Roses

Rating: K+

Author: Firebird 9

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Except for the time when she had broken her leg he had never bought her flowers, not even after they became lovers, but the roses had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, standing on her doorstep, he wasn't so certain. Of course, most women appreciated receiving flowers from their husbands and sweethearts occasionally – Rosie had, before everything had gone wrong – but Phryne Fisher wasn't most women. Still, it was a bit late now: he could hardly throw them in the bushes and hope that she wouldn't notice.

"Roses, Jack?" were the first words out of her mouth, even before he'd had time to hang his coat and hat. She was smiling, he noticed, but it wasn't a particularly comforting expression. There was something in that smile that made him think that roses really hadn't been a good idea, and maybe he should have thrown them into the bushes after all. Not that he was going to admit that at this point, although he was beginning to get the distinct impression that, for some reason, he might just be in trouble here.

"Roses, Phryne," he tilted his chin up slightly in challenge: hardly the usual attitude of a man bringing flowers to his lover, but, again, this was hardly a usual relationship. "I thought you might like them."

"Hmm." She gave him a penetrating look as she accepted the flowers, raising them briefly to her nose to sniff before returning that unsettling gaze to him. "Alright, what did you do?"

"Do?" he repeated. And then, like an idiot, "I brought you flowers."

"Jack. There are only three reasons why a man buys his lover flowers. One is because it's her birthday or an anniversary, and he's only remembered at the last minute. Two is because he's trying to get her to the altar or into bed. And three is because he's done something that he knows he shouldn't have done and is hoping flowers will achieve some measure of appeasement. I know perfectly well that it isn't one, and as for number two I've already gotten you into bed and I'm fairly sure you're smart enough to realise that it would take a lot more than flowers to get me to the altar – like wild horses, for example – and that, by process of elimination, leaves number three." She leaned closer to him. "A guilty conscience. So you might as well confess."

Ah, so that was it. He nodded to himself. Well, she didn't seem particularly angry. Suspicious, yes, amused and a little annoyed, but not actually angry, so he supposed it could be worse. It also meant he could have a little fun with her.

"You forgot reason number four," he told her as he took off his coat and hat.

"And that is?"

"That he's in love with the most amazing, intelligent, thoroughly irritating woman he's ever met." From the look on her face she didn't know whether to be pleased or angry at that. "And," he continued after he had given her a moment to stew, reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, "that he needed a certain flower-seller to give him information pertinent to a case he and said amazing, intelligent-"

"-thoroughly irritating-"

"-thoroughly irritating woman are working on." He flipped open his notepad and held it out to her. "According to her, our suspects are dining at a nearby restaurant at eight o'clock tonight. I've already made us a reservation."

She considered this for a moment, and then her smile softened and she stepped forward to kiss him. "Information on a murder case. Now that is a romantic gift."

"Better than roses and dinner?" he smiled.

"Oh, yes."

As she turned away to get ready he shook his head. Phryne Fisher really wasn't like most women - and he couldn't have been happier about it.

'The time she had broken her leg,' you ask? That would be my second MFMM fanfic, 'All Fun And Games Until Somebody Breaks a Leg', posted October 11, 2013.