Author's note: Another short, fun little chapter, nothing much.
This one is for Tumblr's Leptonsandbosons, who provided me with the prompt. (By the way: if you're not on Tumblr, consider checking it out - lots of fabulous MFMM things going on there!)

Reviews are very welcome!

Enjoy!

They were arguing over breakfast. Which, Jack reflected a little tiredly, happened more often than it strictly ought to, seeing as they rarely breakfasted together anyway because usually he was up in the morning and on his way to the station before she even began to stir. So when she decided to get up early and join him for breakfast, he was immediately suspicious as to her motives, especially since there weren't any exciting developments in the case they were working on, and that was usually the only thing that could motivate her to voluntarily get out of bed before 10 am. He subtly tried to question her about what she was planning to do that day, to see if it was anything that she really shouldn't be doing, but of course she saw right through him.
'Why do you care what I'm doing today?' she asked him, observing him closely, and he tried to keep a blank face.
'Just making conversation over breakfast.'
'Oh. Alright.' But a further explanation did not seem forthcoming, and he started to feel there was something definitely off about her reticence. He tried again.
'So… what are you doing today?'
'I'm curious as to why you want to know.'
'I'm curious as to why you won't tell me.'
'Well, if you must know,' she said smoothly, 'I plan to visit Madame Fleury today for a new evening gown, and I might stop by Aunt Prudence for tea. She's been asking to see me, and I've been putting it off for too long now.'
'And?'
'And what? Isn't that enough for one day? I'm not sure I'll be up for much after having faced the wrath of Aunt P.'
He was momentarily distracted. 'Why? Have you done something wrong?'
'Undoubtedly,' she smiled, and he smiled back. It was true that dear old aunt Prudence usually had some complaints about her niece's behavior. Or clothes. Or company. Especially his company. He tried not to mind.
'So why would you think I'm doing something else today?'
He looked at her for a moment, then changed tactics. 'Why did you get up so early?'
She didn't even blink. 'I wanted to have breakfast with you and see you off to work.'
He snorted in disbelief. 'That's very domestic of you.'
'Maybe I like being domestic every once in a while. A change of pace.'
He threw her an unimpressed look. 'I'm not buying it.'
'Jack!'
'You're up to something you think I won't approve of, so you're not telling me, just in case.'
'You don't honestly think I would lie to you?'
'Oh, no,' he replied pleasantly, 'I think you're perfectly prepared to go and visit Madame Fleury and maybe even Mrs. Stanley, but that leaves you plenty of time to do whatever it is you're planning that you conveniently forgot to mention and that I'll be hearing about tonight. Or rather when I'm forced to arrest you for breaking and entering. Again.'
There had been an unfortunate incident only two weeks before where she had broken into a suspect's house to try and obtain some essential pieces of information – without his knowledge, of course – and he had been alerted by concerned neighbors, turning up to arrest a burglar and finding himself face to face with Miss Fisher. He had been very annoyed at her, torn between his inclination to be lenient toward her (especially since the papers she brought him had helped him close the case) and his sense of duty to the law, helped along by his desire to hold her accountable for her actions for once. In the end, there had been handcuffs and mug shots (and stern admonishments that she had ignored completely), but he'd left it at that. Nevertheless, he was not keen on repeating the experience, feeling that he'd have to be firm the next time if he wanted to avoid rumors that he was biased. That, and he frankly wasn't keen on being associated with recidivist criminals.

All in all, he was trying very hard to keep her out of trouble for once, instead of having to get her out of it as usual. And that meant taking precautionary measures, even if they were unpleasant.
'Now please tell me what you're up to.'
'Why do you assume I'm up to something?'
He sighed. They weren't getting anywhere like this, if she kept parrying every question of his with a counter-question. He needed to narrow down the possibilities. He was quiet for a moment, casting around for whatever kind of mischief she could possibly get into. Then it hit him.
'You're not planning to go down to Williamson's warehouse to 'look around', are you?'
'Now why would you think that?'
The fact that she answered so evasively made him feel like he was on the right track, so he pressed on, vaguely alarmed now.
'Because I know you! Phryne, that's not a good idea. Yes, it will probably be deserted, and I know there might be incriminating evidence there, so I can see that it's a tempting course of action, but we have to follow the proper procedure and get a search warrant. Mr. Williamson has made it very clear that he doesn't want us on his premises again, so we'll have to wait for the Commissioner to decide if we have probable cause or not.'
'Jack, this man smuggles illegal weapons and I'm almost sure he murdered that poor young man whose body we found because he tried to get out of the operation. We do have probable cause!'
'That's not up to you to decide,' he replied, unyielding. 'And it would be very foolhardy of you to go poking around those warehouses. You know the law cannot protect you there.'
'Afraid you'll have to arrest me again?' she smiled, but he was dead serious.
'That's the least of my worries! Phryne, these men mean business. We need to be careful, and operate within the confines of the law. These are arms dealers. If they see you snooping around, they'll shoot to kill.'
She seemed utterly unimpressed. 'Don't worry, Jack. I'm not stupid. And now I'm off to see Madame Fleury, or I'll be late for my appointment.'

She got up from the table and went into the hall to gather her coat and purse, but he hurried after her to stop her with a hand on her elbow.
'Promise me you're not going to Williamson's.'
'Look,' she replied, picking up her purse and opening it, showing him the contents. 'See, I'm not taking my gun with me. Now do you honestly believe I would walk into a potentially dangerous situation unarmed?'
He looked at her shrewdly. 'What about your dagger?'
She was suddenly very busy with her hat, avoiding his eye. 'What do you mean?'
'The dagger you sometimes wear in your garter. I see no reason for you to have it on you to go to the dressmaker. And I know Aunt Prudence can be annoying at times, but surely that would be a bit drastic?' He was using his best policeman attitude on her now, with just a hint of humor around the corners of his mouth as he interrogated her, steadily looking at her, trying to force her hand. 'So, if you are not, in fact, planning on going down to Williamson's warehouses today, you would not have a dagger in your garter. So do you have a dagger in your garter, Miss Fisher?'
He had stepped close to her, and at his last words he reached down toward her skirt, intending to pat her down and see for himself, but she nimbly dodged around him, laughter in her eyes. He just managed to catch her by the wrist, right before she could disappear through the front door, and he pulled her back.
'This is a serious matter!'
'Jack,' she laughed, 'You worry too much!'
'That's not true,' he stated. 'I worry just the right amount.'
'What's the right amount, really?'
'Just enough to keep you from ending up in a jail cell. Or the morgue.'
She rolled her eyes and made another move towards the open door, but his grip on her wrist was too tight. He pulled her into the dining room again to get her away from temptation, and she put up a half-hearted show of protest.
'Jack! Let me go!'
'Just show me that your garters are devoid of daggers or similarly lethal devices and you're free to go.'
She tried to be as dignified as possible. 'You're being completely unreasonable.' With a quick twist of her arm, she had suddenly escaped his grip, but he caught her around the waist and pulled her close to him. Looking straight into her eyes, he tried a different approach.
'Phryne', he murmured in a warm, low voice, 'You know I'm just trying to keep you safe.' He could see her hesitate slightly, and quickly pressed his advantage. 'I know you can take care of yourself, and I know I shouldn't worry about you, but…' he was maneuvering her against the table now, 'I can't help it. I don't want anything to happen to you.'
She suddenly realized what he was doing, and threw him a look of mock indignation as she tried to get away, but it was too late: he had trapped her against the table and grinned at her.
'Now let's see.'
She caught his hand as he reached for her skirt again, her eyes sparkling, and he realized that, no matter the outcome, she was loving the game.
'No,' she said, looking him straight in the eye and tilting her chin defiantly. He was undeterred, shaking her off, but she slapped his hand away and tried to push him off. He pressed her more firmly against the table and caught her wrist with one hand, quickly running his other hand down her thigh, but he couldn't feel anything. He had a moment of doubt then – it would be just like her to go through this whole charade out of simple stubbornness – then remembered that the dagger was quite flat and he might not be able to feel it properly, especially since she kept moving. She was positively struggling now, but he was stronger, and he lifted her onto the table and stood between her knees, which assured him access to her skirt. He caught both her wrists and, with one hand, held them together behind her back, pressing her against him. She looked up at him in breathless excitement, and he brought his face very close to hers.
'Do you surrender?' he murmured.
She gave him a wicked grin in return. 'Never.'
He kissed her, taking her by surprise, but she soon returned his kiss eagerly, biting his lip in a way that momentarily took his breath away. He kissed her back, deeply, demandingly, sinking deeper into the kiss with every passing second, distracting her attention from his hand on her knee, creeping slowly under the hem of her skirt. The kiss was affecting him, too, though, and for a moment, he considered the definite advantages of taking her up to the bedroom immediately and to hell with daggers. But even though wasn't thinking entirely straight anymore as her tongue flicked past his lips, he somehow kept his head and slid his hand up her thigh, taking the skirt up, too. He felt the lace of her garter, and then his fingers touched something hard and sharp… and that was when Aunt Prudence walked in.

'Phryne!'
Aunt Prudence's scandalized voice cut through the air, and they froze, faces inches apart, her skirt up around her hips, his hand high up on her thigh. They had forgotten that the front door was still open, and apparently Aunt Prudence had let herself in. Jack felt paralyzed with horror, but Phryne was shaking with silent laughter as she pushed him away and slid off the table, rearranging her skirt so she was decent again, and walked towards her aunt with a welcoming smile, so coolly collected that Jack couldn't help but admire her. He could feel his own face burning red.
'Aunt P.!' Phryne exclaimed in apparent delight. 'What a surprise! What brings you here?'
Aunt Prudence threw her the most scandalized of looks, positively quivering with indignation. 'I was coming to see you, since you haven't seen fit to visit me when I asked you to. Of course, I wasn't aware that you were running a bordello.'
Phryne tilted her head in a let's-be-reasonable kind of way. 'Come now, Aunt P., you know the Inspector.'
Aunt Prudence turned her icy gaze on Jack, who sincerely wished the ground would open and swallow him right there and then. Since it didn't, he swallowed uncomfortably, put his hands in his pockets, and nodded in Aunt Prudence's direction, not quite meeting her eye.
'Mrs. Stanley,' he muttered, and she turned away from him in disgust.
'Really Phryne, it's bad enough that you're seen gallivanting all over Melbourne with this… policeman…'
'Be nice now,' Phryne said warningly, but Prudence was now addressing Jack.
'Look Inspector, I've always respected you, I'm sure you're good at your job, and I know you are a decent man…' her voice trailed away for a moment as she threw a look at Phryne's skirt that seemed to indicate that she might be revising her opinion about him as a decent man, 'But I absolutely can't allow this!'
'Aunt P.,' Phryne interrupted, throwing Jack a concerned glance over her shoulder, 'I'm sorry we left the door open, but I can still do what I please in my own house.'
'Quite, my dear, but this has been going on for too long. That's why I wanted to see you. This needs to be dealt with. I didn't say anything when I thought that this was just another one of your… flirtations… but he's always here now, and I have to tell you that I do not give you my permission.'
'Your permission?' Phryne asked coolly, her eyebrows raised.
Jack was keeping himself in the background resignedly. He had always known Prudence would not deem him worthy of Phryne in the long run, so he supposed they would have had to confront the issue at some point. He just wished he didn't need to be here for this, since this was between them, and the conversation was not exactly buoying his spirits. However, he felt unable to step up to Aunt Prudence, feeling that he wasn't precisely occupying the moral high ground at the moment. The two women were still quarrelling.
'He's simply not our kind of people, Phryne,' Aunt Prudence was saying, frowning in slight concern that her niece couldn't see that, but Phryne just rolled her eyes.
'How frightfully old-fashioned of you, Aunt P. And might I point out that you would have thought him a highly suitable match for me if I had still been a penniless girl in Collingwood?'
'That's neither here nor there,' Aunt Prudence replied with dignity. 'You have to consider your station now.'
'My station is such that I am in the fortunate position of not having to care about whom I want to marry,' Phryne was arguing hotly.
Jack's eyebrows went up. What?
But Phryne had ruffled her aunt's feathers.
'One should always care about social proprieties. You are part of a privileged class, and you should behave accordingly.'
Phryne was shaking her head. 'You are hopelessly outdated, Aunt P. Those notions are simply no longer applicable to our modern society.'
Prudence threw her an almost pitying look. 'Don't think society changes that quickly, Phryne. On the surface one may observe seemingly great shifts, but morals and values lie much deeper than that, fixed and unchangeable. One should never forget that.'
Jack had heard enough. He took a step forward.
'Mrs. Stanley,' he began, calm but firm, 'With all due respect, I think this is not your decision to make.' He went to stand next to Phryne. 'I care a great deal about your niece, and I will never treat her with anything but respect. That should be enough for you.'
Phryne glanced at him tenderly, but Aunt Prudence turned her cold fury on Jack, drawing herself up formidably.
'Young man…' she started, but Phryne interrupted before she could get into her stride.
'I'm sorry, Aunt P. There's no use continuing this conversation.'
Prudence seemed a bit miffed, but by no means defeated. She observed the two of them with pursed lips for a moment, then turned to leave. At the door however, she turned back at them with raised eyebrows.
'This isn't over,' she warned them, before walking out the door.

Watching Aunt Prudence storm off in high dudgeon might make Jack feel uncomfortable, but Phryne was as unconcerned as ever. The moment the door closed behind her aunt, she turned to Jack with a grin.
'Well. That was unfortunate.'
'Your talent for making understatements is unparalleled.'
She laughed. 'Well, where were we?'
She grabbed his jacket and pulled him close, but as far as he was concerned, Aunt Prudence barging in on them and saying he wasn't good enough for Phryne was something of a mood killer. He still felt a little flustered from the shock of her sudden appearance. The position they had been in… He shuddered. It must have looked so much worse than it actually was. He had thought that, having lived with Phryne for several months now, he had long ago reached the highest possible level of embarrassment a person could feel, but apparently he was wrong. Gently, he pushed her away and sat down with a sigh to regain his composure. She sobered up immediately and sat down next to him, putting a hand on his sleeve.
'Don't mind what Aunt P. says, darling. She's terribly old-fashioned. You know I don't care about any of that, don't you?'
He nodded. No, he wasn't worried about that, he knew Phryne didn't give a hoot about his 'station in life', or hers for that matter. But there was something else that was niggling at him, and he knew he would regret it if he didn't at least ask.
'Phryne… you said you didn't need to care about… about whom you wanted to marry?'
She waved a hand in casual dismissal. 'Oh, never mind that, I didn't mean anything by it. I needed to explain things in the only terms she understands. Aunt P. wouldn't understand how a modern relationship works.'
And she kissed him on the cheek, got up and walked to the kitchen, saying something about an errand for Dot. He watched her go with a familiar feeling of resigned disappointment at the pit of his stomach, and he wondered. How did 'modern relationships' really work? He wasn't exactly an expert on the matter. If there was no formal agreement, what sense of security did one have? What they had now was fine, for the time being, but it all felt very vague and informal to him. He liked to have things settled and clear-cut. He liked to know where he stood. But he knew he couldn't discuss this with her, at least not yet. Then his mind went back to Aunt Prudence's words about society, and he wondered if he was really causing Phryne trouble in some way he wasn't aware of. He knew she wouldn't bother him with things like that if not strictly necessary, and he hadn't really thought about it much, but he suddenly realized that she had probably encountered her share of the unpleasant things that regularly occurred to him because of their relationship: the snide remarks from friends and colleagues, the sneering jokes, the whispers that would suddenly stop when he entered a room. She wouldn't care, he knew, but still, he didn't like the thought that people would treat her with less respect because of him.

Phryne reappeared from the kitchen and he shook himself mentally and focused back on the situation at hand. She was heading for the hallway, taking up her coat again. He rushed to intercept her.
'Phryne,' he said seriously, standing close to her and looking her in the eye. 'Don't go to Williamson's.'
She looked at him for a moment, then seemed to relent, pursing her lips. 'Fine. I won't.'
'Really?'
She cocked her head. 'I'm a woman of my word, Inspector. Besides, I'm taking Dot with me to Madame Fleury. See?'
Dot had appeared from the kitchen with her purse and smiled shyly at Jack as she started to put on her coat.
'Do you trust me now? You know I wouldn't risk getting Dot in trouble like that.'
He trusted her. But there was one last thing. He held out his hand, and she sighed.
'Fine.'
To the consternation of Dot, who quickly looked away, Phryne lifted her skirt and removed the little dagger from her garter, slapping it down onto Jack's open palm.
'Happy now?' she said huffily, but there was an amused look in her eyes.
'Quite,' he smiled, closing his fingers around the sharp little object.
She kissed him goodbye and the two women left for the dressmaker's. Jack knew he was running late, but he couldn't resist leaning against the doorpost for a few moments, playing with the little dagger and watching Phryne's retreating back. She could be such a pain sometimes, but he flattered himself that he was starting to know how to handle her. He turned away to get his coat and hat, smiling. Undoubtedly she'd disabuse him of that comfortable notion before long.