Over the next few days, Phryne and Jack took stolen moments to raise potential problems; they agreed not to mention the possibility of keeping Anthony to anyone else until they had ironed out the details, so it often ended with hastily exchanged words as he dressed for work in the morning, or whispered between them when she stopped by the station. The first order of business was establishing a feasible explanation for the marriage situation and arranging a date early in the new year where it could be remedied, if they did indeed decide that it was the choice they were making. There was much prevaricating around the whole concept, every decision couched in terms of if and perhaps and on the off chance; Phryne suspected that it was a mutual fear of committing to the path too early.

It went remarkably well, all things considered. They did have similar views on most matters, and those they did not were rarely of importance to them both, so reaching a compromise was simple enough. Such ease could not last indefinitely, however, and a few days after Christmas they reached the first impasse.

Phryne had come in late; she'd gone from lead to lead in one of her cases, and it was nearly two in the morning when she finally slipped into the boudoir.

"Mmm," Jack grumbled, shifting to his side of the bed. "You're late."

She carefully removed her earrings, using the light of the moon to place them in a dish to put away properly in the morning.

"I never gave you a time, Jack, so I cannot be late."

"Squirrel was asking for you."

She paused, hands in the midst of removing her black beret. It was not fair of Jack to use that nickname, an appeal to her sense of responsibility and sentiment combined.

"I had a case."

"I know. But he was asking for you."

"I cannot be everywhere at once."

"No," Jack agreed. "But it would be nice to know where you are choosing to be."

"You cannot possibly expect me to account for my every action?" she asked in irritation; the truth was it had been a series of leads that had ended with her waiting at the docks in the middle of the night for a witness that never arrived, and her patience was low.

"It would have been nice, that's all," Jack said, half asleep. "He still won't take the hat off."

Phryne huffed a silent laugh, finally placing the beret on the table and removing the rest of her clothes before slipping between the silk sheets. She said nothing for some time, choosing instead to appreciate the warmth of Jack's body.

"I can hear you thinking," he said eventually, more awake than he had been.

"I've never… I don't know, Jack. I've always been able to be in and out at any hour that suited me, without regard for anyone else."

His hand reached out to hers and gave it a squeeze.

"This will disrupt your life to some degree, Phryne," he said.

"I know. Believe me, I know. I think that's a good thing, or at least a wanted one. I won't be like Josie, sticking the children with a nanny and never seeing them. But I also can't be Dot, ready to drop everything in an instant."

"You've never been anybody but Phryne Fisher in your life," Jack laughed.

"And now I'm Mims."

Jack sat up and looked at her sombrely.

"You are many things to many people, love, but you're always Phryne. This is just… an extension of that," he said. "And on that note, there is something I need you to do if we do this."

Neither one of them had said the word out loud yet, as if frightened that the mere utterance of the word 'adoption' would cause their tentative balance to collapse.

"What?" she asked, full of trepidation.

"You are Jane's mother. One of Jane's mothers. I would never deny that. But you are both content to hide behind foster mother and ward and guardian angel, and that works for Jane. She was older and hurt and it was safer, but that's not…Anthony is too young for that. You would have to acknowledge that you are his mother, whatever form that ends up taking."

The word filled her with dread. It was irrational, she knew, but the visceral urge to flee rose in her. She was not a mother any more than she was a circus performer—a role she could don and discard easily, and had no interest in maintaining for any length of time. But Jane had been her daughter from the moment she had arrived, had she not?

It was, perhaps, easier to be defensive than to contemplate.

"What would you like, Jack? I can stay home, use my position as patroness of a large variety of charities as my only intellectual outlet?"

It was a sharp barb. Unfair, and utterly baseless. He merely tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes, as if expecting it all along.

"No. And if you really thought I was suggesting that, you'd have a foot out that door."

"You underestimate your appeal, inspector."

"But not you," he countered with complete confidence.

"Then what?"

"Can you be his mother? Not can you be Dot, or Josie, or your mother. Just, can you be his mother?"

"He had a mother."

"So does Jane. That doesn't make her any less than your daughter."

"And if I can't?"

"Then you can't," he shrugged philosophically; she could not understand how he remained so calm. "I am sure that there will be someone, eventually, who can."

Eventually was not good enough. She rolled the idea around in her mind. His mother. My son. It did not quite fit, but as she repeated the words the tightness in her chest began to abate. Just words. Just words and a commitment and something she never wanted but was, somehow, the right thing to do.

The morning after Phryne's late return, Jack woke with a sense of resignation. He had, perhaps, played his hand too early; on the other hand, there was no point in continuing negotiations if she was unwilling or unable to accept certain conditions. It was better to have answers early than to continue to hope. And he had, he would admit, begun to hope very much. Still, he had anticipated such an outcome, and any disappointment would pass soon enough. Carefully slipping from beneath her, Jack pulled on a pair of pyjamas and his robe, brushing a kiss against her temple before shaving and then heading downstairs to breakfast.

In the nursery, Anthony was awake and playing quietly; legs stretched out before him, hat over his eyes. Jack had to admit that he still found the child's self-reliance almost unnerving on occasion, but Mrs. Bowen had said that he had always been that way to some extent. While he was still nearly silent around strangers, he had begun to actively seek out comfort from members of the household more and more often, and the nightmares were less frequent; he was improving, albeit slowly. Anthony looked up when he entered.

"Dack!"

"Morning, Ant," Jack said. "Breakfast?"

"Yeh, eat," Anthony said, abandoning the toy cars before him to scramble towards Jack. He picked the boy up, holding him a little closer than was necessary while he still had a chance.

"Will you ever take that hat off?" Jack teased.

Ant shook his head adamantly. "No! Me da hat. Peese."

"It's yours, lad," Jack said, surprised by how tight his throat felt. "Toast today?"

"Peese."

Mr. Butler already had two plates of toast on the kitchen table, and asked Jack how he'd like his eggs.

"Omelettes all around, I think, Mr. Butler," came a voice from the door, and Jack turned to find Phryne already dressed and shockingly cheerful. "Good morning, all!"

"Good morning, Miss Fisher," Jack said.

She finagled one of the pieces of toast and raised an eyebrow.

"Since when am I Miss Fisher, Jack?"

He shrugged, smiling slightly. "I could only presume that anything rousing you from bed this early was a pressing professional matter."

"Not quite," she said dismissively. "I do need to visit my solicitor at some point today, but I simply thought I might see you off this morning."

"That sounds ominous."

"Really, darling, you do presume the worst," she scolded blithely, rounding the table to press a kiss against his cheek. "Perhaps I just missed your company. Shall we move into the dining room? There really is not enough room for all of us under Mr. Butler's feet in here."

By which, Jack presumed, she meant that she wanted to talk with him; a fact not lost on Mr. Butler himself, who offered to keep Anthony entertained with toast until the omelettes were done. Jack nodded his head and followed Phryne from the kitchen.

"So, Miss Fisher?" he asked when they were seated.

"Miss Fisher again!" she laughed. "I do hope you aren't reprimanding me for last night?"

He exhaled, realising that he could not rule out the possibility; not intentionally, of course, but as a method of protection. The issue had been simmering in the back of his mind since he had gotten out of bed that morning.

"I didn't expect you to be awake this morning, Phryne," he apologised, running a hand through his hair and smiling at her. "I'm not quite awake yet, and certainly not at my best; somebody did wake me at two in the morning, after all. You said you had to see your solicitor today?"

She watched him curiously for a moment, ultimately satisfied by whatever she saw.

"Yes. I thought that if we are to…" she motioned towards the general direction of the kitchen. "I thought it would be advisable to discuss the matter—estate planning, the process, that sort of thing—with an outside party."

He blinked. Twice.

"Are we?"

"If we aren't, it won't be over some silly quibble about which word to use. I'm made of sterner stuff than that, darling."

He smiled slightly.

"Yes, of course you are."

"If you can get away for an hour or so for lunch today, come home and I can tell you what he said?"

"I'm not sure I'll have the opportunity—our lull in criminal activity seems to have passed, unfortunately—but if I do I'll telephone and let you know."

"If not, there's always dinner," Phryne said. "I'm sure you can manage that, even if you have to go back to the station afterwards."

"I'm sure something can be arranged."

"Excellent!" she said brightly. "And if you time it well, you can even do the bedtime story."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Thank you for that one, love."

Mr. Butler came in with a tea tray a moment later, and the two of them ate their breakfast while talking of other matters. He promised to look into a man's criminal history for her case before heading into the station. It was a morning full of dull but necessary aspects of various investigations, but he did manage slip away for a late lunch.

He paused as he crossed the threshold, eyeing the blue silk heaped on the floor, and smiled.

"You do realise that it will seriously curtail the number of times I come home to find that you've dismissed the staff and have left a trail of intriguing clothing from the front door to wherever?" Jack asked after he had done just that; thank heavens his mother was still in Melbourne and taken the boy out for the afternoon.

She propped herself up on her elbows and grinned, chest still heaving. A plush rug in the library was their best investment to date.

"Valid point," she laughed. "You'll just have to take up late night cycling or something. Find a hobby, Jack."

"I thought this was my hobby."

She laughed again, extending her foot to nudge him. "It's certainly a subject of interest."

He caught her ankle, softly running his hand along the back of her calf to tickle behind the knee.

"Oh, Jack," she moaned, her head dropping back; it left some very intriguing topography to explore, and he moved forward to trace it with his tongue. "Oh god, yes."

He really did mean to raise the issue—they were both very accustomed to freedoms that were not, perhaps, entirely feasible with a small child in the house—but she looked so delightfully wanton that all arguments fled his mind for quite some time.

Phryne laughed as she hurriedly helped him dress, giving a kiss on the cheek and a promise to give him the full report when he got home just before she shoved him out the door. He barely made it back to the station in time.

Phryne's meeting with her solicitor left her irritable—she'd really liked Martins the Elder, but his son who had taken over the firm was a small-minded idiot who attempted to charge unscrupulously; she really did need to consider moving her business elsewhere—and in need of fun. Which had worked with Jack's late lunch beautifully, but did make her feel annoyed that she'd distracted them from the conversation at hand. It was, she had to admit, a novel sensation.

When Mairi arrived back at Wardlow, Squirrel in tow, the boy was carrying on like the world was ending. Tears, wailing, pleas of "Mims! Help!"; Phryne was half out of her seat at the sound, but there was no real desperation behind it. She was well-acquainted with his desperate cries. Mairi waved at her from the parlour door and carried him through to the nursery, and Phryne sank back into the chair. There was the sound of a closing door and the wailing dimmed, and Mairi came into the parlour and poured herself a whiskey.

"I'd forgotten how delightful a whinging bairn could be," she said dryly.

"Whatever set him off?"

Mairi shrugged. "I donnae know. Yer neighbour was out and tsking over his poor manners—"

"Mrs. Johnson?"

Mrs. Johnson was loud and meddlesome and very fond of insulting 'that poor boy' in the most backhanded manner possible. No wonder Anthony shut down at the sight of her.

"Aye. But we came up the other side of the road on the way back. It wannae that."

All things considered, he was an even-tempered child; Phryne had witnessed more than her fair share of tantrums from Aggie Collins, who was the sort who felt grievances deeply and wanted to share them with the world, but very few from Anthony. He was far more collected.

Mairi raised an eyebrow. "It could be he's discovered that he can."

"Hmm?"

"Wee'uns can be… scared to show their worries, strange though it sounds," Mairi said. "It may jes' be he feels safe enough to show them now."

Phryne stomach twisted. That was a good thing, certainly, but….

"Or," Mairi added, smiling wryly, "it could jes' be that he's a child. They do do that, even the quiet ones."

Phryne laughed.

"I do not know how you managed to do it with two of them," she said, cocking her head to assess the status of the wailing. "But at least silence is reigning once more."

"Small mercies. I swear, Dan started that awful noise and I wanted to smack him to make him stop."

That was not an admission she expected to hear; Jack had always spoken so warmly of his mother, crediting her with his open-mindedness and unflappable nature.

"How did you stop yourself?"

Mairi took a sip of her whiskey, lips twisting into a grimace.

"I dinnae," she replied. "I'm not proud of it, but I wasnae perfect either. One evenin' he just wailed and wailed and I was about as big as a house and as tetchy as a bear, and I gave him a good clip around the ear. Andy came home to the both of us crying our eyes blue."

Phryne pulled her legs beneath her, watching Mairi with a new tightness in her chest. Jack's mother looked into her glass.

"My Andy worked long hours. I cannae imagine what he must have thought when he walked into the house that night. But he bundled me off to bed, sorted Dan, then let me cry some more. Dan forgave me a lot sooner than I forgave myself for that one."

Phryne was at a loss for words. She stood slowly, pouring herself a drink and trying to ignore the slight tremble in her hands.

"I ought to check on the squirrel," she said, placing her tumbler on the tray and not turning to face Mairi.

"Phryne?"

Phryne took a deep breath and turned, intending to smile brightly and extract herself from the situation as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Jack had most definitely inherited his piercing gaze from his mother and she was deploying it now.

"I'm sorry. That surprised me," she confessed.

"Surprised me too," Mairi said. "Rattled me something fierce, I… I dinnae ken why. It wasnae nothing that every mother on the street hadnae done for one reason or another. But then I realised—there is a difference between a fair consequence and doing it because I dinnae know what else to do, and I swore I wouldnae make the same mistake again. The boys knew what would earn a hiding, and both of them had their fair share, but I was never punitive."

Phryne's father had been. Punitive and vindictive and erratic; Phryne had learnt early how to evade his wrath with well-timed retreats and lies, and how to stand toe to toe with him without relenting. He'd hated her for the last, the indomitable girl who refused to bend to his will—he'd never realised how she would break in the dark hours of the night, when even Janey was asleep, unable to hold it together any longer. She took another breath and her first panicked impulse abated; Phryne gave herself a mental shake, unsure exactly what had caused it to start with.

"I'm beginning to see why Jack became a policeman," Phryne said, as lightly as she could manage. "The philosophies are remarkably similar."

"I suppose they are, at that," Mairi smiled. "Were you going to peek in on him?"

"Jack?" Phryne laughed, mostly in relief. "I think he might be a bit old for that. Though I suppose I should check on the tantruming terror."

When she opened the door to the nursery, she was met by flailing limbs and a pout and the most enthusiastic "Mims!" she'd ever heard in her life. She wasn't sure if it made her feel better or worse.