If expectations are not established with the client, they will make assumptions and they won't be in your favor.
I think you can shorten this statement even more.
Clients will make assumptions and they won't be in your favor.
The goal is to limit those as much as possible, but they'll still happen. "Fixed price" is largely not fixed anyways, as you should always account for change requests and other budget altering mechanisms. I don't think I've ever seen a non-trivial project not have some level of change once work has started.