Thank you kind people who have left a review, I really appreciate it! I'm happy to hear there are a few readers out there for this alternate take on the story!

Lizzy is solving a case with science involved. Of course she has to ask her Doctor friend for help. Over the science experiment, and as he gives her a lift home, Phryne and Jack are getting to know each other better.

It seemed to Phryne her life had taken on a kind of habit again—despite Lizzy being back in it. The difference was that her habits outside work now were more fun, and included the impossibility to anticipate what would happen next. She only knew that every other week something unusual, engaging, probably dangerous, and sometimes not strictly legal was going to happen.

After the case at The Green Mill, they had a delightful nightcap at Lizzy's when—out of the blue—Inspector Robinson joined them. He seemed to have been in Lizzy's orbit as of late, and Phryne tilted her head at her friend, wondering if his was how it was going to be now—that a policeman might barge into their Wardlow evenings at any time. She supposed he was interesting enough to let it pass.

"Miss MacMillan. Doctor Fisher," he said and nodded to them in greeting.

The Inspector had great news, telling Lizzy how he'd secured both her guardianship of Jane and a way to free Charles from his impending doom. He had watched her as he'd said that, and Phryne felt something stir in her gut. The way he seemed to care about Lizzy and also, somehow—though she wasn't sure exactly why—about her.

He was quite handsome, she decided. There was an openness in his features that was very attractive. Then she stopped herself—this was Lizzy's colleague, not a man to seduce at her leisure. But when he commented on her fear of having to marry Charles that he had overheard, she couldn't help being curious about him anyway. It wasn't her fault, was it, when he showed an interest for her marrying habits?

"I appreciate the sentiment," she told him, and she was quite sure he blushed at that. She had always found blushing men a delight. She adored the sincerity it showed.

She gave him a drink and he sat down to join them in celebrating the closure of the case.

"How did you become a doctor, Doctor Fisher?" Jack asked a little later.

"I studied in England," she answered. "Before the war, and then I finished after. That's where I picked up the accent. I find it helps me receive more respect in my work, too."

Jack smiled at her answer; it wasn't that far from his own thinking. He had left his working-class accent when he'd started the police academy, and then even more when he'd met Rosie and tried to match her aspirations. He had consciously chosen to reinvent himself as a calm, trustworthy policeman; by now it was second nature.

"It was a long journey," Lizzy added. "I'm happy I got to be part of it." She turned to Jack. "We were at the same time in France. I don't know how we would have survived otherwise."

"It wasn't something my parents approved of, or anyone else I knew for that matter," Doctor Fisher continued. "Except for our teacher, of course. Good old Miss Charlesworth. She was a real encouragement, and she made the other teachers support the idea too."

"And Fish is incredibly bloody-minded," Lizzy added. "Of course, the family was equally distraught when she didn't care for either doting on a husband or bringing new, smaller Fishes into the world."

Phryne looked chastising at her, wishing she wouldn't talk so freely about her to this man she didn't really know that well, but it was already too late. She rolled her eyes instead.

"You can't live your life to please others," she said and rose to pour herself a new drink, offering to pour one for Jack too. "Whatever you do, they will not be satisfied, and you will not be happy."

Jack nodded. He looked like he wished someone had told him that years ago, Phryne thought. When he met her eyes, she felt herself go slightly warm under his intense and admiring look. She smiled at him. Yes, he was a handsome man.

Phryne enjoyed love and attraction, but she preferred to keep them away from her deeper emotions. She had decided to view it all scientifically—viewing attraction as chemicals in the body, or chemicals flowing between bodies, or as the mechanics of anatomy. Her scientific interest in the human body simply extended also to the joy of appreciating the living, male, aesthetically pleasing body.

She went dancing and she invited men home, but only men that knew there was no long-term commitment to be found—men who confidently played the game with her and then went on their merry way without complaint. She appreciated the passing connection, somehow seeming to be more real, more truthful, because it was temporary.

"He is handsome enough, isn't he, Fish?" Lizzy asked when the Inspector had gone home, and the two of them were lounging in the parlour, sipping a drink each and being pleasantly tipsy.

"He is," Phryne answered, "and I like the way he treats people when he's on the job. But isn't he far too serious for his own good?"

"He's like an upright pillar of righteousness and rules," Lizzy said. "Not really your type at all, I'm afraid."

Phryne frowned at her statement, which made Lizzy smile brightly; she might need to keep an eye out for this.

There was something about the inspector that worried Phryne slightly. She couldn't place him. She had first taken him for a stickler to the rules, but his humour and open mindedness had come rather quickly to the fore. His loyalty to Lizzy was palpable. It was a joy to see him interact with her friend. More surprisingly, it was also a joy to interact with him all by herself. He showed a genuine interest—and more for her work and her thoughts than for her appearance. He hadn't so much as batted an eyelid at what he found in The Green Mill. And then he had been a character witness for Lizzy becoming a guardian to Jane. There really was more to the man than the surface showed.

"Anyway, did you know he's married?" Lizzy continued.

"Why wouldn't he be?" Phryne said, but she didn't manage to keep out a slightly surprised note in her voice. He didn't act like a married man, she couldn't help thinking—not even like an unhappily married one. He rather piqued her interest.

A couple of weeks later, Lizzy asked Phryne to help her out in an investigation with scientific inclinations—how could she decline? To be honest, she almost never said no to Lizzy. She loved to see her friend, and she loved to complement Lizzy's intuition with her own more scientific-minded approach. To her surprise, the same sentiment about Lizzy MacMillan seemed to fit also the dogged Inspector.

Lizzy was in the middle of a case of poisoning and looked very determined when she finally managed to track Phryne down to the lounge of the Adventuresses' Club. Phryne was having coffee in all tranquillity, reading the newspaper, and exchanging a few words with Minnie, the server, whenever she passed by. Despite the name of the club, it had been a calm and soothing late afternoon—until Lizzy barged in, throwing her fedora on the sofa.

"Finally! I have looked for you everywhere!"

Phryne tilted her head, rather sure that "everywhere" meant telephoning the hospital and perhaps also her home once.

"Well, you found me. Did anything remarkable happen?"

"I have an urgent need of a scientist, Fish. It's for my case with the poisoning—you know, in the book store."

Phryne nodded. Lizzy had briefed her about it the other day.

"It seems we need to try out a chemical formula in Ancient Hebrew!"

"Of course." Phryne's eyes rolled so hard they were hardly visible.

"I don't mean you need to decipher it, Fish." Lizzy tilted her head playfully. "Strictly speaking, the Hebrew was only a clue to find the formula. Jack has been remarkably helpful in this case. He even recognised the chemical symbols for lead and gold."

"Astounding," Phryne said dryly. That wasn't precisely on the level to impress a scientist.

"He was also awestruck with my precise knowledge of the symptoms of wolfsbane," Lizzy said, which made Phryne regard her rather fondly. She had helped her friend with that information only yesterday; it had already come to use, then. Lizzy's enthusiasm for challenges and for barging ahead into any and every subject that came before her was one of the things Phryne loved most about her.

"Also," Lizzy said, looking knowing and mysterious, "there is a delectable man that might be interested in your company—if you play your cards right."

Phryne stilled and looked at her friend with slightly enlarged eyes.

"Are you talking about the Inspector?"

There was a split second without movement before Lizzy sported an enormous grin.

"I was taking about young Mr Abrahams," she said. Then she narrowed her eyes and challenged her friend. "Should I have been talking about the Inspector?"

"What? No!" Phryne answered; Lizzy did not look convinced. "No. Of course not. That's why I was so surprised."

Phryne found this an excellent time to take a deep sip of her already cold coffee. Lizzy's look was far too curious, and she knew her friend would now take every chance to see what was happening between her two friends, the Doctor and the Inspector. The thought made Phryne shudder slightly. It wasn't like anything was happening. They were friends, even if it was more through Lizzy than on their own merits.

"I heard you meet up at the hospital now and then," Lizzy said, checking her friend. "Over cases."

"It's the simple ones," Phryne answered. "Where there are victims but no mystery to engage your mind. Still important, but not hard."

"An interesting way to meet men, at the women's hospital," Lizzy mused.

Phryne laughed; that was some top-notch prodding from her curious friend. Yes, she was definitely going to get teased over her reaction to Lizzy's 'delectable man' in the future.

Sure, she found him handsome, and she wasn't here to apologize for that. She might have thought about him a little bit more than she usually did about men she met—his seriousness contrasted so well to her other men's youthful playfulness, but it was a seriousness that could still bloom out in humour. Alright, maybe she was a little bit smitten by him, but only insofar as she wouldn't exactly mind having him in her bed for a night or two; there was nothing more serious going on. She stopped herself and bluntly turned back to the case.

"So, you need a scientist? When?"

"Tonight."

"Of course it's tonight; how could I even be surprised?"

Lizzy looked at her, her smile teasing.

"You don't have to worry, Fish. The Inspector will be there and protect all our virtues."

Then she rose and picked up her fedora.

"See you tonight then. I'll pick you up at ten."

In a flourish, Lizzy was gone. It took Phryne some moments before she again turned back to the newspaper. She waved for Minnie to order another coffee. It seemed this would become a very long day.

"Where are we exactly?" Phryne asked as they entered the room—it was a place where someone had lived, but it looked more like a laboratory, the full chemical set on a table obviously used for the dead man's experiments. Experiments they were now going to try to replicate.

"This is Saul's lodgings," Lizzy answered. "He had a real interest in chemistry."

"You don't say," Phryne retorted as she started to unpack the different substances she had carried with her, pronouncing their names while putting them in front of her. "I've got some butadiene, styrene, potassium persulphate and mercaptan."

Lizzy's eyes glowed.

"I knew I could count on you, Fish!"

"I'm only here because I was born with the type of inquiring mind that often gets me into trouble," Phryne retorted dryly. Then she turned to Jack, standing at the edge of the table. "What's your excuse, Inspector?"

He looked at her for a moment.

"I thought I was solving a murder, but I'll settle for gold if that's what we come up with."

He ended his comment with a smile and a tilt of his head—that habit he had when he was thinking, and that he exaggerated every time he was going in for a joke. How do I already know his body language? Phryne thought. She stared at him for a moment too long, which made him look curiously at her. She produced a non-committed smile and turned to her experiment again.

The night grew later as she followed the instructions and poured fluids and substances into the flasks, watching the mixture boil and change colour.

Jack stood at the side, mesmerized—not as much with the spectacle, as with the woman producing it. He had seen Doctor Fisher working before, at the hospital, but this was the first time he'd been allowed to watch her for a longer period of time. This was her world—the world of science, and precision, and meticulous actions. He watched her delicate hand as it took some powder and sprinkled it into a test tube, then placing it over the small fire again. It was like a dance—a dance of small, measured movements, bringing out the colourfulness of the world.

It struck him that this was exactly what she had been doing at The Green Mill too, only with larger movements and more startling clothes. And just as she mastered this chemistry, it seemed she mastered the chemistry between the sexes too. At least if he was to believe the rumours he'd heard about her way of life.

She was so single-mindedly focused on what she was doing. Perhaps that was why she needed the distractions of dancing; to not put her whole life into science? And she didn't seem to care a jot about conventionality. He admired that.

Jack turned around to see where Miss MacMillan had gone, only to catch her watching him with a curious expression in her eyes. He wondered for how long she'd been sitting in the sofa, scrutinizing him, and how much his face had given away. She seemed to see right through him and sometimes it was a bit disconcerting.

"Miss MacMillan," he said, tilting his head. "Are you not planning on contributing to the experiment?"

She sent him a knowing smile and rose to come and stand beside him, leaning against the table.

"Of course I am, Jack."

Phryne held up the flask with its green liquid.

"It doesn't seem to work," she said, clearly disappointed. It was the first thing she had said for quite some time and she had to clear her throat.

Lizzy grabbed the formula again and frowned at it.

"It's written in Hebrew, from the right to the left. What if you would do it again, but in the opposite order?"

Phryne stared at her, struck dumb. Then she let out a sigh. She turned to pour away all her liquids and start over again.

Lizzy let her do the experiment in her own time, turning to Jack to ask him of his views on Miss Leigh and her reticence. She had found Miss Leigh in some way rather similar to the Inspector himself. Their conversation turned lively, as they sought to beat each other in ideas about what might have happened in the book store. After a while, Lizzy excused herself to go to the bathroom and Phryne and Jack were left alone. Phryne looked up from her table to see the Inspector leaning on the table and gazing at her. Something in his look made her stomach flutter.

"Tired, Inspector?" she asked him, opting for teasing. He tilted his head again. It made him look a little bit like a kelpie, she thought.

"I'm amazed you are not, Doctor Fisher," he answered.

"Can't be tired when on duty, Jack," she said, moving to grab a large bag from the floor, and the way she pronounced his name made him a tiny bit weak in his knees.

"Let me help you with that bag, Doctor Fisher," he said and moved closer to her. She gave him a piercing look and he continued before she had a chance to say anything. "I know you don't need the help. Just let me do something, please?"

"Had too much of Lizzy's stubbornness for one day, have you?" Phryne smiled, and handed him the bag for opening.

"Too much of me? However would that be possible?" Lizzy quipped as she stepped back into the room.

"Impossible, I'm sure, darling," Phryne said.

"Well, there was the case of running on rooftops and getting shot at, Miss MacMillan," Jack said, amused, handing back the opened bag to Phryne.

"He didn't hit me," she retorted lightly. "I had a much better aim with my knife."

Phryne glanced up at her friend, narrowing her eyes at her before she gave up, visibly resigning herself and returning to her task.

The rest of the evening, Lizzy stood next to Phryne and talked to keep up her spirits. Jack had retreated to the sofa, and a small snore told them he was not keeping up. When they were done, Lizzy had to wake him and urge him to look at the result. It was a success—Phryne had not created gold, but rubber instead, and this meant they had one more important piece of their puzzle.

It was already early morning when they'd managed to pack everything up and leave the lodging. On the pavement outside the house, Miss MacMillan stopped and turned to Jack, asking if he would be so kind as to drive the doctor home. They did after all live much closer to each other than she did to Fish, and she was feeling very tired. She made it sound almost entirely reasonable and innocent.

"Of course," Jack answered, the early hour not taking away any of his gentlemanly behaviour.

Lizzy jumped into her Hispano-Suiza and waved at the two of them. The car was already rolling before Jack managed his farewell:

"See you tomorrow, then, Miss MacMillan."

He felt a little apprehensive about being alone with Doctor Fisher. That didn't make sense; he had never felt that as a problem before. But there had been some kind of shift between them this night, hadn't there—a night together over the small fire of a chemistry experiment, closeness becoming highlighted in the dark? But he was a seasoned Inspector, he couldn't be nervous about being alone with a colleague? Even if she had the most piercing gaze and always seemed about to challenge him, it still didn't make sense. It must have been the cold from a long night.

He opened the door on the passenger side for her and then took the driver's seat. They were quiet as he drove, his eyes flicking towards her a couple of times. It was the doctor who broke the silence.

"I never thanked you properly for your help with letting Lizzy foster Jane."

"There's no need to thank me," he replied.

"You do know there's more to it than just a sudden wish to take in a girl, don't you?"

Doctor Fisher spoke tentatively, as if she was a little uncertain of trusting him with this knowledge.

"Do you mean… Miss MacMillan's sister?" he asked.

"So, you do know. Did you by any chance look her up when she stumbled into your first case?"

He turned a tiny bit pink under her steady gaze and found a need to defend himself.

"Normal policeman paranoia. She could have been a suspect or an auxiliary to crime."

When he glanced at Doctor Fisher he saw a wry smile on her face; there was a responding small tug at his lips.

"Of course," she said. "No personal curiosity at all, I am sure." She rolled her eyes in that way he found rather captivating, and then she turned serious. "So, you know her story. Janey was never found. Lizzy would accuse me of having read too much Freud if she heard me, but I believe fostering Jane can be a kind of healing for her."

Jack nodded non-committedly. Psychoanalysis wasn't really his thing, he found it too close to superstition, but it sounded reasonable. It also made him pleased to think he had make a small contribution to that outcome.

"That was a fine thing to do," Doctor Fisher mused. Then she turned in her seat to look at him more properly. "What did you find out about me?"

Jack coughed at the sudden question.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," he protested.

"Come on, Inspector. I know how coppers work. And you're one of the most attentive I've met."

He felt whiplashed by the accusation and the way it was combined with a genuine compliment. He was just reaching the doctor's street, so he pulled up outside her house and cut the engine. Then he turned towards her, to properly see the impact of his words.

"I found out that you are a very brave woman," he said, tentatively. When she looked at him seriously, with barely a smile on her lips, he dared to go on. "Championing the poor, the women, and the workers. You work in the women's hospital, but you also teach at the university and regularly spread knowledge about family planning that not everyone thinks the poor should be allowed to have; presumably to keep them in poverty."

He paused briefly, wondering whether his information-gathering had offended her. She seemed pleased with his statement, though, an indication of similar morals. He doubted she had many allies in her mission, Miss MacMillan aside. Then her face turned blank.

"But you also know I live a less morally upright life in my free time?" Her question was half serious, half self-deprecating.

Jack swallowed. "I may have… gotten some inclination," he confessed.

She looked him up and down, assessing him. "You really aren't one to judge other people, are you, Inspector Robinson?"

He understood that as the compliment it was and smiled.

"It's murder I'm interested in, not morality."

He opened his door and went out to open hers. As she stepped out of the car she came to stand excruciatingly close to him, smiling while she looked up into his eyes through her lashes. He was quite sure she was testing him, like a skater would the ice before heading out. He wasn't used to have this kind of serious, heavily loaded conversations with women; well, bar Miss MacMillan, but that was a rather recent addition to his life. She swayed a little towards him, visibly flicking her gaze between his eyes and his lips.

"You're quite a remarkable man, Jack," she said, quietly, but there was still a small undercurrent of challenge in her voice. He was struck with how easy it would be to reach out and touch that pale cheek of hers, and the strand of hair that so visibly accentuated her lips, tempting him to kiss them. He realised she probably wouldn't say no if he did.

They were silent for a heartbeat before he replied, his voice slightly rougher than usual.

"Thank you for a delightful evening, Doctor Fisher." He realised he was looking at her lips now—the red of her lipstick slightly faded from the long night, but that fact taking away nothing of her allure. He took a step back and nodded. "I'm sure we both have early mornings tomorrow. Sleep well."

With that, he entered his car again and lit the ignition. When he drove away, she gave a little wave with her hand before entering her building.