Chapter 10: Dark Matter

The cold Autumn wind mixed with the smoke from the chimney's and the variety of things being burned in the cottages that lined the streets, turning the air into a thick, icy stew. Jack had the collar of his thin coat thrown up, hoping that the scratching he felt in his throat would pass. But of course it wouldn't. Two days in a metal container, with a night on the floorboards wedged in between, probably had to have some sort of effect on someone who usually spent his days in an office. He shivered, when a gust of wind flicked through his clothes. Jack was frozen and starving and desperately longed for a hot meal and an early night. He hoped to talk Phryne into joining him under the blankets, just holding her seemed like a heavenly idea right now. To his surprise however, the cottage he reluctantly called his home, lay in total darkness. Jack couldn't help icy dread invading his stomach. The words from the afternoon echoed through his mind. They were on the trail of a very dangerous man. With numb fingers he pushed the key into the lock and let himself in. Only shadows greeted him.

From the bedroom sounded soft, familiar snoring, that let a wave of relief wash over him. So she was asleep. Probably still hung over. The house was cold, Phryne must not have been up for hours. Another feeling appeared, once the fear had withdrawn. It was annoyance. There were dirty dishes littered across the kitchen, some still from last night, some obviously from today. A stale abomination of a cake sat in the middle of the table. Jack sank onto a chair, staring at the mess. The silence was deafening. He felt the urge to wake Phryne, but knew that it wasn't a good idea. He'd probably have lashed out at her and it was a quarrel, neither of them needed. He sucked calm, steady breathes into his lungs, reminding himself that they were acting. He was not a factory worker, who came home starving and she was not a housewife. They were detectives and considering the lipstick-stained cups, she had probably taken care of her part. But he had done his and he was starving. The lead in every single one of his limbs stopped him from getting up to find himself food. Instead the Inspector put his arms on the table and buried his heavy head in them. He half-expected to hear her soft voice call his name any moment, her hand to fall onto his shoulder. She always seemed to sense when he was distressed and the absence of her comfort tonight, felt like a loss.

Jack didn't move for a long time. Truly, he just wanted to weep for exhaustion. But finally, he pulled himself to his feet and started to collect the dirty dishes. With gritted teeth, Jack fired up the oven, boiled water and washed the cups, bowls and a little later, himself. He chocked down a terrible piece of dry, burned cake, that calmed his stomach down to a low grumbling, before finally falling into bed. Phryne's warmth greeted him, as soon as he crawled under the covers. She looked peaceful and dishevelled and her husband couldn't help but smile. Jack snuggled up to her back, enfolding her in his arms. His unreasonable anger at her had softened, but it was still bubbling somewhere, he knew. It would disappear, given time. He had never been able to hold onto a grudge against Miss Fisher for long and that fact alone was incredibly annoying. Here, in the dark, his body moulded against hers, he didn't stand a chance. Listening to her breathing, Jack stared at the honey coloured moon, until sleep overpowered him.

X

When Mr. Butler approached the parlour to call Jane for dinner, she was still sitting exactly where he had left her. She didn't look upset. Just deep in thought.

"Miss Jane?" he asked carefully.

"We have been absolutely everywhere," she stated without looking at him. "The park, Marion's friends, her grandmother, everybody Lucy likes to play with... But I am missing something, Mr. B. I know I am."

Mr. Butler sighed.

"Maybe she is just lost," he said gently. "She might return in a day or two."

The girl looked up at him and he spotted some tears in her eyes. She really took after her mother, shared blood or not. It was something Mr. B had always admired about his Mistress: her compassion. It drove her to push forward, no matter the risk, once she was invested into a case. And the Inspector nowadays was generally not far behind her. And where had it gotten them? To Collingwood of all places.

Mr. Butler sighed. He tried to not succumb to his uneasiness about this whole story, reminding himself sternly, that he didn't believe in premonition. And now Jane had set her mind on finding this dog, who had probably run away for some reason or other. He sat down beside the teenager and took the liberty of lying a hand on her arm.

"It's possible that we aren't meant to solve everybody's problems, Jane."

The girl pondered this.

"They always seem to," she said, nodding her head at the picture of Jack, that hung innocently on the wall. Mr. Butler had to smile, every time he looked at the portrait and tonight was no exception. His fondness was not only caused by the knowledge that it had been lovingly painted by a pair of hands he happened to be very attached to. He also took quite a lot of joy out of the fact that the Inspector was so deeply embarrassed by having caught an artist's eye, that he would take the picture down the moment his wife would allow him to. She never would.

In that very moment a knock at the door drew the butlers attention away. His heart sped up slightly, before the sound had even had time to arrive in his brain. It had been caused by the very same hands that had held the paintbrush; he could hear it in the way her knuckles hit the wood.

"I believe you have a visitor, Mr. B," Jane grinned. Tobias found to his annoyance that he was actually blushing. So there might be a detective lost on the girl after all.

"I had better let her in, it is a rather cold night," he said, excusing himself. Riya didn't seem to care much about the cold. She wore her usual abundance of fabric, this one in a eye-curdling shade of yellow, but no coat and a fresh splash of colour to her cheeks.

"Good evening," she greeted, brushing past him in a cloud of perfume that reminded Tobias of a flower field in far Italy and a night not long ago, that he wouldn't forget in a hurry. Before he could answer, she twirled and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"You look rather shocked to see me, my darling. You haven't forgotten, have you?"

Mr. Butler looked stunned for a moment, then realisation dawned on him.

"You have, haven't you?" Riya laughed, running her knuckles over his cheek, looking highly amused and Tobias couldn't help breath a sigh of relief. "Well you better get ready. My friend Juan is waiting in anticipation for the mysterious man who has conquered my heart."

He glanced anxiously at the door to the parlour. Jane sat, a grin on her face turned towards them, pretending to be enthralled in a schoolbook that had appeared out of thin air.

"I'm afraid, this isn't a terrible good time," Mr. Butler explained quietly.

Watching Mrs. Santi's confusion, he tried to come up with a sensible way to explain the insanity constantly haunting this house. Then he realised, who he was talking to.

"Well, I hope you aren't standing me up, Tobias," Riya grinned. "The sudden change of plan isn't due to cold feet by chance?"

"I am looking forward to being introduced to your friends," Tobias lied. "There just happened to be some rather unexpected occurrences that force me to stay in tonight."

"Well, since it doesn't appear like we are going to Juan's gallery, you might as well explain to me in detail, what those occurrences are," his lover smiled, taking off the outer layer of her dress that turned out to be a coat after all.

"Good evening, Jane," she thrilled, walking right into the parlour, before Mr. Butler had a chance to stop her.

"Good evening, Mrs. Santi," Jane smiled, briefly glancing up from her book. "Did I spoil your date?"

The woman waved a hand through the air in a dismissive gesture.

"Nothing that cannot be repeated at a later time. But I am curious now, about the mysterious circumstances of this cosy night in."

She glanced at Mr. B, who stood in the middle of the room, wondering what to do and gently pulled him down beside her.

"I believe, that is a rather long story," Jane smiled. "In brief, my parents have disappeared for an unknown amount of time to save the world and poor Mr. B here is stuck being my governess."

Riya laughed, glancing fondly at the 'governess', who smiled somewhere between embarrassed and proud.

"That is not entirely true, Miss Jane," Tobias said. "I am actually honoured by the trust your mother has put in me."

"That is lovely of you to say, Mr. B. I am, however, perfectly capable of staying home on my own. I might use the chance to drop by Dot's kitchen and have a cup of cocoa. I believe, Hugh is working late tonight. So, if you are trying to avoid stepping out tonight, you will need a better reason than me," she grinned.

Mr. B traded a look with his lover. Riya was waiting on his verdict and Tobias knew that she wouldn't utter a word of complaint if he should choose his duty over his promise to meet her friend and look at paintings that wouldn't make any sense to him, pretending that he was used to sipping champagne rather than serving it. The way her eyes glittered, made the prospect suddenly very tempting though.

"Are you certain, you don't want me to stay, Miss?" he asked after a pause. Jane rolled her eyes in mock annoyance.

"I did just return from travelling the continent," she reminded him. "I am quite sure I can survive a night home alone."

Mr. Butler pulled himself to his feet.

"Very well, I had better get ready then."

The two women looked after him, as he wandered towards the stairs. Then Riya turned to Jane.

"Thank you," she smiled. "But now do tell me, what Phryne and her Inspector are up to. I am dying of curiosity."

X

"You will drink. And then we will die. Together."

Phryne looked down, where a golden cup had appeared in her hands. When she glanced up again, Janey was standing beside Foyle, holding his hand.

"Drink," she said, her eyes cold. "I died for you, now it's your time."

The grin on Foyle's face was a ghastly mask.

"Drink!" he urged. Phryne looked down at the cup. She wouldn't! But her hands were moving on their own accord. As much as she struggled, Phryne couldn't stop. She didn't want to die!

"Janey, please..." she heard herself beg. Murdoch Foyle's laughter echoed in her ears, suddenly turning into a cough, just as the bitter liquid arrived at her lips.

With a start, Phryne awoke, her heart drumming in her ears. She blinked into the darkness, trying to orientate herself. The coughing continued. Phryne turned her head, finding a dark shadow curled up with his back to her.

"Jack?" she whispered, touching his shoulder. Instead of an answer, she got another round of hacking. Phryne tried to wrap her head around the events. She could not remember him coming home. That said, she did not remember much about the gone day in general. Jack seemed to finally have sufficiently coughed out his lungs and turned to face her.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," he croaked.

"You may wake me anytime, while I'm having nightmares," Phryne smiled, reaching out her hand to run through his hair.

"I will remember that," the Inspector grinned, still sounding hoarse. For a long moment, they lay in silence, while Phryne contemplated if the warmth under her fingertips was normal. He seemed a little hot. If he should start on a fever, she would get him out of here, Sanderson be damned. Jack took her hand, pressing a gentle kiss to her palm, as if sensing her thoughts.

"What happened?" she finally asked.

He shrugged in the dark.

"You were out cold, when I returned home. I assume this might be connected with the amount of whisky you consumed last night, Miss Fisher."

Phryne smiled into the darkness.

"That is probably a fair conclusion, Inspector."

Comfortable silence settled over the pair, as Phryne snuggled against Jack's chest, hoping to find some comfort. The dream still lingered in her bones. It wasn't Foyle so much that scared her, she had had nightmares of him for many years. Maybe you could get used to the monsters under your bed some day. But Janey, Janey blaming her for her death – that was new. And she couldn't help wanting to weep over it. Her distress was obvious, she could tell from the way, Jack's fingers ran through her hair.

"Do you want to share your dream?" he asked into the darkness. Phryne shook her head into his chest. His lungs sounded wheezy under her ears. She thought of all the nasty things her mother had warned her from, of tuberculosis and diphtheria, and children with "a spot on their lung" or a sore neck, who suddenly had disappeared from school, sometimes never to return. She shuddered under the warm blanket, crawling even closer to Jack. A part of her just wanted to call the whole thing off right now. Bring him home and get Mac over in the middle of the night. But another part of her was laughing at her being so hysteric. He was a grown man and he had lived through quite a lot of things, including a war, several dangerous wounds, three meetings with a serial-killer and being strangled with his own tie. Let alone trailing after her for more than two years. He would be just fine. As if to defy her tries to calm down and be reasonable, Jack peeled her from himself, just in time to turn away and save her from getting coughed in the face. When he returned to her arms, his wife's was frowning.

"That doesn't sound good, Jack. We might have to get Mac down here," she said, stroking his face again, in the hope that she wouldn't discover a fever. She breathed a sigh of relief, when she found his skin to be rather cool and pulled the blanket over his shoulder.

"As much as I like Mac, I doubt her appearance will do our cover any good. It's just a cold, Phryne," Jack yawned. "You see, my wife seduced me on the kitchen floor, rendering me to weak to drag myself to the bedroom. That just called for some divine punishment."

Grinning, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, pulling her close and Phryne let her eyes fall shut. She allowing herself to be calmed and comforted. A thought occurred to her.

"That's because my husband kisses like a wildfire," she grinned, opening her lashes to find Jack stare at her in confusion. "Or so I am told," she added smugly.

"I take it, you have made closer acquaintance with Mrs. Willis?" he asked after a beat.

"She remembers you very well," Phryne pointed out, ignoring the worry edged on his face, contemplating a possible discovery of his identity by their chatty neighbour. "Or at least she remembers Jack Robinson and his kisses."

"Kiss, Miss Fisher. Singular."

"A very impressive one, it seems. But don't be ashamed, Jack, she is a very attractive woman. Wonderful voice, seductive accent."

Phryne couldn't manage to wipe the grin off her face. To her astonishment she found that every hint of jealousy had disappeared into thin air. She was finding it actually highly amusing to tease Jack with his one glitch in marital fidelity.

"I did tell you that, Miss Fisher," Jack smiled.

"You did," Phryne hummed into his chest. "You forgot to mention, however, that she isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer."

Jack's laugh turned into another cough.

"I never claimed she was," he pointed out, when he had ceased to splutter, deciding to be oblivious to the returning look of worry on his wife's features. "Only that she was rather pretty, as far as I recall."

Phryne nodded, suddenly serious. She had to ask, she realised or it wouldn't leave her alone.

"I always thought you weren't particularly fond of silly women," she said, before she had time to stop herself. It was a nasty thing to say, she knew, yet she couldn't help but wonder, what Jack, her Jack, who didn't suffer stupidity lightly at all, could have attracted to Adelheid. In place of an answer, he wove his fingers into her hair, locking their eyes.

"I am not. I tend to be highly attracted to clever women. This one in particular."

The romance of the moment was somewhat spoiled by his voice cracking under the pressure of another coughing attack that he, however, managed to swallow down.

"Yet, you did flirt with her?" Phryne heard herself ask.

"I was 23, Miss Fisher. I flirted with any woman under the sun, who would allow me to," Jack smirked in the darkness. "It didn't mean a thing."

Even in the sparse light of the moon, Phryne could tell that he was worrying himself with her apparent jealousy. She couldn't explain that that wasn't the point at all. She just occasionally wondered, how well she really knew this man she had said 'yes' to. He let her look right into his soul and yet she never seemed to run out of layers to peel back and discover more secrets. But maybe that was just the way when one went on the adventure of really exploring another human being down to his bones.

She glanced at him, finding him still watching her with intense eyes, asking her to trust him. She couldn't even put into words what she felt. But there was no doubt in her heart, no fear. Even though she might never know everything about all the depths Jack Robinson hid under his layers of clothing, she would spend a lifetime discovering him. And something told her, that she would never find anything to disappoint or scare her.

She had married him. It was a commitment she had never thought she'd be willing to make and yet, here she was, being Mrs. Robinson. Even though she was currently pretending to be someone else entirely. But for all her doubts about marrying him - or anyone for that matter, it meant all the more that she had, she realised. They weren't 20 anymore, she didn't need his financial support, she didn't feel it necessary to satisfy anyone's expectations and she certainly didn't care about what people thought of their arrangements.

Of course, she cared about Jack, his needs, his wants that were a lot more old fashioned than her own. But he would have stayed, even if she had refused his proposal or called off the wedding at the last minute. So in the end Miss Fisher had just done, what she always did: Exactly what she'd wanted. And that was, as it turned out, to everybody's surprise and most of all her own, to marry Inspector Robinson.

Phryne could feel his eyes lingering on her, wondering, waiting. His fingers were now trailing restless circles over her exposed shoulder. She reached out her hand, ran a thumb down his cheekbone in an attempt to melt his concerns away.

"I did marry you, Jack."

"I've noticed, Miss Fisher," he quipped, his voice still rough. But despite his joking, he understood. She hadn't tied herself to him, if she had the slightest doubt about entrusting him her life. Jack's features softened and Phryne pulled herself up onto her elbow to lean in and kiss him, but to her utter annoyance, he grabbed her shoulder, gently holding her back.

"That's probably not a good idea, Phryne."

As he spoke, he stifled a cough, almost as if to prove his point. His wife pulled her lips into a pout. Telling her what to do was an irritating enough habit in itself, but not kissing her bordered on an insult. She considered if to sulk him into submission, talk away his defences or simply overrule him.

Before she had time to follow through on either thought, her husband was shaken by another spell of coughing. When he finally fell, wheezing, back onto his pillow, his wife had disappeared.

"Phryne?" he tried to ask, but it turned into more of a croak.

A second later he realised exactly where she had vanished to. His gasp for air was not entirely due to his cold this time around. After a moment's hesitation, Jack leaned back and closed his eyes. Reason told him that it must have been close to midnight and probably a good idea to get some more sleep, if he was hoping to beat his cold and the weight of several restless nights still lingering in his bones, before the morning came. His body and about every inch of his heart and soul whispered to him, however, that his wife was trying to care for him in her very own way. A lesser woman might have cooked him a tea and tugged him into bed, but she was Phryne. Doing things by the book was not her style and he wasn't complaining. That was about the last clear thought his brain managed to form, before Jack melted into the caress of her mouth and let himself be washed away.