March 1918:

"What's your name?" he fastened his uniform trousers.

"Why?" she paused in doing up her blouse, "after how many fucks do you want to know my name?"

He shrugged, "you have made me realise that life is for living, that giving up is not an option. I want to remember you, even if you don't want to remember me."

She shrugged her shoulders, "Phryne," she sighed, "my name is Phryne."

"Who'd name such a gorgeous creature after a toad?"

"My father," she found his suggestion amusing, "he was drunk when he registered my birth.

"More fool him," he pulled his jacked on, "I would have thought Aphrodite, or Athene ... you are strong and beautiful."

"So why do you want to know?"

"If I have a daughter I intend to name her after you."

"Pah!" she snorted, "as if you'll remember."

"Oh, I will," he grinned, "you are not forgettable, Nurse Phryne."

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April 1919:

He didn't forget, and his wife didn't mind the name, in fact she liked it. He was rather glad she was not a student of the classics and the idea of such an extraordinary name made her smile. Phryne-Rose, it flowed and she grew.

When his wife died, attempting to provide him with another child; a boy; he clung to his daughter, vowing to see she continued to learn and grow and inquire, to exasperate and frustrate him - and he loved her. His mother came to look after the child, feed and clothe her, see she attended school and teach her how to be a young lady.

All was well with his world ... until ...

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She was always there, always with a quip, a smirk a flirt. Deeper understanding of the human condition - all wrapped up in her need, her desperate need to find out how and why her sister was killed ; and where she was buried. When the truth came out it had been he who had been there, who had offered the solid shoulder at the graveside and the gentle smile at her birthday party and all because he knew ...

How many Phrynes were there in the world? How many had those deep green eyes, that dark hair and that high laugh? How many and seen the things she had seen? Only one, but he didn't want to believe it, it was too much of a coincidence.

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He sat in his office at City South contemplating the latest case, how she had pointed him in the right direction and then, when the perpetrator was brought to book, namely his former father in law, and between them they had save a group of young girls from white slavery she had blithely asked him to dine with her. True he had eaten at her table, drank her whisky and spent evenings paying draughts with her, and his mother had asked questions - searching questions - questions he didn't want to answer, questions he wasn't sure what the answers really were.

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April 1929:

It was Phryne-Rose's tenth birthday.

So much had happened, so many thoughts had been thought, and yet he still hadn't said his daughter's name. She knew he had a daughter and that he was widowed and she had grown to appreciate him as a person, a police officer, an intelligent and well read man and perhaps she was a little bit in love with him.

Ok, maybe more than a little bit, but she didn't have relationships, she had quick flings, fancies, one night stands; took lovers and flirted, she did not form long standing relationships - ever! Until now ...

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"Dad!" she burst into the office, "dad, it's all gone wrong!" she collapsed into the visitor's chair and sobbed.

"What?" he as beside her in an instant, "Phryne-Rose, what's happened?"

"Grandma phoned the restaurant to confirm the reservations and they didn't answer, so she went," she sniffed and hiccupped, "and they are closed, until further notice - pa! what's goin' on?"

He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. Two or three restaurants had been hit by gang pressure and closed. He had dealt with the smuggling of illicit booze and provisions with his well connected 'friend', but he didn't know that this particular restaurant was on the list. His only recourse - that amazing woman he tried to keep out of his family life.

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"I wouldn't ask ..."

"Of course you wouldn't Inspector," she smiled down the phone in the hall, "but as you have ... give me an hour and your daughter shall have her birthday."

"Thank you," he sighed a deep sigh, much as he hated to admit it, when you needed something doing ...

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"Oh, Miss Fisher," Phryne-Rose flopped onto the couch in the parlour. It had been a rip-roaring success. A dinner at a fabulous restaurant with a perfectly decorated cake organised by the woman her father declined to name, "thank you, I shall be the envy of my friends ... but," she sat up, "I don't give a damn about them ..."

"You don't?" Miss Fisher gasped, unused to children's prophetic declarations.

"Nah," the child shook her head, "there's friends and there's friends, so pa says, and youse the one who comes up trumps, a proper friend."

Her father winced and gulped. but Miss Fisher threw back her head and laughed out loud.

"We go back a long way," she held out her hand.

"We do?"

"I am sure this is the only other 'Phryne' in the world. and a certain Lieutenant once asked me my name after ..."

Jack blanched at the idea she would explain.

"... I had attended to an injury he had ... in the war."

"You ..."

"I was an ambulance driver and nurse during the war..."

"Oh, right, I see," Phryne-Rose hummed. "So ..."

"He said he would name his daughter after me ..."

"Your name is ..."

"Phryne Fisher," Phryne held out her hand, "delighted to meet you, Phryne Robinson."

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July 1931:

"Thank you," Jack kissed her softly, "for everything. For my daughter, for my life ... I love you so much."

"And I love you, darling Inspector," she smiled up at him, "for the rest of my life."

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Life, she thought, had a way of dealing one a curved ball, but she would take that every time, to lie next to her husband, Jack Robinson, and promise him a son ... because what Phryne Fisher Robinson wanted, Phryne Fisher Robinson got.