Work Text:
1904
Jack pulls his bicycle up the rocky path leading across the bit of grass in front of their house, lovingly referred to by his mother as "the garden". Rubbing the sleeve of his knitted sweater over a patch of dirt on the handlebar, he pats the seat of the bicycle affectionately, pleased that none of his mates are around to see and tease him for it, and then he makes his way into the house, by way of the side door.
The sky has gone dark already, signalling that he is very, very late. Coming in through the kitchen, meeting his mother first, seems like a wise choice.
When he gets inside he finds her baking, her hands kneading a lump of dough roughly, and he feels a stab of guilt at the worry she might’ve felt. "I'm sorry I'm late. I was riding my bicycle."
(Took a left turn where he usually takes a right, crossed the invisible border where Richmond becomes Collingwood, and further until poor becomes Poor. Drove around for nearly an hour counting blessings he has never quite been aware of before, and then for another, steadying himself:
He has seen people drunk before, of course, seen them jovial or angry, laughing or crying, but this man is shocking. Appearing as if out of nowhere, through a cleverly concealed door of the building on one side of the narrow lane Jack is making his way along, ranting at shadows about poker games and deceit and noble connections that, to Jack’s eyes and ears, seem more than a little dubious; turning to shout at Jack when he realises there is no-one else there to hear him.
The encounter sticks with him, the man with his angry threats somehow making as much of an impression as the empty bottle thrown over Jack’s head at him from the same doorway as someone shouts “Fuck off, Henry,” after ‘Henry’ has already turned the corner into the street.)
His mother turns, surprised, as if she hadn't realised he has come in at all. "Your father wants to see you," she says and then, when she senses his hesitation, she smiles. "It's fine, Jack. He wants to talk to you about your uncle Ted."
Not quite reassured that he isn’t being punished for being late - does his father want to talk about uncle Ted because of the bicycle? Are they taking it away from him since he came home late? - Jack makes his way into the living room.
His father is sitting by the dining table, absurdly wearing his Sunday clothes.
Jack wonders briefly if someone has died. Is there another Uncle Ted?
“Sit down, son.” His father’s voice is oddly formal, but not angry.
Slowly, Jack pulls out the chair opposite his father’s and sits down, the toes of his shoes scraping the floor as he swings his legs back and forth nervously.
His father pushes a pocket watch across the table to him. The scratching sound it makes isn’t loud but somehow it still rings in Jack’s ears, a finality to it that he doesn’t quite understand.
“This used to belong to your uncle Ted. It’s yours, now.”
Jack swallows. His friend Ben got his a couple of months ago, showed it around the school to anyone who’d look at it - and to quite a few people who weren’t particularly interested. Counting down to a day just three years in the future. Ben will only be sixteen years old when he meets the woman he’s going to marry.
Slowly, his hand shaking slightly, he reaches out and picks it up. It’s cold at first, but then heats up so suddenly he almost drops it, and then he can hear a whirr as it starts up and then a steady ticking as it begins its countdown.
“Is it working?”
He turns to find his mother standing in the doorway, a proud look on her face. He nods.
“Well, show us, then. What did you get?”
Jack looks at the watch and then from his father to his mother and back again. Then he shakes his head.
“It’s yours,” his father agrees. Jack thinks there might be approval in his voice. “Do as you’d like.”
Jack puts the watch into the pocket of his trousers, not daring to look at his mother until he’s out of his seat. When he finally does, she’s smiling, clearly disappointed but respecting the choice he has made.
He’s an adult now, after all.
He smiles at her, a wordless apology.
Later that night, in the privacy of his room, he opens the pocket watch and finally looks at it.
*
1910
Jack is alone when it happens, manning the front desk of a station that is all but deserted. He would’ve loved to have been at the footy match as well but - his eyes drift to the stripes on his uniform, alerting the world to the fact that he is now a proper constable - someone had to stay behind and so he offered.
The door from the street opens, pushed in so slowly he wonders at first if there’s anyone there at all, or perhaps it’s one of the other constables playing a prank, trying to make him think the place is haunted, but then the frilly hemline of a skirt comes into view, and underneath it the toe of a black boot and then finally, when he looks up, a young woman, dark hair and eyes he can’t seem to look away from.
He smiles at her, aiming for friendly but professional, trying not to think about just how pretty she is. She smiles back, a look of relief spreading on her face, as if he’s an old friend she has been looking for and finally found.
He has no idea who she is.
But then she raises her hand, pulling something out of the pocket of her coat and he realises it’s a gold pocket watch. He looks at it and then at her, and her smile is even broader now.
In the pocket of his uniform jacket he can feel his own watch, ticking away just as it has been since it was given to him seven years ago.
“I was… looking for my father,” the woman says, still clutching the watch, holding it as if she might hand it to him. “Is he here?”
The only man at City West old enough to be this woman’s father is Inspector Willows, and Jack really hopes for her sake that she doesn’t mean him…
“Um…”
She giggles softly, slightly embarrassed, but also as if she finds his incoherence amusing, or maybe even flattering.
He smiles, not really minding whatever she’s assuming, although the truth is he’s just reluctant to offend her by admitting he doesn’t know who she means.
“Detective Inspector Sanderson,” she explains at last. “I was told at his station that he’d be here.”
Jack shakes his head. “Everyone’s at the footy match. There’s no-one here but me. And a couple of drunks down in the cells who got a bit excited ahead of time about the game.”
“Oh. Who’s playing?”
“Collingwood versus Carlton,” he replies, trying to keep the disdain out of his voice. There’s no knowing which team she’s supports, so perhaps it’s better to keep his own allegiance to Abbotsford under wraps for now. She could turn out to be a Collingwood fan, after all. (She’s very pretty, but no-one is that pretty.)
“He wouldn’t be there, then. He’s a West Melbourne supporter.”
Jack nods. At least she only said her father was. And either way, West Melbourne isn’t quite as bad as Collingwood. It’s close, but not quite.
“I don’t suppose it matters anyway,” the woman says, smiling as she puts her pocket watch on the counter. “I think I found what I was looking for.”
Jack picks it up with fingers that tremble slightly. It snaps open and he looks at the hands, stopped at 7.48, the minute she walked through the door. He looks up at her.
“I was worried I’d come here and find someone horrible.”
He grins. “You don’t know, I could be horrible.”
She grins back. “You could. But you aren’t.”
She sounds so sure, and he feels terrible as he finally pulls out his own pocket watch and hands it to her. “Maybe I am.”
Even before she opens it, he knows she can feel it still ticking away, but the smile stays frozen on her face until she actually sees the hands that are still moving. “Oh.”
He shrugs apologetically, not really sure what to do. He always thought the whole thing was stupid and a bit unsettling, really, but also mostly an abstract since his is counting down to a date nearly two decades in the future.
But now here’s this young woman, Inspector Sanderson’s daughter, with a watch that must absolutely have been counting down until she met him, and she’s very pretty, and he really likes it when she smiles, and she’s still looking at him with just a glimmer of hope.
“There’s definitely no-one else here,” he says, his fingers playing with the chain of her watch.
She bites her lip, considering this. “Maybe yours is broken?”
He nods. “Maybe. I’m Jack.”
She smiles again, and he smiles back automatically. “Rosie. It’s nice to meet you.”
*
1928
Jack reaches into the breast pocket of his waistcoat and pulls out his pocket watch, the metal now cold and heavy in his hand after its sudden, unexpected burst of warmth this morning. With a practiced flick of his thumb he unfastens the lid and it springs open with a smoothness that seems unlikely considering the age of the thing and the lack of care he has shown it recently.
He wears it every day, of course, just as everyone else does, but the watch stopped more than a decade ago, when he and Rosie married. Still not at zero, the thing nevertheless appeared to give up, admitting defeat in the face of their defiance. It had felt like a victory at the time. (They had finally decided to ignore the inconsistency of their mismatched watches, youth and attraction making up for what Fate would not provide and for a short while everything had been wonderful.
And it hardly seems fair to blame a war on a faulty pocket watch, as if those four years had only happened to clear up this imbalance in the Universe they had created. Especially since he returned, alive and well enough to let Rosie live to regret the choice they made.)
The watch is ticking along merrily now, counting down not years and months as it did before, but hours. If this thing is to be believed - and Jack’s whole life he has been told that it must be - he is exactly four hours and thirty-nine minutes away from meeting his soulmate.
As there are seven hours and forty-three minutes left of his shift, he wonders if it’ll turn out to be a murder victim - or perhaps the murderer. It’s not as if this system is set up to be in any way reasonable or practical, after all. He could send the woman he is destined to have spent his life with to the gallows.
Shaking his head, he returns to his paperwork. Four hours and thirty-eight minutes is plenty of time to get through these reports.
Three hours and fifty-eight minutes is as much time as he’s allowed for his paperwork before he hears the sound of the telephone ringing and then Constable Collins - looking foolishly excited and clutching his pocket watch - appears in the doorway. “Sorry, Sir, but there’s been a murder.”
Jack gets out of his chair, closing the folder he was reading as he rises. He nods at Collins’ pocket watch. “Today, then?” He knows this, of course, but somehow he must’ve forgotten. The kid has been counting down the days for weeks. Jack offered him the day off, so he could run into what will hopefully turn out to be a sweet and lovely girl having lunch in the park or somewhere equally appropriate, but Collins had seemed terrified by the prospect. As if changing his plans would somehow alter the course of his destiny. The point that if he were given the day off then that was his destiny seemed too subtle and so Jack didn’t waste his time making it.
“Yes, Sir. Just thirty-five minutes left.” The constable’s eyes sparkle.
Jack has a worrying thought and gets out his own pocket watch. Thirty-seven. Phew. Although, he met Collins several months ago, it wouldn’t really count, would it?
*
When they arrive at the crime scene Collins is practically bouncing in his seat, jumping out of the car before Jack has parked properly.
“Sorry, Sir.”
Jack smiles faintly and shakes his head with what he hopes looks like indulgence.
“One minute.”
“You’d best hope it’s not the victim, then,” Jack jokes.
Constable Collins’ face falls. “Do you think that could happen?”
“Who knows, Collins? Probably not.” No need to mention Constable Robins, who came upon a crime scene just as a young woman exhaled her last breath, their pocket watches both ticking towards zero as he crouched down to hold her hand as he died.
No need to bring up the possibility of Collins coming face to face with the murderer in thirty seconds.
“You’d best get inside, young man.”
Collins nods and walks up to the house as Jack adjusts his hat before following. He looks up just in time to see a young woman in a maid’s uniform opening the door. She should probably be inviting them in, but instead she’s staring at Collins and clutching at her necklace, a pocket watch dangling from her other hand.
Jack smiles to himself. Probably Catholic. Have fun explaining that one to the parents, kids. With a nod to the maid - still staring at Collins with a look of adoration Jack finds slightly unnerving if he’s honest: they only just met, and it’s only a damned watch - Jack steps around them and into the house.
“All I’m saying is, just don’t… meddle,” a woman says drily from the parlour off to his left as he enters the hallway.
“I don’t meddle, Mac,” another woman replies. “And I’d resent that remark if I weren’t too preoccupied looking at this really rather interesting--”
“I hope you’re not disturbing a crime scene, miss,” Jack says, having made it to the doorway and found the woman who insists she’s not meddling, meddling with his crime scene.
“No more than it’s disturbing me,” she retorts, a smirk on her face. She doesn’t look particularly disturbed to Jack, so he assumes she must be referring to her interrupted luncheon. “And who might you be?”
“Detective Inspector Robinson,” Jack says, feeling his pocket watch heat up in his pocket. It’s done counting down.
“Detective Inspector?” the woman says, amused. “How interesting. This is my friend Mac.”
The woman points to her friend, who is standing by the fireplace across the room, a pocket watch in her hand and a frown on her face.