Author's note: The piano scene is probably my favorite MFMM scene ever. Jack and Phryne singing together... I always felt that it was almost impossible for them not to misbehave after so much chemistry! So here is an alternative ending to the episode.

A big thank you to Alice's little bottle for reading the story, suggesting improvements, and convincing me that it isn't completely awful :)

Enjoy, and please review! I struggled with this one, so I would really like to hear what you think.

We were together.
I forget the rest.
- Walt Whitman

The piano tinkled a soft intro as she settled down next to him on the stool.

We're all alone
No chaperone
Can get our number
She sang softly as his hands moved over the keys.

The world's in slumber
Let's misbehave
Her tone was unmistakably seductive, but he pretended not to notice. They had been playing this game for so long. He chimed in to play his part.

There's something wild
About you child
That's so contagious

Truer words had never been written, he reflected. Wild and free, and inexorably drawing him in. He kept his voice carefully neutral as he continued.

Let's be outrageous
Let's misbehave

She leaned just a little closer and he was aware that she was watching him from the corner of her eye while they sang the next few lines together, their voices blending beautifully. He kept his eyes firmly fixed on the keys.

You know my heart is true
And you say you for me care.
Somebody's sure to tell
But what the heck do we care?

He heard the smile in her voice during the next part, together with… was it a hint of longing?

They say that bears have love affairs
And even camels
We're merely mammals
Let's misbehave

We're merely mammals
Let's misbehave…

He carefully finished the last notes, before looking up at her with a small smile. He had chosen the song to tease her, the way she was always teasing him, filling the air between them with unfulfilled promises. He could see immediately that it had worked: she was looking at him with that expression he had come to know so well – half playfulness, half seduction.

She cocked her head a little to the side and looked at him from underneath her eyelashes. 'Well, Jack, what do you think? Shall we misbehave?'
He smiled inwardly, but kept a straight face. 'I'm not really the misbehaving kind, I'm afraid, Miss Fisher', he said as he turned his gaze away from her, back to the piano keys, positioning his hands for a new song.
She grinned playfully. 'Oh, I think you might be. Under the right circumstances…'
'And what might those be?' he couldn't keep himself from asking.
She looked at him appraisingly for a moment, then suggested hopefully: 'A little more whiskey, perhaps?'

The corners of his mouth pulled down in that typical upside-down smile of his, but he kept his eyes on the piano and did not reply. He simply started a new song. He could not remember when their light banter had turned into something else when they were alone together. At the beginning of their partnership, she had used on him the same flirtatious manner she used on all male company, and he had known full well that it was innocent. Recently, however, a new tone had crept into her voice when they teased each other over whiskey at the end of a case. She was no longer hiding her attraction to him, and many of her more flirtatious remarks were almost invitations, which she left to him to accept or reject. Those were usually his cue to leave. He wondered why, sometimes.

She got up from beside him to walk across the room towards the whiskey decanter. He experienced her sudden absence as a cold emptiness on his left side, but again pretended not to notice. She poured herself another generous measure of whiskey, before returning to stand next to the piano, running her hand over the smooth wood while she watched him play. He decided to steer the conversation to safer territory.

'Do you play, Miss Fisher?'
'No', she admitted. 'I never had the patience to learn it properly.'
He was not surprised. 'Then why keep a piano?' he asked, raising an eyebrow.
She smiled as she settled back next to him, sitting rather too close, so their shoulders and thighs touched slightly.
'So guests with previously unsuspected talents can play for me, of course.'
He smiled enigmatically, but did not elaborate on his unsuspected talents. He merely kept on playing, and she found herself admiring the way his strong hands moved so delicately over the keys. She couldn't help but wonder what else he would be able to do with those wonderfully sensitive fingers… The thought caused a stirring in her stomach, and prompted her to lean even closer to him. She was feeling particularly wild tonight, and he had been immune to her charms for too long. She longed for him, but knew that she would scare him off if she were too brazen about it, so she had contented herself with throwing hints, looks, and inviting flirtatious remarks his way, confident that he would come to her when he was ready. Only, he hadn't, and she couldn't quite understand why. She knew he was attracted to her, even more than that: he had admitted, more or less openly, that he cared for her, only a few weeks ago. So why did he insist on keeping his distance?

Suddenly, something caught her attention. He had gone back to playing 'Let's Misbehave', and she could not help but feel that he was doing it on purpose, to tease her. She hummed along with the tune, leaning against his shoulder. Only at the last sentence did she sing along, looking at him as she crooned softly, invitingly: 'Let's misbehave…'
He stopped playing, though his hands remained on the keys, and looked at her, their faces only inches apart. His expression was inscrutable, but she returned his gaze openly, with a hint of longing; waiting, as ever, for him to close the distance between them. They stared at each other for several long moments.
'Alright', he said suddenly. She blinked, taken completely by surprise. He smiled wryly.
'Alright, let's misbehave tonight, Miss Fisher. But then what happens tomorrow?'
She shrugged her shoulders slightly as she recovered from the shock and smiled at him. 'Why do we have to worry about tomorrow?'
'You don't,' he conceded, his gaze returning to his hands, still resting on the keys. 'But I always worry about tomorrow.'
She put a hand on his arm, and he was acutely aware of its pressure through the sleeve of his suit. He glanced sideways to see her look at him with an expression of tenderness.
'Jack,' she said softly, and he felt something pinch in his chest as she said his name. 'What have you got to lose?'
He hesitated for a long moment before he answered her. Maybe it was time to be honest, and get this over with once and for all. 'My heart', he said lightly, before striking up a new song. A bit melodramatic perhaps, he reflected, but heaven knew she responded to melodrama more than anything. And yes, she pulled back her hand almost instantly. There, he thought in bitter satisfaction. He had known that would scare her off. Maybe now she would finally keep her distance, instead of openly trying to seduce him whenever she got the chance. He needed all his defenses to deflect her charms at those moments, all his willpower to walk away, but he was damned if he was going to end up in her bed for one wild night, to be discarded the next morning.

He was startled out of his reverie when she suddenly spoke beside him, startled to hear her voice so vulnerable.
'And what about my heart, Jack?'
He refused to look up. 'That is yours alone, Miss Fisher.'
She was silent for a while before softly saying: 'Not for a long time now...'
He finally looked at her, and lost track of what he was playing as he noticed that her eyes were suspiciously bright. His hands stilled.
'Don't make me say it, Jack.'
He hesitated, afraid that he was not interpreting her meaning correctly. Could it be that she cared for him, too, and that she had been trying to show him in the only way she knew how? He swallowed hard before continuing carefully.
'All the others…'
'There is only you.'
'So tonight…?'
'Does not have to stay 'tonight'.'
He couldn't believe what she was saying. He asked, breathlessly: 'You and I…?'
She looked at him fiercely for a moment. 'No promises.'
He understood. 'No promises', he assured her.
'Then, yes.'
They did not need any more words. She looked at him patiently with those impossibly blue eyes, waiting, once again, for him to bridge the distance between them. For the first time, he understood.

Finally taking his hands off the keys, he hesitantly lifted his right hand to touch her. He had dreamed of this moment so often, that he couldn't believe it was real now. He didn't dare make any brusque movements, for fear that the illusion would shatter and he would wake up, once again, alone in his cold and empty bed. But her skin was soft and warm and very real under his fingers as he stroked her cheek, running his fingers over the smooth shape of her cheekbones, until he reached the corner of her mouth. Then, he gently traced his thumb over her bottom lip, and she parted her lips slightly. He leaned in close… then had to ask one more time.
'You won't run away from this?'
She looked at him in complete honesty, and answered without a hint of her usual teasing. 'I won't.'
He kissed her. Softly first, his lips merely brushing hers, carefully, tenderly. She responded equally gently, acknowledging that he needed to do this at his own pace. But after a while she smiled, put her hand against his cheek, and whispered, 'I won't break, you know'. That broke the spell – he laughed. 'It's just that… it's you', he tried to explain.
She smiled back at him. 'You know we work well together, Jack. Why should this be any different?'
He looked up at her, reassured. 'That's true.' He felt his worries melt away as he looked into her eyes, and when she gave him her most sensuous look and bit her lip, he felt a sudden stab of desire as a sense of infinite possibility stole over him. He looked at her steadily, joy and desire flaring in his eyes, and he grinned mischievously. 'In that case, Miss Fisher… let's misbehave.'
She gave him an equally mischievous grin in return. 'Why Inspector, I thought you'd never ask.'

The next thing he knew, she was sitting on his lap, arms around his neck as she kissed him passionately. For several long moments, the outside world ceased to exist as everything was Phryne – his senses were quite overwhelmed: the taste of her lips, the smell of her perfume, her voice in his ear, and the feeling of her in his arms, her body pressed close to his, the sensation of finally – finally – being able to run his hands through her glossy hair, to touch the delicate skin of her throat, run his hands down her back… He felt like he was fully submerged, and he never wanted to surface again. Now that they were here, now that fantasy had turned into reality, Jack realized that they had reached a point after which they could never go back, so he felt no need to be careful anymore. Why take things slow, when they had basically had two years of foreplay? Why worry about what society might think, if they could face society together? And why wait, if they both desired each other with such urgency?
So Jack decided not to be a gentleman for once, and he did not walk away. Instead, he ran his hand down her thigh, found the hem of her dress, and slid underneath to run his hand up again. When he started kissing her throat and chest, she leaned back, making the piano tinkle softly as she pressed against the keys.

He looked up at the sound, and was suddenly aware of the fact that they were sitting in the middle of the parlor, a room with unlocked doors, and other people in the house who might wander in at any time. So he disengaged himself from her arms and lifted her off his lap to seat her next to him on the piano stool. He stood up and straightened his jacket, then turned to her, suppressing a smile as she raised her eyebrows at him in disbelief.
'Jack! What in heavens name are you doing?'
He walked towards the door, and she followed him, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
'You know me, Miss Fisher,' he said softly as they entered the hallway. 'I don't think we should rush this. Better take things slow, one step at a time.'
She was completely speechless now, and he was thoroughly enjoying the fact that he had managed such an exceptional feat. He waited for her to recover.
'Wait – you're leaving? Now?'
He managed to keep a straight face for just a moment longer. 'Well, yes, I'll see you tomorrow, and then we can talk things through first before we…' She looked so horrified at that point, that he couldn't keep it up anymore. Grinning, he swept her into his arms and kissed her.
'Jack!' she exclaimed. 'That was a cruel trick to play on me.'
He looked at her, a twinkle in his eye. 'I couldn't resist.'
His hands wandered to her hips again, and he felt his previous mood return. When she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, he nearly sank into it once more, before reminding himself that the hallway was hardly a less public place than the parlor. So he disengaged himself once more, and pulled her towards the stairs.

The moment the door of the bedroom was closed behind them and safely locked, he pushed her up against it, trailing kisses down her neck and shoulders. Her dress was loose-fitting – he was able to easily slide it off her shoulders, and it fell to the floor, revealing a silk camisole underneath. He searched and found a nipple, and softly nipped it through the fabric. For a moment, a fierce battle raged in his mind, between self-consciousness and embarrassment at what he was doing (this was Miss Fisher!), and joy and satisfaction at the fulfillment of so many unfulfilled promises and fantasies. But when she tangled her hands into his hair and pulled him closer, softly sighing his name, the second emotion firmly pushed away the first as he left conscious thought behind and, probably for the first time in his life, just let himself be carried away. He didn't care anymore. His need for her was the only thing left in the world.

He slipped the straps of the camisole off her shoulders, too, and felt his breath catch for a moment at the sight of ivory skin. He remembered, vividly, her fan dance at the Gentleman's Club (how those images had appeared, over and over, in his mind's eye, no matter how much he had tried to push them away), and he felt a great sense of satisfaction that he was now allowed to touch her, caress her, kiss her. He hungrily took a nipple in his mouth and sucked, drawing a small moan from her lips.

A moment later, though, she pushed him away, and he looked up in indignation to see her smile at him. 'Now this is hardly fair', she teased him. 'Look at how utterly dressed you are!' She started to undo his tie, as he shrugged off his jacket. He could hardly bear the sight of her bare white skin so close to him, and as she unbuttoned his shirt, he pressed kisses to every inch he could reach, making her laugh. When the shirt was finally out of the way, it was her turn to kiss his throat and chest, while he tried to control himself. When she started to nibble his earlobe, however, his restraint broke.

They never even made it to the bed. Before he quite knew how it happened, they were on the floor and he was lying on top of her, kissing her deeply. When she started to undo his pants buttons, he realized that she was just as eager as he was; her breathing came quick and her chest was flushed. He kicked off his pants as she slipped out of her underwear, and suddenly she was lying there, naked beside him. He needed a moment to just look at her, let it sink in. There she was. He considered pinching himself, but decided that, if this was a dream, he really didn't want to wake up. He carefully reached out to touch her. '
God, how I want you,' he whispered huskily as he slowly ran his hands down her body.
'Well, then don't make me wait any longer, Jack Robinson', she replied with a smile full of longing, and she pulled him down on top of her. He gasped as she opened her legs and wrapped her hand around him to guide him. When he finally entered her, it was bliss, and he heard her moan as she raised her hips to him. He sank into her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist to pull him in deeper, digging her nails into his back. He was acutely aware of her, her body moving beneath his, the way she was wrapped around him, and he fought to control himself – he wanted it to last. But suddenly he felt her gasp and tense beneath him – he wondered for a moment if he had hurt her – then she started to tremble and tangled her fingers into his hair. When she cried out his name and he felt her clench around him, it was too much, and he abandoned all restraint as he let himself go. Glorious release swept through him as he pushed in one more time, then shuddered and collapsed.

They lay together for a moment, out of breath, until he carefully tried to move his weight off her, worried that he would be too heavy. With a soft sound of protest, however, she kept him where he was. 'I love to feel your body on mine', she purred happily, and as he smiled down at her, he felt a surge of emotion that was so strong, it quite took his breath away. He gripped her tight and buried his face into her hair. There, carefully hidden, he dared to utter the dangerous words that had been trying to escape his lips for months. 'I love you, Phryne.'
She didn't stiffen, did not pull away from him, or even hesitate for a second. 'I love you, Jack', she whispered softly. He suppressed a sudden urge to cry, feeling that that would definitely detract from his manliness, but he felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, a load he had been carrying for the last couple of months. He kissed her tenderly, and they remained in the warm cocoon of their happiness for several long moments.

Gradually, however, Jack became aware of their surroundings again, and he sat up, feeling himself go red. They were lying on the floor, in the middle of the room, items of clothing discarded all around them. This was hardly decent, never mind romantic or gentlemanly.
'I'm sorry,' he started to apologize, 'you must be uncomfortable, the floor… I shouldn't have…'
But she sat up and hushed him by pressing a kiss to his lips. 'It was perfect', she whispered, smiling.
He relaxed a bit, but something was starting to bother him. He hesitated to ask it. 'Phryne… what happens tomorrow?'
She gave him a saucy look. 'I'm not sure I'm quite done with you today, Inspector. Maybe we can relocate to the bed…'
He smiled. 'That's a very tempting offer, Miss Fisher, and I certainly mean to take you up on that… but first I need this settled. How do we go on tomorrow?'
She shrugged, unconcerned. 'The way we always do. You go to a case, I come in and offer you my invaluable assistance, you pretend to be annoyed with me, we'll bicker the whole way through and then we'll solve the case together. Nothing needs to change. Except, of course,' she continued, nuzzling his neck, 'that now we don't have to limit ourselves to only sharing a celebratory whiskey afterwards.'
He sighed with pleasure as she softly caressed his shoulders and chest. 'That sounds like an excellent plan to me.' He turned and took her in his arms. 'But will you be able to resist me the entire day?' he teased her, lips inches from hers.
'I'm quite sure I won't', she replied, eyes sparkling, before she bit his bottom lip.
'Well then', he said, 'we'd better get it out of your system now. Shall we try and make it to the bed this time?'