ENTRY A

Sometimes, being a spy sucked.

Oh he'd known this true, but often annoying fact, for quite some time. Because of being a spy, he'd nearly lost Sarah and had lost his father. His family and friends had frequently been put in peril. His own life was regularly in danger. He was forced to lie to his sister. He couldn't really go on vacations and rarely got a day off.

In short, it was kind of crappy. Most days, he wasn't really sure why he apparently liked being a spy so much.

That wasn't to say there wasn't a good side to being a spy. In fact, the one plus that made up for all the negatives, was currently standing right next to him. Being a spy meant getting to work with Sarah. It meant being her partner. It meant he got to see her every day and not have to sit at home for months at a time while she traveled the world without him.

Being with Sarah was a hell of an upside if you asked him.

Still, there were some days where being a spy just really, really sucked. So much so that even getting to work with Sarah didn't seem to be worth it. And of course, one of those days just had to be today.

Really, who wanted to spend their day shooting Santa Claus?

"I make out ten of them," Casey said, low under his breath.

"I saw at least twelve when I did my pass," Sarah added.

At least twelve. Wonderful. Just what he needed.

It was like some kind of perverted form of the "Twelve Days of Christmas." What could he expect next, instead of two turtle doves, two frag grenades? He half expected to see Santa walking around with a T.O.W. missile.

This was supposed to be his day off. He was going to use it to do the last of his Christmas shopping. He still needed to get Sarah one of her gifts, a minor fact that he had done his best not to let her find out about, but of course the spy life had encroached upon him, even here.

He had been in a jewelry store at the Grove, looking at both engagement rings (not his gift, but there was no harm in looking) and charms for her bracelet. He was just about to ask one of the saleswomen if he could take a look at a particularly fetching ring that had caught his eye, when he had seen the reflection of a man dressed in a Santa suit walk by the store. He must have seen something interesting, because the flash hit him like a slap to the face.

By the time he had recovered, Santa was out of view, and he had to rush out of the store in search of the man known only in the Intersect as the Kringle Bandit.

You wouldn't think it'd be all that hard to find a man dressed in a bright red, velvet suit, but Chuck could see the man nowhere. So he had done the only thing he could: he called Sarah.

He had left the mall to wait for Sarah and Casey to arrive, and in that time, the Santas attacked.

In broad daylight.

It had taken what seemed like hours for the screaming horde of holiday shoppers to vacate the mall. He had tried to move back into the open-aired mall to see what was going on, but it would have been like trying to swim against a tsunami. Eventually, he had had to duck into a J. Crew and wait for the crowd to disperse. Once they had, he had stealthily left the store, barely avoiding detection by a slovenly Santa carrying an AK-47, and moved north up Bow Street.

He was more than a little perturbed. To ruin his day off was bad enough, but now the spy life was potentially threatening his first Christmas with Sarah as a couple. He didn't want anything to screw it up, and not being able to get her the kind of gift she deserved, would definitely constitute a screw-up in his books.

"Stupid Santa," he had muttered under his breath as he had made his way to the parking structure.

He could not believe the audacity of the Kringle Bandit and his crew of malevolent Santas.

The whole time he waited for Sarah and Casey, he had imagined the many different ways the day could get worse.

He should have known better.

Because it got worse.

The Santas were not alone.

There were apparently roving teams of angry elves patrolling the mall grounds, keeping anybody from getting too close and figuring out what the Kringle Bandit was up to.

It had to all be a big joke. There was no way this could actually be happening.

"So what do you want to do with the elves?"

"Obviously we're going to have to neutralize them somehow. They've set up a pretty tight perimeter."

If only the Kringle Bandit didn't allegedly have contacts with suspected insurgents in Iraq (he had no idea how the man could possibly have such contacts, after all, he dressed up as Santa Claus and robbed malls, but who was he to argue with the Intersect?), then he knew Team Bartowski wouldn't even have to be here. They could have handed things over to L.A. SWAT and let them deal with the problem.

"We could always shoot them," Casey added helpfully.

"I'm pretty sure shooting Santa and his little helpers gets you on the 'Naughty' list, Casey!"

Casey just rolled his eyes. "Relax, Bartowski, I already talked to the General and she expressly warned me that she doesn't want a repeat of the Mall of America disaster of Christmas'02." He scowled and muttered something unintelligible under his breath. "We'll use tranqs."

"That's great," he said and then made a sweeping motion with his arm. "Maybe you'll tell them that?"

All around them was a small army of L.A.'s finest. Team Bartowski were pretending to be FBI agents and had assumed command of the situation from the local LAPD commander. There had been a fair amount of grumbling on their part, but a couple well placed grunts from Casey, and all jurisdictional disputes were quickly settled. Now they were just waiting on Casey and Sarah's order to go.

Casey just shrugged his shoulders. "Well, I guess we'll just have to make sure the vultures," and he nodded in the direction of another small army of reporters, "don't get any good shots of Santa being carted away in a body bag."

"Merry Christmas," Chuck mumbled under his breath and adjusted his gear for the fourth time.

Stupid Santa.

"What were you doing here anyway," Sarah asked.

He looked up from his tactical vest and tried his best to play it casual. "Oh you know, just doing a little last minute Christmas shopping."

Sarah frowned, her brows scrunching up cutely. "But you told me you finished your shopping last week."

He nodded his head vigorously. "Yeah, yeah, I just remembered I wanted to pick something else up for Morgan."

"But there are no video game stores here." Sarah narrowed her eyes. "You're not buying me another present, are you?"

"What? Pshaw! No, of course not."

Sarah rolled her eyes and then sighed. "Chuck, you already bought me two presents. I told you I don't need that much." Her features softened and she placed her hand on his arm. She leaned close and kissed him quickly on the lips, just a soft brushing against his mouth, and then she pulled back to lock eyes with him. "Really. I only need you, okay?"

He nodded and smiled hesitantly. Sure Sarah said that and he believed her, he really did, but damn it, he wanted to get her something more anyway. He was just so happy and felt so lucky that they were finally together and he wanted to show her that. He had a whole extravaganza planned for this Christmas and he was going to do his damndest to make sure everything went off without a hitch.

Stupid Santa.

Sarah let out a little laugh and shook her head. "You're not going to listen to me, are you?"

"Uh," he just said.

She grinned, and then leaned forward and kissed him again, this time a little longer. It was enough to make him feel a little lightheaded. "We'll talk more about this later, but come on, we should go before Casey gets antsy and starts shooting the reindeer."

"Wait, there's reindeer?"

Of course there was reindeer. How could he have missed that?

The day kept getting worse and worse.

He really needed to learn to stop thinking.

It was the only explanation for the current situation. He was in some strange Twilight Zone episode where whatever you thought became reality. That was the only thing that could explain why two elves—that looked more like hobbits—riding on a reindeer, and the man known as the Kringle Bandit, were currently holding Sarah and himself hostage.

He had imagined things getting worse; he couldn't help it, it was just his nature and it had popped into his head like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Not five minutes later, Sarah and he were surrounded.

This was just not his day, he decided.

Sarah, meanwhile, was trying to talk the Kringle Bandit down from doing anything rash. "I don't know what you hoped to accomplish here, but as you can hear," she paused to let the sounds of random gunfire and yelling and screaming and reindeer neighing (did reindeer neigh?) fill the air before continuing, "your associates are being arrested as we speak. It's best for you to turn yourself in."

The Kringle Bandti, on the other hand, clearly had other ideas and leered rather obviously at Sarah. "You know what," he said with a slight drawl to his words, "you'd make a good entry on my 'Naughty' list. Ho ho ho."

"Excuse me," he said. He raised his hand and got the other man's attention. "I'd rather you not sully my good memories of Santa by turning him into a perverted douche. Also, that was totally cliché. Okay, thanks."

He noticed Sarah glaring at him out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't care. He wasn't going to just stand there and let some creep that had totally ruined his day make those kinds of comments about his girlfriend.

He knew Sarah could look after herself and it wasn't even really about that. He had meant what he said; he didn't need his childhood memories being tainted.

Stupid Santa.

The Kringle Bandit just laughed and then stepped back to converse quietly with his two compatriots.

He used the opportunity to turn to Sarah and cock an eyebrow. She shook her head but had a faint smile. She sidled up to him then and whispered, "Thank you for sticking up for me, but I'd much rather you not anger the guy with the gun."

"Sarah!" he hissed. "He's ruining Christmas!"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Relax. Casey's got everything under control."

He blinked in surprise. "He does?"

Sarah smiled with what he interpreted as encouragement and then bumped his shoulder with hers. "He does."

The Kringle Bandit was still in converse with his two elves and so Sarah obviously felt like she was free to talk. "So what were you going to buy me?"

He frowned. "Uh, not that I am confirming I was going to buy you anything, but if I were planning to do so, I definitely wouldn't tell you."

She narrowed her eyes. "You better not be buying me more jewelry. You've probably spent too much already."

His own eyes widened in response. "You promised not to use your super spy skills to figure out your presents!"

Sarah just rolled her eyes. "It's pretty obvious what you got me, Chuck. You should have put it in a bigger box."

Chuck nearly buried his face in his hands. He loved Sarah but she could suck all the fun out of gift giving. She was too much spy for her own good sometimes. She could have at least pretended that she didn't know what he'd gotten her. That's what most people would have done.

Suddenly, a bullhorn screeched and then Casey's voice came booming through the air. "Hey you, on the reindeer! Surrender now and drop your weapons! We have you surrounded."

He sighed in relief at hearing Casey's voice. Sarah was right, Casey was on top of things. Soon, his long shopping nightmare would be over. He was so ordering everything online next year.

The Kringle Bandit sprung into action, grabbing Sarah and sticking a gun to her head. Sarah barely reacted, not like he would have in her place, but then that was one of the reasons why he loved her. Cool under pressure, that was his girl.

"You realize, of course, that you'll never get away with this, don't you?"

The Kringle Bandit just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because I've never heard that one before."

"No, seriously, she's right," he added helpfully. "The guy on the bullhorn? Known as the office Grinch. He'd have no problem shooting Santa." He lowered his voice some, afraid Casey might overhear and said, "Not hugged much as a child, you understand."

As if to further his point, a red dot suddenly appeared on the reindeer's nose. Chuck saw it and immediately chuckled. "Hey look, it's Rudolph."

The Kringle Bandit's eyes widened and he tightened his grip on Sarah. "You tell your guy to not even try it. You'll both be dead before he gets me and my men."

"Ooooor, you could just surrender, we'll have some milk and cookies, and everybody goes home alive."

"Yeah, I'm gonna pass on that," the Kringle Bandit said.

He frowned at that. He shut his eyes and figured what the hell, so far it had worked, why not now? He was owed some good luck after this day. So he thought really hard about what he wanted to happen, and a few seconds later, he opened his eyes.

Sarah was brushing off her clothes while staring down at the Kringle Bandit lying still on the ground. With disdain she toed the man with her boot and then flashed him a brilliant grin. He swung his head around to check on the elves and noticed not only were they lying on the ground, but the reindeer also was asleep.

Huh, looked like Casey had used tranqs after all.

Wow, he couldn't believe that really worked. He wondered what else he could make come true…

He shut his eyes again and imagined Sarah in the lingerie she had worn last night. When he opened his eyes again, she was still wearing all her previous clothes. He felt a brief pang of disappointment, but shrugged his shoulders. She was still gorgeous as always.

"It's a Christmas miracle," he said drily to Sarah.

She continued to grin even as he walked over to her. She grabbed the front of his vest and pulled him close, kissing him hard. He was surprised but quickly returned her passion.

"What was that for?" he asked when they broke apart, both breathing heavily.

"I'm just happy you're okay."

"I'm okay? He had the gun pointed at your head."

She just grinned and then kissed him again, shorter and softer. "Come on, we should go meet up with Casey and start the clean up." She grabbed his hand and they started walking away from the sleeping mall bandits. He never did learn what the Kringle Bandit was doing there, but he didn't really care at the moment.

Stupid Santa.

"Then we're going to talk about you still buying me gifts even after I've repeatedly asked you not to."

Uh-oh. He knew that tone.

"But, Sarah—"

She cut him off. "I already told you last night what you could give me." Her voice was low and throaty, clearly meant to entice and seduce.

It was more than doing its job.

He just grinned stupidly as they walked, Sarah still whispering into his ear all the things they could do together this Christmas.

So, okay, it looked like his Christmas extravaganza was going to need to include more whipped cream.

Damn it, that meant he was going to have to go shopping.