Disclaimer: Oh, you know the drill.


12. Christmas Day, 2015

Three years later, Jack Harkness shows up on Christmas Day and Mycroft is actually surprised.

(Being caught off guard was always a rare occurrence and it has been happening less and less in recent years, unless Sherlock and Dr. Watson are involved. But Harkness has long been an exception of his own.)

He is so surprised he does something completely idiotic and calls up on his smartphone the last report on the man's whereabouts – which is obviously wrong and to be discarded at once so why reference it? Mycroft knows better than that – and protests: "You're supposed to be in Utah, dealing with the last Cybermen sightings!"

(He is far less dignified than he would prefer.)

Jack however nods, unbothered. "I am," he says simply and Mycroft's mind is too quick to need explanations.

The current Jack Harkness (if such a label can be used for timetravellers) is in Utah.

This Jack Harkness- he stops for a moment and scrutinizes the man. Keen eyes pick up clues and quick mind works them out in the old game of deduction. This Jack Harkness is older. He has been travelling a lot as of late, at least part of the time on other planets. In fact, he hasn't been on Earth for a good long while. He carries grief and loneliness with him still, but neither is the heavy burden that had darkened those blue eyes and hunched those shouders the last time they'd been together. He has left the past they have occasionally shared behind and found a measure of peace. And...

And he has come back for Mycroft.

That is so surprising that Mycroft almost finds himself stumped. Mind races through all the possibilities, considering and discarding at lightning-fast pace. He wonders if he can trust his own conclusions.

"Why now?" he blurts out and forces himself not to wince at his own lameness. (Maybe he's getting old.)

Jack smiles wryly. "You were always going on about a 'pattern'. Which never existed, by the way. Still... Figured I should follow that, yeah?"

"Of course there is a pattern," Mycroft says automatically.

Jack chuckles lightly. He gazes at Mycroft warmly, but says nothing else.

He is more restrained than Mycroft remembers, quieter, in a way, even in his body language. Not so much weighted as dimmed. (Mycroft wonders if he'll ever find out what made Jack Harkness who he is – but it is an idle thought. For once, he is not miffed by his own ignorance.)

They lean against the window they are standing by, bodies angled to each other, freezing glass and heavy curtains under Mycroft's still and Jack's restless hands.

Outside, snow covers Mummy's garden – just like it did the day they first met, all those years ago. Mycroft can see Sherlock smoking at the end of the short path, knows their parents and the Watsons are around somewhere.

The man by his side is looking at the winter landscape curiously, gaze darting here and there, but there is a patience in him Mycroft doesn't recognize. He is less edgy, less thrumming with bottled up energy. Less haunted.

Silence falls gently between them for a while.

Then Mycroft forces himself to break it. "Is this goodbye?" he asks softly, trying to stifle his sadness. (Pointless. Useless. Caring is not an advantage.)

"Yes."

The curt syllable is like a blow. Mycroft nods, rigid and controlled, and pretends he's not bothered.

Jack's body language warms all of a sudden, becoming looser, more friendly; he leans invitingly towards Mycroft and even summons a creditable version of his old, megawatt smile: "But it can be a long goodbye," he says earnestly. His blue, blue eyes gleam with playful interest. "Few decades long, maybe?"

Mycroft stops breathing.

Mycroft draws breath again.

"I am not usually much for drawing things out, but in this instance, I suppose I could bear it," he says with remarkable coolness. (He has a lifetime of practice in keeping his cool, thankfully.)

(In the back of his mind, Sherlock's voice sounds clear and present. I am not lonely, he had protested, only to be swiftly asked: "How would you know?"

...How indeed.)

Jack kisses him like all the universe spins around the two of them and even that is sad, because Mycroft is too intelligent and too cynical to believe such a thing, he knows he's nothing more than a blink of an eye to an immortal like Jack Harkness, he knows that even if the man does stay around for the rest of Mycroft's life, what he is offering is still nothing more than a handful of days.

And yet…

And yet.

"Thank you," says Jack, warm and sincere and gorgeous.

And yet, maybe, it is worth it.

(Caring is not an advantage, of course. But Mycroft doesn't need an advantage. He's a genius after all. So he kisses Harkness back.)


A/N: And... that's it! Thanks for reading! L.