“I always worry about having to watch you die,” says Phryne lightly, closing the metal around Jack’s wrists. “I suppose you can watch me die for a change.”
Jack looks down at her, this impossible woman who will not be kept, and whom he would never try to keep. He’s taught himself to watch her fly away from him into the far reaches of the universe.
One day she won’t come back for him, or he will leave without her.It is how time is. It will not stand still, not even for such as her; but as long as they have it, they will run.
And this is sucha brilliant variation on Phryne’s words, I’m swooning: “Come back to me, Phryne Fisher,” he says in her ear. “In your own time.” That is SO Jack, but made all the more so because she is a Time Lady here.
I love the implication of this – that she goes travelling but always comes back to him, and he doesn’t necessarily feel like she’s away for long, and he also joins her sometimes.
That is such a healthy companionship, and it feels like you solved an impossible riddle in creating it! Also, there is now room in our imaginations for all kinds of time travel shenanigans and happiness!
And irrespective of how long she was gone, she’s already there: “He turns the corner onto his street. Outside his house, there is a Hispano-Suiza parked by the kerb. He knows, without looking, that the front door will have had its lock picked. There is a light on inside, waiting for him.” – my HEART
Jack looks down at her, this impossible woman who will not be kept, and whom he would never try to keep. He’s taught himself to watch her fly away from him into the far reaches of the universe.