Title: Jessa Called Jay
Chapter 8: Artemis and Athena
Author: Elliott Silver
Summary: "Come after me, Jack Robinson," she'd said, but when he tries, she doesn't answer. Three years later, Phryne Fisher returns to Melbourne.
Author's Note: One final chapter will follow this one …
/ - / - / - / - / October 1932 / - / - / - / - /
Jack watches her round the corner and come up his front walk.
The sun is setting, bringing shadows with it. Spring has come and gone already, plants flung into life by the early warmth. The gardens are alight with flowers, cool hues of phlox and petunias, radiant with lobelia and lupines, the ocean brought inwards. The porch is bedecked like an arbor with waves of tangled green vines.
The air hums with bees and the candied scent of blossoms.
Phryne Fisher struts to the porch, heels clicking, dress swirling. She is Artemis the huntress in the flesh, dazzling and destructive, her sights set resolutely on him.
There was a time when he could only have dreamed of such good fortune.
But that time is not now.
Jack hasn't seen her for almost a week, but he knows she's been looking for him, searching him out. It's just that in the aftermath of that night, that kiss, he hasn't wanted to see her, couldn't see her.
How could he see her if he hasn't seen Jessa?
He has looked for the reporter everywhere since that night, but he understands that she doesn't want to be found, and if so, he will not find her. Jack remembers the look on her face all too well, the deep and searing betrayal of it.
His fear is that she will not forgive him, that she cannot. After all, how could she, when he cannot forgive himself?
So fear has frayed into anger. Jack is angry with Phryne, angry that she stops at nothing to possess whatever she wants, angry that she suddenly wants him, angry that she has such bloody bad timing.
But above all, he is terribly angry with himself, for his weakness, for holding on to old dreams that have long since died.
Phryne comes to the swing and sits next to him. For a moment the seat teeters, stops, and then rocks on just off balance. She is so close he can feel the warmth of the sun on her skin, see a hazy pattern of lace beneath the sheerness of her blouse.
"Jack – " she begins.
He responds immediately.
"Goddamnit Phryne!" he practically shouts, anger broken like a dam. "What makes you think you can come back here and pretend nothing changed?"
Phryne Fisher has always lived for herself – it's what so appealing and so distressing about her. For three years she left behind this life in Melbourne for that of London and never – not once – looked back. She left behind him, though he had no claim on her, or she on him (except, he knows, his heart). With everything happening in the world (and bloody hell, it Crashed, didn't it?), did she ever feel worry or sadness or guilt? Did she think about death every day? No, Jack knows, she didn't have to. Instead, she lived her life, savoring the golden minutes of it – with someone else.
Yet while she was doing this, cavorting with royalty (literally), he was here, dying, almost dead. He faced an excruciating recovery, one that she was not part of and one that he could not face alone. Luckily he didn't have to. His life grew back, without her in it.
Color has risen in Phryne's face, and when she tilts her head towards him, her dark hair sweeps back like a raven's wing.
"What makes you think I would be the same?" she retorts, eyes flashing dangerously. "When I came back?"
The distance of three years yawns between them, obdurate and unbridgeable, in hard and unforgiving silence.
Jack sighs. He is so tired, tired of this dance between them, always one step off, always one step behind. He is tired of all the things that haven't been said and perhaps never will. He's fully and honestly fed up with the past, with all the things that haven't been done and now can never be.
What he wants now is possibility, what he wants now is hope, what he wants is to live forward.
He stands, slowly unbending his stiff knee and trying not to hiss under his breath as the joint straightens unwillingly. He feels Phryne's eyes on him as he moves away, through the door into the house and to the kitchen. He's hardly slept in these last days, and admittedly he's getting older so he feels it more. Callum has sent him home to rest, ordered him to, but he can't.
He stands alone at the counter, nearly heaving with the effort of it.
At last he turns on the taps and adds water to the percolator, spooning in dark coffee, far too much. The brew will be strong, terribly so, but he needs it. As bubbles gurgle he turns off the stove and pours the thick black liquid into his mug.
He doesn't realize he is crying (that he is really crying) until tears plash into the still, dark surface of his coffee, spreading ripples to its rim.
"Jack?"
When he turns, he realizes that Phryne has followed him inside.
She stands now, in the center of his space, looking at him in askance.
He looks back and then wipes at his face.
This dark-haired woman can't know that the green mug on the counter (the one he doesn't use) is Jessa's, that the collection of tea is also hers, as are the apples in the basket, the hazelnuts shelled in the dish, and the mint slices too, that she eats them as she works, the smell of chocolate strong on her fingers, so that if he kisses her, he will taste it.
She can't know that behind Jay's yellow dress hanging on his door, there are blouses and suits and stockings stacked in his closet, tucked into his bureau, that he's brought in her garden boots from the back stoop so they don't fill with rain, that he's hung their wash, towels and linens and smalls, on the line outside.
Phryne doesn't know – will never know perhaps – that her mementos are hidden in the lower drawer of his desk, relegated only to a small pile of rubbish and broken pieces.
Instead what she can see are the framed photographs of this beautiful blonde woman, the one on his desk of Jessa laughing, caught unaware by one of the newspaper agents, or the single image on his otherwise blank wall, of Jessa receiving her journalism award, with him by her side.
What she can see is that there are chairs on either side of his desk, the surface demarcated by his work space (police folders, reports) and hers (newspapers, notes), so it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
This is what life does.
It shapes pieces into wholes.
What they both see – what they can't fail to see – is his luggage neatly stacked by the door, waiting only for the slightest call to go after Jessa in the way he never did for her.
Phryne catches his eye now, and he understands that she has come here for confirmation, and she has gotten it, though not the kind she wanted.
He holds out the coffee to her, and the spell is broken, not cruelly but gently as only some things can be. There is an unseen mercy to it as Jack holds the door open and Phryne walks back through it. They go out to the swing, sitting gingerly together.
For a long time they sit and rock in the breeze and say nothing.
"I am sorry," Phryne says at last, without looking at him. She doesn't say for what.
Jack breathes at her words.
"So am I," he replies. "I shouldn't have expected you to be the same."
A corner of Phryne's mouth twitches up as if to grin yet stops short of it.
"I should have expected you to change."
Jack practically snorts at the understatement, but he reaches over and takes her hand in his, the calluses of his palm to the softness of her rose-cream skin.
Phryne's fingers wind through his as she speaks.
"She told me to find out if you still loved me."
"Who did?"
"Jay."
"You mean Jessa?"
Phryne nods slowly, as she takes in the way he says this other woman's name, this way her vowels and consonants dance on his tongue.
God, he thinks, Jessa would, wouldn't she? Jack understands why the reporter has gone now, why she has given him this space. She would have him make his choice, and Jack realizes only now the extent this one woman will go to make him happy, and he wonders how she could be so mistaken that Phryne could do that. Perhaps she would have once, but he knows better now. He knows her, he knows Jessa, called Jay.
"Do you know where she is?"
Phryne looks at him, gauging his response. At last she looks away.
"I don't."
He lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
"And if you did know?" Phryne asks him.
Jack looks at her and, from the edge of his eye, can see the suitcases waiting.
"If I did," he answers, "I wouldn't be here."
It stings, his answer, he can see that, but there's no hope for anything but the truth.
"You knew where I was," Phryne points out, with more than an edge of hardness to her words.
"I did," he answers.
What was it that kept him from following her? Was it fear of the unknown, the fear that she didn't mean what she said and that he would arrive to find her with another man? After all, she'd said that her father was the last man he needed to worry about in her life.
Or was it something else, something that held him back? Did he know then, as he knows now, that it wasn't a passion that could be sustained, that it was like a flare, all the more brilliant for being so brief, all the more poignant for being unfulfilled?
He's not sure he really knows even now.
"Why now, Phryne?" Jack asks her. "Of all the times you could have come back, why now?"
She is quiet and then, suddenly, he reads into her silence the way he always did.
"He asked you to marry him, didn't he?"
Now he understands why she has come. Part of him cringes at the thought of it, but the rest hopes, hopes for a happiness he knows he couldn't give her, then or now.
They'd once agreed that it would take a brave man to propose to her, or a very foolish one.
"And you said no?" he presses,
"No," Phryne answers him. "I said yes."
His surprise must be evident because the corners of her mouth turn up at the expression on his face.
"But if you said yes, then why are you here?"
She looks at him as if to make his heart stop with it.
"Because I needed to know," she tells him. "I need to know if I still love you as I did."
He turns to her, unsure he's heard her correctly.
She breathes, it seems, for both of them.
"And do you?"
"Yes."
God, what can he say to that? These are words he once dreamed of her saying. No, he stops himself, he never dreamed that, because that was too impossible even to imagine.
And what could he do now about it, Jack wonders, her hand in his, these little strips of bone and sinew and flesh bound together. What could happen between them, what could they make possible? He could move, take her in his arms and go back inside, kiss her, make everything possible – everything but their past.
"I loved you too," he answers her.
"Jack – "
He reaches over and puts a finger to her lips.
Phryne stops at his touch.
There are no words to be said, even though there's so much to say. There are three years of things unsaid, and more than that, the two years before she left. Jack wonders if Phryne realizes now the lifetime of things she has missed, if she even can. She has missed blood and bullets, she has missed fear and longing, she has missed hope and recovery. She will never have those things, the terror of life in the balance, the bone-gnawing of life at a crossroads, the first sudden sun as he met Jessa, as she was his strength, as he opened new doors, began new roads, and all with someone else.
As did she, apparently.
And isn't that a good thing?
"It wouldn't have worked, you know."
He removes his finger from her rouged lips.
"I did love you," Jack says and the way he says it, she must know that he has. "I knew you didn't want to be married, and I could have done that. I knew you wanted your own house and your own rules, and I could have done that too. I even knew I wouldn't be enough, and that you would want other men."
Jack takes a short breath. "I thought I could have done that as well."
He shrugs; he probably couldn't have.
"I could have lived with you, I think, or I like to think so, but I didn't have to imagine living without you, because I did," Jack finishes. "But I can't imagine living without Jessa."
Phryne gets under his skin – always did – until he wants to burst but it's Jessa who makes him comfortable there. He understands now that Phryne couldn't face what was between them, that her fear was greater than her emotion. She valued her independence more than she valued her heart. She was scared, that's why she ran away and that's why she never came back.
She did it then, and she has done the same now.
"I'm scared, Jack," Phryne admits and he hears the truth in her voice. "There are things going on in Europe – in Germany – and Geff – "
She breaks off, unable to continue.
He knows this too. They have lived through one war and don't want to see another. The world is changing, in ways they can't possibly understand. Perhaps more than it ever has before. He feels that, and he too is afraid.
But it's Jessa that makes him brave, making him think that they can face it – whatever comes – together.
"Times have changed," Phryne starts.
"And we have changed with them," he answers.
"If only we could – "
"We can't."
'If only' will break your heart.
Phryne reaches over now and he lets her. She cradles his face with the palm of her hand, cool skin against the warmth of his cheek.
"Are you sure I can't change your mind?"
Her voice purrs against him and he can't help but smile at her, this old wicked and endearing Miss Fisher, this woman he's kissed three times, this goddess mis-named for a courtesan, this Phryne.
"Yes," Jack answers without reluctance. "I'm sure."
Phryne pulls herself back and considers him.
"You do love her, don't you?"
"I do."
The dark-haired woman moves now, setting down the empty mug and standing, her silhouette against the sky, all the curves and spaces of memory only a hand's width away.
In the setting sun she turns to him, cast over with ruby shadows.
She glows, radiantly.
Yet Jack understands that this is not the same woman who walked up his steps a few hours ago, and part of him feels sorry for that loss. And yet somehow, Jack knows that this is her finest hour. She, Phryne, he, Jack, will rise phoenix-like from these ashes.
He smiles at the thought, and she smiles back.
"It could have been so different if only you'd come," she says.
"It could have been so different if only you'd never left," he answers.
Phryne grins, and he watches as she sashays down the steps and reaches out, ever so softly, to the twining vines, this beautiful helix of green and yellow flowers. From such small beginnings the seedlings have grown into a floral archway, crowned with star-yellow blooms as if guarding the entrance to his home.
Phryne leans over and breathes in the heady scent of the flowers.
"They're beautiful," she says, "What are they?"
"Gelsemium sempervirens," Jack answers.
He translates.
"Jessamine."
/ - / - / - / - / Two Weeks Later / - / - / - / - /
"You always did work late."
Phryne's voice comes to him and Jack looks up, startled. It's gone ten, but he hasn't wanted to go home, not alone, not to cold rooms and an empty bed. So he's sat here in his spartan office at City Central, night cleaners working around him, re-reading the same lines over and over, signing his name to things he can't recall.
The dark-haired woman stands against the door frame, her coral dress flaming out of the darkness.
For a moment there's a sweep of panic in his chest, at her perseverance, at what happened the last time she appeared here. There is a deep and dark desire in her eyes, the way she looks at him. It ruffles his stomach, makes the hairs rise on his forearms.
But then she speaks to him.
"She told me to find out if I loved you, Jack Robinson," Phryne begins and then very softly, "And I do."
She moves then and from behind her another woman steps forward.
Jessa comes out from the shadows and his heart stops.
Her blonde hair is slicked around her lovely face, her twill jodhpurs and buff-color shirt dark against the paleness of her face, the vivid burn of her salve-green eyes.
He rises so fast he's nearly dizzy with it, and he comes to stand before her.
"Jessa," he breathes.
Up close she looks as he feels, brittle and a little off balance. Only now can he feel her hesitance, Athena dented and distrustful, when she has ever been the forthright one.
Out of the corners of his eyes Jack watches Phryne leave, backing slowly out of his office so that it's just the two of them. He'll never know how Phryne found her, or what the lady detective said to the reporter, but perhaps some things are best left mysteries.
Yet even so, Jack knows that Phryne doesn't leave, that she can't, that she waits just outside, back to the wall. He knows she is still listening, as always a shadow that remains on his heart. She is something that will never disappear, and he is glad of that, a sharp, tiny, resonant fragment, a piece of shrapnel that will forever be in his soul.
Perhaps that's all that matters, she understands now, the people we hold on to and the people we let go – or who let go of us.
His voice breaks into the silence.
"I thought you were gone."
"I never left," Jessa answers him. "I couldn't get farther than Collingwood."
"I would have gone to Carolina."
"Would you?" she marvels and he nods. "But what about her?" she asks.
Every moment of his life has led to this; every moment forward will depend on it.
"I don't need her," Jack answers truthfully. "I need you."
He does. He needs Jessa like he needs to breathe. He reaches out and brushes his knuckles along her cheek, and she leans into his touch.
"I want you to be happy," she says.
"How can I be happy without you?"
Jessa smiles then, at last, and takes his hands in hers. Her silver-green eyes well with tears as if all the sea-glass in her is melting now, glowing into the form they both will shape.
"Then I'll fight to the ends of this earth for you, Jack Robinson."
She comes forward and he holds her against him, arms around her back, hand threaded into her hair, her head tucked into his shoulder so all he feels is the beat of their hearts, their lives settling together.
"I might need you to remind me of that," he answers, his own eyes blurring with the effort.
Jessa laughs and he feels her breath tickle his skin. He closes his eyes to her touch.
They will go home, soon, home to the bungalow where her things are and his heart resides. They will go home, she will slip off her shirt, his hands will slide on her skin, his breath will catch on her name. Then she will turn and he will be there, and perhaps that's all life really is, being there.
"I will."
"Every day."
"If you'll let me."
Jessa pulls back and looks him in the eyes.
"Are you sure?"
"I am," he answers.
"Marry me, Jack Robinson?"
"Yes."
/ - / - / - / - /
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