Max's thoughts were again interrupted. This time by a tear-stained and very frightened looking Fran Fine.

There Fran stood in the doorway of the office, after much thinking ready to straighten this whole mess out with Maxwell. She had decided she was going to do whatever it took to fix it. She loved that man, and that meant more to her then anything.

"Oh my gosh, Miss Fine are you alright?" Max asked in concern as he walked towards Fran.

"Yes, I'm fine. I-..," Fran replied but was cut-off by Max.

"Where have you been? I have been worried sick since you didn't show up for rehearsals? Why didn't you call to say you were going to be late? You just run out of the house this morning and don't tell anyone where you are going. You could have been lying in a ditch somewhere on the side of the road for all I knew," yelled Max as his anger and anxiety took over his emotions.

Fran just stood there stunned throughout Max's tirade. 'How dare he. Who does he think he's talking to,' Fran thought as she began to become furious herself. "Are you through? First of all, we live in the city there are NO ditches," retorted Fran as Max huffed in annoyance.

"Second of all, who do you think you are talking to? I am not one of your children, Mr. Sheffield. So why do you insist on treating me like one?" Fran yelled back.

"You want to know why I treat YOU like a child? Ha! Let's not even go into that, Miss Fine," Max shouted back.

"Humpf. You know ever since I started this play you have treated me like a child. I am a GROWN woman Mr. Sheffield, in case you haven't noticed," Fran replied back. "I left this morning to do some thinking, and I came back here to fix things. But now I realized what the REAL problem is."

"Oh, really Miss Fine? Care to enlighten me," Max said as he rubbed his temples. 'That woman can be so infuriating sometimes,' he thought.

"It's this," Fran said waving her hands. "This play has been nothing but trouble for us."

Max cut her off again, "Well, you're the one that wanted to be in the bloody play!"

"That's right, Mr. Sheffield. I DID! And now, I am going to make things easier for YOU," Fran said. "I Q U I T !"

And with that, Fran turned around and started walking out the theater with Maxwell fast on his heels.

"M I S S F I N E!" Max yelled as they ran past the stage full of actors now more interested in the scene unfolding before them than acting.

Max tried in vain to catch up to her. She was out the door before he could reach her. Just then, C.C. came running up behind him. "Maxwell, did Nanny Fine just say she quit?"

Max nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"Well, what are you doing here? Go after her! Nanny Fine is our star. She's the reason for all this publicity. Without her, we're nothing!" C.C. pushed Max toward the door.

"Oh, right," Max muttered sarcastically. "The most important thing here is the play. Not my relationship with Miss Fine."

Max took a deep breath, then stepped outside the theater to try to talk to Fran. "Miss Fine, please, let's talk," he said as he walked over to her.

"Why? We have nothing left to talk about," Fran replied.

"I know I've messed up. But I'm very sorry, and if you come back to the play, we'll just put all this behind us," Maxwell said.

"Oh, sure, you just want me back in your stupid play. That's what this is about, isn't it?" Fran said.

"No, that's not it at all! I just want you back in MY LIFE. Not as my leading lady, or even as my nanny. As the woman I love," Max said. He wasn't used to speaking from his heart like this, but he knew it was the only chance he had of saving his relationship with Fran.

She looked him in the eye, and she could tell right away that he meant it. "I just don't know if I can handle this. One minute you tell me you love me, the next, you're yelling at me. Do you have any idea what that does to a person?"

"I'm the first to admit that I haven't exactly been a saint through this whole thing, but it was only because so much was at stake here. My career is riding on the success of this play, but what I always cared about even more was you," Max said. "Can you forgive me?"

"I guess I wasn't the ideal leading lady, either," Fran laughed.

"Does this mean you want to come back to the play? And to me?" Max asked hopefully.

Fran smiled. "Yes."

Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews! Keep 'em coming. And to the one that said they thought they read this before. Yes it was originally posted on TRUNHP site. So glad to hear we were your first fic and you enjoyed it!