Author's note: this is a one-chapter story that could be inserted at any point in season 2. It's just a bit of fluff, something that popped into my head and just begged to be written down. It's probably not up to my usual standards, but you might still enjoy it, so here it is. It may not amount to much, but at least I had a lot of fun writing it :)
The first thing he became aware of was considerable pain near his left temple. The second was that he was unable to move his arms. The third was the smell of French perfume.
He carefully opened his eyes and the face of Miss Fisher appeared, only inches away from his, looking at him with an unusually solicitous expression.
'Jack? Are you alright?'
'Yes', he grunted, then quickly shut his eyes again at the pain in his head.
'You don't look alright.'
'I'm fine,' he replied curtly, taking deep breaths until the pain receded to a mild throbbing. He opened his eyes again, but everything was a little hazy. 'What happened?' He tried again to move his arms, but found that he couldn't.
'Don't struggle. It's no use, and I think you shouldn't move too much right now. You might well have a concussion.'
'I told you, I'm fine.' He blinked and the room swam into focus. It was almost bare, except for a washbasin in the corner, a small cabinet, and… he turned his head to see Phryne sitting next to him on the wooden floor, handcuffed to the bars at the back end of an iron bedstead. A moment later, he realized that he was tied to it as well.
'What the…?'
'Our captors were quite careful. We're completely stuck.'
He turned his head to the right, and saw that his right hand was tied with rope to one of the iron bars of the bed. He tried an experimental wriggle, but the knot was expertly tied. Then he turned his head left, and his eyes opened wide in alarm. His left wrist was handcuffed… and not just to the bed, but to Miss Fisher's right hand. The cuffs passed behind an iron bar and linked their hands together. He looked at her, speechless, and saw to his amazement that she was smiling at him, albeit a little wryly.
'Well Inspector, I must admit that I had thought that, if I were ever to be cuffed to a bed with you, it would be under different circumstances.'
He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably. As usual when she made innuendos like this, he felt it was wiser to ignore her, though the corners of his mouth turned down as he suppressed a smile. He leaned forward so he could see her left hand. It was cuffed to the other side of the bed. He frowned.
'What happened?'
The last thing he remembered was entering the abandoned house with Miss Fisher… quietly climbing the staircase… opening the door to one of the bedrooms… then everything went black.
'It was Cooper,' Phryne said bitterly. 'He was in on the operation, apparently. He stood waiting behind the door, and knocked you down when you came in.'
'Cooper… you mean Sergeant Cooper, of City South?'
'Yes. I'm sorry, Jack. I know it's hard to hear.'
But Jack was busily putting two and two together. For the first time, everything seemed to make sense in this confusing case, where they had been chasing two bank robbers who had shot someone during a robbery, then disappeared without a trace.
'So that's why they were always one step ahead of us. They were tipped off by one of our own.'
'Exactly.'
'I wouldn't have believed it of Cooper…'
'He must have been promised a third of the money. People have been corrupted for less.'
Jack was thinking again. 'What happened after I was knocked out?'
'Cooper pointed his gun at me. I didn't even have a chance to pull my own. Then he and his colleagues tied us to the bed, as you can see. They used your handcuffs,' she rattled her left hand, 'and his,' indicating the pair that bound their wrists together, 'then used a piece of rope for your other hand.'
Jack frowned. 'I don't understand. Why didn't they just shoot us and be done with it?'
'That was Cooper's doing. The others were all for it, but he argued that they were leaving the country in a few hours, anyway, so it didn't matter. He said that he didn't want more blood on his hands. It's thanks to him that we're still alive.'
'A couple of hours, you said?'
'Yes, they were headed for the docks, where a boat would be waiting for them to sail just after dark.'
Jack squinted at the windows, trying to judge how late it was.
'How long have I been out?'
'Only about twenty minutes. Jack, we could still catch them!'
He lifted a sarcastic eyebrow. 'In case you hadn't noticed, Miss Fisher, we are tied to a bed. How do you propose we go after them, exactly?'
'Don't be so pessimistic, Jack. I'm sure we can get ourselves free.'
'Really? How?'
She grinned at him. 'I have the key to your handcuffs.'
He looked at her, impressed. 'Where did you get that?'
'It slipped out of your pocket when you fell, and I managed to secure it. The only problem is, I can't reach it.'
He sighed, tugging again at the rope binding his right hand to a corner of the bed. That was the obvious weak spot, but he couldn't move the rope an inch, and he couldn't reach the knot with his fingers or teeth. He felt a tug on his left wrist, and he turned to find Phryne examining the construction of the bed. It was a rectangular frame, constructed of vertical iron bars, with one extra bar curving up over it, running horizontally. Phryne's cuffs were attached to the horizontal bar.
'Jack,' she said , 'Look. That bar runs all the way along the top of the frame. If I can just reach up high enough, I could slide, cuffs and all, all the way over to the other side, and then I'll only be inches away from your corner.'
She strained upwards, sliding the cuff along the outer bar of the frame. 'Yes! It's working!' She suddenly flashed him a grin, eyes sparkling. 'I'm sorry, Jack, there's no other way.'
Before he knew what was happening, she was on top of him, straddling him so she could slide the cuffs all the way to the end corner of the bed, where his hand was tied. He gasped in surprise and quickly looked away from her décolletage, which was now right at eye level and only inches from his face. He swallowed. She was much, much too close, leaning against his chest as she slowly worked on the knot with one hand, and her perfume filled his head until he felt dizzy. He tried very much to focus on something else, anything else, that crack in the wall for example, yes, that looked exceedingly interesting.
'Jack.'
'What?' He looked up, and her face was so close to his, he felt immobilized for an instant, breathless as their eyes locked. He could see her momentary confusion, but she quickly regained her composure.
'Pull, please. I think it's loose enough.'
He tugged on the rope, and sure enough, it slid off and his hand was free. She grinned at him triumphantly. 'There! Now you can get the key and open the handcuffs.'
'Yes. Could you… get off me first?'
She raised a suggestive eyebrow at him, but then obligingly trailed her cuffed hand back along the frame to the other side of the bed as she slipped off his lap to sit beside him again. He took a moment, ostentatiously straightening his clothes, until he felt he could look her in the eye again.
'So… where's that key?'
'Well, I knew they would search me, so I put it somewhere they wouldn't look. And it worked.'
He frowned apprehensively as his eyes involuntarily roamed down her body, looking for possible hiding places. 'Please don't tell me I'm going to have to get it from your garter?'
Her eyes sparkled mischievously as she suppressed a smile. 'I'm afraid it's even worse than that. I had to be as inconspicuous as possible, so…' She looked down at the neckline of her blouse, and he groaned inwardly. She grinned at him, completely unembarrassed. 'On the left. So be a dear and get it out for me.'
Why? he found himself thinking desperately, trying to mask his confusion with a scowl.
'You couldn't have put it anywhere else?'
'Now you may have about a dozen pockets in your jacket, coat and pants, Inspector, but I'm wearing a skirt,' she pointed out.
He still hesitated, and she looked at him, amused. 'Don't worry Jack, I won't tell anyone. Your reputation will remain untarnished.'
He threw her an annoyed look, then felt that he couldn't postpone it any longer. There was no other option. He took a deep breath and reached over with his freed hand to the edge of her silk blouse, where he hovered for a moment, his mouth dry, before making contact with her skin. He quickly averted his eyes as his fingers slid underneath the fabric and lifted it slightly. An instant later, a sudden gasp of surprise on her part made him withdraw his hand like he'd touched something hot, and he didn't know where to look when she started laughing.
'I know you're trying to be a gentleman, Inspector, and I do appreciate that, but I think it might be best if you looked where you were going.' She sounded highly amused, but he felt himself go red nonetheless. Then he steeled himself and forced his eyes upwards to meet hers with a perfectly composed expression.
'I'll be more careful this time.'
She winked at him. 'If you insist.'
He felt himself flush again, but made a brave attempt at his sternest look. 'We're in a serious situation, Miss Fisher. This isn't funny.'
'I can't say I agree with that,' she grinned.
He sighed, and braced himself for a second attempt at retrieving the key. This time, he did not look away as he carefully slid his hand underneath her blouse, and he managed to keep a deadpan expression as his fingers touched soft fabric over even softer flesh, following the gentle curve of a breast to her left side, as she instructed him, until he found the key, and fished it out with a silent sigh of relief. He felt his calm return as he leaned over her to unlock the handcuffs tying her left hand to the bed.
'Thank you,' she smiled as the cuffs clunked to the floor. 'Now unlock the other one and we'll be free to go after our robbers. We might still be able to catch them.'
He tried the key in the lock of Cooper's handcuffs, and frowned.
'Uhm…'
She raised an eyebrow. 'Please tell me that's a good uhm.'
'No. It doesn't fit.'
'What do you mean, it doesn't fit?'
'Cooper must have used a newer issue of cuffs. My key doesn't fit in the lock.'
She looked annoyed. 'What, so we'll just have to stay stuck to the bed until somebody wanders in and finds us?'
But Jack was examining the bar behind which they were stuck. 'Maybe not. This is quite an old frame, look…'
'It's rusty.'
'Yes. Maybe we can wrench it loose.'
It took them a while, but finally their joint efforts paid off, and with an awful screeching sound, the bar broke loose from the rest of the frame, and they were free. They stood up clumsily, hampered by the fact that…
'We're still tied together,' Phryne remarked drily.
'And we're going to stay that way for a while, unless you happen to have a bolt cutter under your blouse as well.'
'Not today. Can't we break the chain with something else?'
They looked around the room, which was entirely devoid of bolt cutters or other tools.
'Let's take a look in the cabinet,' Phryne said, marching towards it and pulling Jack with her so suddenly he staggered. It was empty. 'Well, let's see if we can get out of here and find something useful in the rest of the house.' She was already halfway across the room when she said it, again pulling Jack after her. He caught her wrist and stopped her with a scowl.
'Will you stop yanking me around? We're stuck together, in case you hadn't noticed,' he shook his wrist for emphasis, and the chain tinkled.
'Keep up, then.'
'I can't read your mind, Miss Fisher. Feel free to communicate, though.'
She rolled her eyes impatiently, and he continued: 'You can be all impulsive and independent again the moment we get these things off, but until then, you're going to have to cooperate.'
'Jack?'
'Yes?'
'I'd like to go to the door now.'
'And I'm happy to escort you there.'
He tried the door handle. 'It's locked. I'll need to break it down. Stand aside.'
She raised an eyebrow. 'How? I can literally not stand more than an arm's length from you.'
'Well, then… go and stand at an arm's length.'
But he soon noticed that it was very difficult to break down a door when attached to another person. He didn't have enough room to maneuver without pulling her along. Moreover, the door wouldn't budge. He knelt down and peered through the keyhole.
'I think they've blocked the door from the outside. They must have dragged something in front of it.' He looked up at her. 'I don't think I'll be able to force it open.'
She frowned, but did not seem discouraged. 'The window,' she said, and waited for him to get up so they could cross the room together.
The window was locked, too.
'I could break it,' Jack said pensively, 'but it's too high to jump.'
Phryne looked at the bare mattress on the bed. 'And we don't have any sheets to make a rope. Could we call for help?'
'We're looking out on a courtyard. I don't see anyone down there. And remember how abandoned the alley was when we came down it? Nobody will hear us.'
They looked at each other in dismay.
'So what do we do now?' Phryne asked.
Jack sighed. 'I suppose… we wait for someone to find us.'
They were silent for a moment, neither of them willing to voice the question of what would happen if nobody found them in time. After all, they had not told anyone exactly where they were going.
After a while, Jack roused himself and touched Phryne on the arm.
'Let's at least go and look if there's still water coming from that tap. We're going to last much longer if we have something to drink.'
'I'd rather have something stronger to drink than water,' she muttered, but she followed him meekly.
He turned on the tap, and after some initial spluttering, water came pouring out, much to Jack's relief. They took turns drinking from their cupped hands. Then Phryne took out her handkerchief and held it under the tap.
'Let me clean you up a bit.'
'I'm sorry?'
'Your head. That was a nasty blow Cooper gave you.'
Jack gingerly touched the tender spot near his left temple, and his fingers came away bloody. He frowned. 'How bad is it?'
'Not too bad, I think, but let me wash away the blood.'
He stood still as she carefully cleaned the wound, and he was surprised at how gentle she was, taking care not to hurt him. He studied her face while she was absorbed in her work, and privately thought that there were worse people to be stuck in a room with. Though he was careful not to tell her that. He would never hear the end of it.
'There,' she smiled after a while. 'I'm not Mac, but I think it looks a lot better now.'
'Thank you.' He looked around. 'Shall we sit down?'
They went and sat on the bed together, but Phryne was too restless to remain stationary for long. She stood up and started pacing next to the bed, though she couldn't do much more than pivot in a half-circle around the spot where Jack was sitting. He patiently lent her his arm to drag along so she had more room to move, realizing how hard it must be for her to be cooped up with nothing to do. After a while, though, he grew weary of the repetitive motion, and he really wanted his arm back. He tugged slightly at her wrist and she stopped to look at him.
'Will you sit down, please? You're wearing a groove in the floorboards.'
'What do you care about the floorboards?'
'I was being polite. You're annoying me.'
She sat down heavily on the bed beside him. 'Fine. Entertain me.'
He lifted his eyebrows. 'Excuse me?'
'I'm bored out of my mind, Jack. There's no greater torture for me than to have nothing to do. Distract me. Please.'
He frowned. 'What do you have in mind, exactly?'
He suddenly realized that that was not the right question to ask Miss Fisher, as a mischievous expression suddenly appeared on her face, as she looked at him speculatively, biting her lip. He carefully inched away from her, and she laughed and threw herself back onto the mattress with a sigh.
'Talk to me, Jack,' she said softly, staring up at the ceiling.
'About what?'
'Anything. Anything you like. Just the sound of your voice…'
He hesitated, not knowing what to say. Then he remembered how much she had liked the story he had told her about his first bicycle. So he started talking, haltingly at first, then more easily, about things he had done as a boy, childhood adventures and boyish scrapes he had gotten into. He didn't look at her. Before he knew quite how it happened, he was telling her about his parents, the house he grew up in, the dreams he had when he was young. She was lying completely still beside him, and he thought that she might have fallen asleep, but when he glanced at her from the corner of his eye, he saw that she was listening intently, a soft smile on her face. It confused him, and he stumbled to a halt.
'Your turn to talk, Miss Fisher.'
She didn't reply, but he thought that he felt her fingers brush his hand. A moment later, he was sure that he had imagined it.
It was growing dark outside as they went to look, yet again, out the window. There was still no one to be seen outside. They stood waiting, watching out and talking softly, until they knew it was too late in the evening for passers-by. A full moon shone in, so the room was not completely dark, for which Jack was grateful.
'Shall we just go to bed then?' he suggested after a while.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, despite the fact that they were hungry and cold, the ghost of a smile appeared on Phryne's lips. 'Why Jack, I thought you'd never ask.'
'Glad to see you're keeping your spirits up,' he remarked drily. Then he noticed that she was shivering in her light blouse and skirt. 'Are you cold?'
'Not very,' she said, but he could see that she was lying.
'You can have my coat.'
'How? You can't take it off your left arm.'
He thought for a moment. 'Take my hand.' She looked at him in surprise. 'Just do it,' he urged her, and they grasped the hands that were linked by the cuffs. He then shook his coat off his right arm and let it slide down his left arm to the point where their hands met. There, he turned it inside out, so she could pull it upwards along her own arm and over her shoulders. It smelled of him, still warm from his body heat, and she huddled in it gratefully. He smiled when he saw her standing there, nearly disappearing in his inside-out coat.
'Better?'
'Much, thank you.'
They climbed onto the mattress and lay down, Jack a little awkwardly, Phryne with a continual half-smile playing around the corners of her mouth. The cuffs restricted them in their options: they could either face each other or lie on their backs, and Jack firmly opted for the second position.
'Goodnight, Jack,' came her soft voice from beside him.
He simply didn't dare to look at her. 'Goodnight Miss Fisher.'
For a long time after she had fallen asleep, he lay staring at the ceiling, listening to her breath. Finally, he turned his head a fraction to glance at her, and was struck by the sight of her face, illuminated softly by the moonlight, making the skin even more flawlessly alabaster than usual. But it was her expression that captivated him; the calm serenity where usually there was some form of mischief or amusement in her features. It made him realize that she was more than her outward appearance, that there must be more to her than the airy, happy-go-lucky ways she displayed daily to the outside world. There must be moments when she was calm and sweet and tender, he just hadn't often had the privilege of seeing her that way. He quickly turned away again, feeling that he was intruding on something private, and berating himself sternly for staring at her as she slept.
As if she had felt his gaze, she stirred in her sleep, then rolled over onto her other side, pulling his arm with her. The sudden tug took him by surprise, and he found himself in a very awkward position, with his arm bent at an uncomfortable angle. He gently tried to pull her back, but when she took hold of his arm and hugged it to her chest, he simply couldn't bring himself to wake her. He sighed resignedly and shifted closer to her so he was slightly less uncomfortable. After a while, he drifted off into sleep.
Even before he opened his eyes, he realized that something was… off. Still sluggish with sleep, his brain tried to determine what it was. He didn't have a blanket. Yes, but that was not it. He was lying next to something warm and soft, and that was decidedly unusual. Confused, he opened his eyes, then raised his eyebrows in alarm as he looked straight into the face of Miss Fisher, still soundly asleep. For a moment, his brain worked furiously to try and remember how she had ended up in his bed, then the events of the previous day came back to him and he understood. At some point during the night, she had apparently rolled over to face him, and had cuddled close (for warmth, he presumed). What bothered him most, though, was that he had wrapped his arm around her and was holding her protectively. If she woke to find him like this, she would never let him live it down. He wondered if he would be able to lift his arm and roll onto his back before she noticed anything, but his first attempt to move made her stir. He froze, looking at her intently to see if she was waking up. A moment later, her blue eyes opened and looked straight into his. She didn't seem at all surprised to find him there, and smiled sleepily.
'Good morning, Jack.'
She made no attempt to move, she just looked up at him with that sweet smile, lying close to him as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and he felt himself unable, or unwilling, to move as he stared back at her, his mouth slightly open as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't. His brain seemed a vast, echoing space, empty except for one thought.
He bent his head closer, and she turned her face up to him…
A thundering crash outside their bedroom door made them both jump, and they hastily broke apart and sat up, as far away from each other as their linked hands would allow, while Jack diligently avoided eye contact.
'What was that?' Phryne whispered, eyeing the door suspiciously.
The question answered itself as a familiar voice rang out from the hallway.
'Sir? Miss Fisher? Are you in there?'
'Collins,' Jack sighed in relief, before calling out. 'Yes, we're in here!'
'I just pushed away a chest of drawers from in front of the door, but it's locked, too. Stand back, I'm going to break it down!' came Hugh's slightly muffled voice.
Jack grabbed Phryne's wrist and pulled her with him as he scrambled off the bed. The tenderness was gone now, and she seemed to have returned to her usual coquettish manner as she smiled at him teasingly.
'Not embarrassed to be found in bed with me, are you, Inspector?'
'No,' he lied smoothly, 'but we don't want to scandalize Collins.'
She looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. 'Hmm, no, we wouldn't want that.'
He wished that he could stand a little further from her scrutinizing gaze, but luckily Hugh managed to break through the door at that moment. His eyes grew round in astonishment at the sight of them standing there in the middle of the room, rumpled, tousled and handcuffed together, Phryne still wearing Jack's inside-out coat.
'Oh, I… uhm… ' he mumbled, half turning to the door again and retreating a pace or two. Jack firmly cut through his stuttering.
'Get back here, Collins. Thank you for opening the door. We've been stuck here since yesterday afternoon. How did you find us?'
Hugh seemed to forget his embarrassment as he glowed with suppressed pride. 'When you didn't return yesterday, sir, I figured something was wrong, especially when Dottie called to say Miss Fisher hadn't come home either. I thought this neighborhood would be the most likely place for a hide-out, so I drove around until I saw your car parked at the end of this alley. After that, it wasn't too hard to figure out where you were,' he finished modestly.
'Well done, Hugh!' Phryne complimented him, and he smiled shyly. 'Now take us to the station, please, so we can finally get these infernal handcuffs off.'
They transferred Jack's coat back onto his shoulders before leaving the room. In the car, they had to sit together in the back seat, much to Jack's dismay. Phryne kept throwing him glances that he pretended not to see. He simply didn't know how to cope. The intimate moment they had shared that morning kept intruding on his thoughts, and he was still stuck to her, when he wanted desperately to get away and think. It was all too much.
When they arrived at the station, he got out of the car with a feeling of relief. Hugh hurriedly went to look for the right key in a back room, and after he handed it to Jack, he tactfully retreated to leave them alone.
Jack smiled as he fit the key into the lock. 'Here you go, Miss Fisher. Free at last.' But as the cuffs clicked open and her hand was no longer next to his, all he could feel was a strange emptiness.
'Yes… I'm afraid handcuffs are quite ruined for me now,' she said as she rubbed her wrist, then looked up at him. 'Well, Inspector, that was a very… interesting experience. I'd better go home and tell Dot that I'm alright.'
'Yes. Yes, of course.'
He watched her go as she walked towards the door. Just before she went out, she looked back over her shoulder with a smile. 'But Jack? If I ever do have to be handcuffed to someone for an entire night again… I do hope it's you.'
And with a whip of her hair, she was gone, leaving him to shake his head with a slight smile as he carefully put the cuffs away. The smell of French perfume still lingered on his coat.