Disclaimer: The original characters are borrowed without any intent of making profit from them.

A/N: Short, but it had to be done :)

4. Christmas Day, 1991

It becomes a pattern.

(Rather, it was always a pattern, but Mycroft has only now recognized it. That's understandable however: patterns emerge from the accumulation of data after all.)

Mycroft is very good at patterns, naturally, but he thinks even an idiot could work this one out. (So long as this year's observations confirm his hypothesis...)

Jack Harkness 'checks up on him' on Christmas Day every three years, without fail. Not a day before, not a day after. Mycroft is not particularly impressed by the suppposed symbolism (he really does not see the point of Christmas) but the regularity has its advantages.

(In years to come, Jack will always deny that there was any kind of pattern to his visits. He has lived too long, seen too much, to believe in patterns – patterns are just the frightened Humans' way to put imaginary restraints on the universe they can't control. He goes to visit Mycroft when he feels like it and if it always happens to be Christmas, well, it's because that's when it's easiest to get free time!

Mycroft knows better than that. Harkness has many intriguing qualities, good qualities even, but he's still as blind as most people. There is a pattern, one the man's been following, it seems, without realizing it. Sad, but quite common.)

Consequently, his fourth meeting with Jack Harkness isn't a surprise at all. (Although it is pleasing to be proven right, even when he anticipated it.)

Mycroft is quite ready for it. He knows the pattern now, knows what to expect of it, and what he wants to do about it. (He has practiced in preparation for this). There is absolutely no way the man will bully him into some absurd venture today; for all that it might prove useful in the end, like last time, Mycroft is not inclined to indulge the man's plans in any way. He is quite determined that he will not leave his room today and nothing will sway him.

Harkness (good-looking and relaxed and completely unchanged from all those years ago, which is unnerving in and of itself) smiles widely, unfazed: "That's alright. I can teach you the basics of sex right here in your bedroom."

Mycroft sputters and almost chokes on his own shock, but he is in too much of a stupor to really protest.

At least until Harkness – Jack – starts undressing him. For God's sake, his parents are downstairs!

Of course, his parents are locked in a screaming row with Sherlock, who has been at boarding school for a mere three months (save for the suspension he earned for that... episode, with the frogs and the sockets – experiment indeed! Mycroft needs to have a word with him about proper venues for research) and is already fed up with it and quite determined to scream his way out of going back.

(School, Mycroft knows, does not agree with his brother. That he is in an advanced program doesn't seem to help any. Mycroft can sympathize – boredom plagued him throughout high school too – but Sherlock's drama is pushing him perilously close to the end of his rope. It's not that Mycroft doesn't understand how hard it is to be a genius pre-teen, and yes, indeed, their parents are idiots, albeit loving ones – but does his brother have to be so dramatic about it?)

The fact remains that, even distracted, his parents should be a clear deterrent for a- a liaison, shouldn't they?

But Jack doesn't seem to care one whit. (And maybe, just maybe, Mycroft isn't protesting as much as he probably should. Maybe, just maybe, he is intrigued by the proposition. He sort of trusts that Jack would let him be if he said 'no' more clearly, but… well. He doesn't.)

Mycroft only offers a token protest by claiming that sex is boring and distasteful (which, in his admittedly very limited experience, it is).

Jack gives him a long, measuring look, then declares matter-of-factly: "That means you're doing it wrong."

Mycroft bristles – if there is one thing he simply can't stand, it is the thought of less than excelling at something – and, well, framed in the context of a lesson... it isn't altogether too different from studying anatomy, is it?

(He will never admit that he's slightly panicky, not even to himself; but, well. He is.)

Jack knows what he's about, though. For all that he touches on the health concerns and the safe-sane-consensual discussion (which Mycroft already knew, thank you very much, he is no idiot), there is nothing clinical about his actions at all. He sets about seducing Mycroft with skill, and intent, and unexpected playfulness, and by the end of the encounter, the genius has to admit – in the privacy of his mind, never out loud – that perhaps the man had a point. He was doing it wrong.

They have only the one day, as usual, but his education is certainly comprehensive. Far from boring. And not at all distasteful.

And for once, the thought of possibly needing a refresher course now and then is not upsetting...