A/N: Another M-rated 'Lovejoy' fic. I'm not even sorry.

This is a 'What Should Have Happened' rendition of 'The Real Thing', because the world needs more Lovejoy/Jane to be complete. However, a fair warning—not a happy story, this. (And not one to read at work/school, either.)

Reviews are very much welcome.

Better Than The Real Thing

He waited, holding his breath, counting the minutes that seemed to crawl past him excruciatingly slow. Has Jane fallen asleep already? Was it safe yet? He didn't have that much time, that is—if he had any time at all…

Sighing, he decided to take the risk, and slipped out of his room, tiptoeing across the hall towards the stairs. He took on step down…

"Feeling rested already, Lovejoy?"

…busted. "Janie."

She stood in her room doorway, holding a toothbrush and sporting a rather amused smile. There was a smudge of toothpaste on her left cheek. Lovejoy thought she looked absolutely adorable.

Except for the 'I-know-you're-up-to-something-and-I'm-about-to-find-out' look.

And now he was running out of time. And he really, really wanted to pull this one off… so he did the only thing he could.

He told her everything.

"No need for secrecy, Tink. Jane says we can borrow the Dufy."

The older man raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "I hope you thanked her properly. She's being too kind to you, you know."

"I know. And I will make it up to her…"

"Has he gone?" Jane was sitting on the living room sofa in her nightgown, a thick, velvety blanket wrapped around her legs and a glass of whiskey in her hand. Seeing that none of them was actually sleepy, they decided to skip the pretence and finish their nightcap.

"Yep. Packed the thing all nice and tidy. He should be back before seven.

"Good," Jane nodded, giving Lovejoy a hard, piercing look. She should have looked more… unassuming without her makeup and fancy clothes, with hair in complete disarray and eyes slightly glazed from the alcohol she'd imbibed, but she didn't.

In fact, if anyone bothered to ask for Lovejoy's opinion on the matter, he'd tell them she looked absolutely stunning.

There was no one around, though—and he believed it to be one of the great advantages of the evening. Here he was, alone with Jane, in a quiet house in the middle of the night, both of them in their nightclothes and nursing drinks… This was as close to fulfilling one of Lovejoy's many dreams regarding his red-haired companion as possible.

He must have drifted away into his fantasies, for next thing he knew Jane was punching his shoulder, frowning. "Lovejoy? Perhaps you really should go to bed?"

Now that's an idea. "Are you by any chance offering to help me up, Janie?"

Lady Felsham rolled her eyes and put her empty glass on the table, but didn't protest as Lovejoy hurried to refill it. "Why do you always have to make a pass at me, Lovejoy? Can't you just put the matter to rest?"

"What, give up? Never, Jane, not me! I shall be pestering you until you give in to my masculine wiles."

"Funny that you should mention 'pestering' and 'wiles' in the same sentence…"

He rolled his eyes. "It's all a question of perspective, Jane. But the fact remains—" he reached out and took her hand, brushing his thumb against the underside of her wrist, "—we have something going on here. Something beautiful. Something real. It would be a great shame to waste it."

She wouldn't meet his eyes. "How can you be so sure?" she whispered, staring into her glass. "Is that a divvy thing?"

"I'd rather think it's a heart thing. You said it yourself: I'm a hopeless romantic."

"One of the dying breed," she smiled fondly, remembering (as he was) their first meeting, and the champagne they shared in the attic of Felsham Hall.

She'd stunned him, captivated him, drew the air from his lungs, affected him far more than the bubbles had: and as much as he might have tried to deny it, the feeling did not fade in the slightest throughout the course of their acquaintance. "But not completely dead yet," he quipped, still tracing patterns on her skin with the pad of his thumb.

"Oh, no, not dead at all." She finally looked up at him, her eyes dark with an emotion he didn't quite recognize. "So it's romance you want from me, is it, Lovejoy?"

Something very important depended on his answer to this question, that much was clear. "It is, Jane."

"And how would you define 'romance', pray?" She shifted on the sofa, angling her body his way and moving the hand he held so that her cool fingertips pressed gently against his pulse point. Something changed in the air between them, as if an additional electric charge had been released into it, making Lovejoy's skin tingle. Perhaps it was just Jane's touch that did that to him.

"Oh, Janie, I'm so glad you asked," he grinned at her and put his arm over the back of the sofa, his hand resting next to her bent arm, almost, but not quite, touching.

"I believe that romance could be best explained by the way we feel when we're together," his forefinger brushed the inside of her elbow, "drinking whiskey and simply looking at one another. Or by the way you forgive me for doing some incredibly stupid things—"

"Like attempting to sneak a painting out of my house?"

Or removing a spiral staircase from under Charlie Gimbert's nose. "Yes, like that." Was he imagining things, or did Jane actually lean into his touch? Perhaps he has been doing something right for a change.

"Romance is the way I think when I find a piece of antique jewellery in my possession, and imagine how it would look on you. Not clothes, though; they inspire a slightly different reaction…"

"I bet," Jane rolled her eyes, but didn't move away. "This is all very nice, Lovejoy, but I still don't quite understand one little thing."

He raised his eyebrows expectantly. "And whatever might that be, milady?"

"Why me?"

He blinked and leaned back, taking her in: a cluster of freckles on her nose and cheeks, the way she pressed her lips together as she looked at him with… could it be hope he detected in her eyes?

"Why me, Lovejoy?" she repeated, squeezing his wrist a little harder. "Because I'm married, rather old-fashioned about it, and therefore a challenge to your 'craft'? Or because you know deep down in your heart that you wouldn't have to have an actual relationship with me? We both know you're not the domestic type, Lovejoy. And with me… you could have a bit of fun and move on."

It hurt that she would think of him that way—and yet he understood very well where it came from, and couldn't blame her for feeling the way she did. "Jane, you must never doubt the genuineness of my words, or my feelings for you. I can't explain it. I wish it was different, believe me—I'm no good when it comes to the real, important things; forgery usually seems a better option, a safer and quicker way to play if you don't want to put everything you've got on the table."

"I thought the genuineness, to quote your own expression, was precisely what you were looking for in antiques?"

"Antiques, yes. Human relations… not so much."

This came as close to a confession as it possibly could, and they both knew it.

Jane raised her free hand and cupped his jaw gently, the pad of her thumb resting just below his lips. "I'm not sure what you want me to say now, Lovejoy. A part of you clearly wishes that I surrendered myself to you—and yet something tells me you'd be quite terrified if I did."

Was she actually contemplating doing it? "Whatever there is on your mind, Janie, tell me. The truth—always the truth."

She sighed and shook her head, awed by the turn of their conversation. "Sometimes… Sometimes I feel that this—" she brushed her thumb across his lips, making them tingle, "is the only real thing I've got.

"And then I think about what it actually means, what is says about me, about my work, my marriage—and I wish Eric had never placed that stupid ad under my name."

It broke his heart a little, hearing her say that: but if that was the truth, her truth, then he would have had it told to him again and again, as often as she needed. "I'm actually quite happy that he did."

"You would be. It's not your life shifting its entire gravity from one place to another."

"I know. And I would have walked away, unwillingly, but still, if I knew that was what you wanted. Is it, Jane? Do you want me out of your hair?"

She shook her head slowly, looking him straight in the eye. "I want to know, Lovejoy—I want to be sure what I should do."

"Jane, I can't make your mind up for you. I can give you the arguments, the facts and figures, if you will: but it's up to you, and you alone."

"Arguments?" she repeated, sliding her hand to the back of his neck, pulling him closer as he leaned into her willingly, "What arguments?..."

He couldn't remember when, if ever, did he carry a woman into a bedroom. He didn't want to remember any women, not after this night.

She felt like silk, and infinitely better than that, soft and warm, delicate and responsive, making his head spin as she kissed him, deep and slow, hands grasping his hair when he nibbled at her lower lip, tighten his arms around her back, fingers playing with the hem of her nightdress.

"You're like a furnace," she moaned into his ear as he kissed his way down her neck, and lower still, following his hands that reverently touched and uncovered new expanses of white, flawless skin. He wanted to respond with some cliché ('It's all for you, darling!'), but thought better of it. This was no random woman he picked up in a bar, knowing very well he wouldn't even remember her name by midday.

This was Jane.

And how he could have ever existed without the smell, taste and feel of her, he didn't know.

He hoped that, whatever happened in the morning, this night would be special for both of them. If it was to be the only time… the only moment of true closeness, skin on skin and sharing the same air, he would make every second of it count.

"Lovejoy, you tease," she breathed in his ear when his fingers found their way to the place he wished to touch, and taste, over and over again; touched her, but retreated.

"Talk about a furnace," he murmured into her hair, hovering over her, inhaling the scent of her sweat. "You're on fire, Janie."

"And whose fault is that, exactly?" Her fingernails scratched a long, burning trail down his back, over to his hips, and he groaned as her hands closed over him. "I don't appreciate being kept waiting, Lovejoy."

"Always at your service, milady," he deadpanned and all too eagerly replaced his hand with an entirely different limb, marvelling at the way she threw her head back and moaned, stretching and tightening around him at the same time.

He latched his lips to her collarbone and sighed deeply, stilling himself, until she wrapped one leg around his hips and urged him to move—he hadn't taken her horse riding experience into account at first, but now, as he complied to her wishes, he thanked every deity known to man for it.

He covered her hands with his as she reached up and grabbed at the headboard; he kissed her forehead, nuzzled at her temple. "Jane," his voice was hoarse, thick, his breath coming out in heavy gasps. "Janie, love, look at me."

She opened her eyes, dark and clouded with passion, and freed one hand from his grasp to touch his cheek, press a fingertip against his mouth. He caught it with his lips, twirled his tongue around the tip.

"Lovejoy. Lovejoy…"

"I'm here," he whispered, kissing her palm, and lowered his forehead to her. "I'll always be here."

She screamed.

She was in his arms when he woke up a few hours later, her fingers trailing patterns on the back of his hand as it rested between her breasts. Her hair tickled his nose, so he moved his head, kissing the tip of her left ear.

"Sleep well?" she asked, and he could hear a smile in her voice—a smile and a need.

So he held her a little tighter against his chest, and gave himself to her in the way he knew best.

And she accepted him for what he was.

Next time he woke up, she was sitting up, wrapped in a sheet and caressing his hair. "Tinker should be here any minute now," she said, and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "I'll go and take a shower before he gets here."

He stretched, feeling his muscles pull and protest happily after last night's 'exercises', and listened to the sound of water running, imagining what his life would be like if every one of his mornings looked like this.

He wanted Jane to feel special, and not to regret anything about last night, so he put a robe on and walked barefoot into the kitchen, settling himself at fixing breakfast before Tinker arrived.

As he waited for the coffee to brew, his eyes rested on Jane's notebook, opened on this week's page: all days cluttered with notes, appointments and phone numbers jotted down in her sleek, tidy hand. Alexander's name was the one that appeared most often.

He spotted a lonely "L.", undoubtedly standing for his name, not more than twice.

Lovejoy leaned forward on his arms and stared off into the space outside the window. Jane's life was in that notebook: her real life, complete with friends, business partners and purpose. True, it might have lacked the heat and the flare they shared, but it was stable, reliable, and constant: everything that he himself was not.

And as much as he wished it otherwise, Jane was bound to see it, once the night-time musings had been chased away by the bright light of day.

By the time the eggs were ready, he had manage to convince himself that they would probably never be together, no matter how wonderful and important last night was.

Relationships, Lovejoy thought, were very much like antiques in certain ways.

Sometimes you simply couldn't afford the real thing.

The End