worked in multiple emergency rooms in her career and seen horrific injuries over 10 years, but the sight of her best friend made her look for Jack's hand and squeeze, needing comfort desperately.

This woman was going to give him a stroke. He had never felt so worried and scared in his entire life, while still being so incredibly angry at anyone. And that note about the child? She was lying there, very likely bleeding to death and she refused help until the child was looked after- that was so very like her! How long had it taken to get a second ambulance to the scene? It was a small, rural town outside of Adelaide- not a bustling metropolis. Maybe it was 20 minutes out? Between the deep cut in her head and the broken ribs that punctured everything around them, and then the large gash that was so close to her femoral artery that Jack almost passed out just thinking about what could have happened. How could he be so angry about the way in which this woman was more concerned over the child who breathed a bit of smoke while she had gaping and gushing wounds? He wasn't entirely sure, but he definitely was.

"Jack. Her blood pressure is very much improved from this afternoon. I think we will be able to take her in for surgery within the next hour or so. We should be able to repair the lung that was punctured and check for further damage- but it is going to be a long night, I'm just warning you." He nodded as she spoke, he was absolutely terrified that they hadn't been able to do this earlier and now it may be too late.

Mac continued. "I don't have privileges here at this hospital. I cannot in anyway participate in this surgery. But I do believe they will let me into the room to observe during the operation. I am asking you, do you want me to be in the room? Or do you want me to be out here with you?"

"I'm starting to feel as though you have little confidence in my manly bravery and fortitude."

"Jack, I'm not sure who looks worse right now, you or her."

"Well, Mac, I appreciate that- but I want you to be with her. I don't expect that I'm particularly good company right now anyways, you may as well be somewhere that you can help, if needed."

"I'm going to go speak to the surgeon, I have a few things I'd like to discuss with him. Is there anything that you need that they can get you?"

"Just her, Doctor. Only her." She put her hand on his shoulders as she left the room, a reminder that she and he were on the same page about that. She paused right before exiting the room. under the doorway- "You know, there are studies to suggest that even when unconscious, they can hear when someone talks to them."

As she left, the room was eerily quiet. He moved a chair closer to her bed, as close as he could get it to her bed, his feet were actually tucked under the feet of it. As he clasped his hands over hers, he was struck again by how wrong she looked. Miss Fisher is a being larger than life- she was Aphrodite or Cleopatra. But now she had pale and bruised skin, tangled, dark hair; the absence of cherry red lipstick and the horrible cotton gown from the hospital that she wore while in the coarse sheets and pillows would make a woman of fashion like herself cringe. She should be surrounded by nothing but velvet, silk and a soft, feathery down- this was simply all wrong.

Across the room he spied a basin of water and a nearby rag. He retrieved it and began, as carefully as possible, to wipe off as much of the dried blood and dirt and sap from her skin as he could, softly and delicately. He was surprised at how intimate this felt to him. She was most certainly in a bed and wearing as little clothing as was possible, but somehow this did not feel strange. It felt close and loving and special, but not at all wrong. Why shouldn't he be the one to caress her, to wash her skin, to clean her mangled body- he didn't move any of her gown, he would never do that to her; he wouldn't venture to any territory he had not previously seen. Although, if he were being honest, between the nude portrait from Sarcelle and the fan dance she performed at the gentleman's club, was there anything he truly hadn't seen?

He found himself chuckling a bit at the memories of those events. What other woman would choose to go undercover in an establishment such as that and then, not only take the time and experience to learn the dance, but then, within a day, perform it with such skill and panache that she instantly became the club's most requested performer? There was a line he had recently read Jane from Othello that sprung to mind: "Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee! And when I love thee, chaos is come again."

It was almost as though The Moor had actually met Miss Fisher.