New Memories: A Bartowski Christmas

By Steampunk. Chuckster

A/N: Seven years ago, when there were a lot more Chuck fic writers in the world, a bunch of us did a Secret Santa thing where we drew names and then anonymously gave the other writer we picked gifts in the month of December in the lead up to Christmas. I picked my ol' pal dettiot who I eventually started Detective and the Tech Guy with, and I wrote her this 12 part Christmas fic. So here's the first part of it. And you'll (hopefully) get one part per day. I'm working thirty plus hours a week in the lead-up to Christmas, and I don't work from home, which means I am severely strapped for time, and yet...I'm trying this thing. We'll see how it goes. I'd really, really appreciate reviews or DMs or literally just...anything. Hope you enjoy. (It's super rough, written seven years ago, and with almost no editing.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck. These aren't my characters. I'm not making money from this.

Sarah looked down into the box in front of her, her hands holding the flaps open as she surveyed the neat and orderly bags and containers of Christmas tree ornaments. They were all labeled, most of them in handwriting she didn't recognize (which wasn't a surprise), but some of them in a handwriting she did recognize—Chuck Bartowski's handwriting. She unconsciously reached in and stroked her thumb over one of the bags, right over the spot where he wrote in Sharpie: "CLAYnaments" with a winky face next to it.

She smirked to herself and took the bag out, beginning to empty the box slowly. She figured the other handwriting was Ellie's, considering a lot of these must have been things the Bartowski siblings had collected over the years. When Devon and Ellie moved to Chicago, they took a good deal of their things with them, but apparently they left a lot of these ornaments. When Chuck called his sister the day before to ask if she wanted them, she said to still hang them up as though she were there, but that she and Awesome were making new memories with Clara.

Sarah's smirk died as her hands unconsciously stilled. New memories. It was exactly the phrase Chuck had been reassuring her with over the past few months, ever since she moved back in with him. It hadn't taken overly long for that to happen, and it wasn't long after that that she and Chuck began sharing a bed again. And other things. But she hadn't gotten all of her memories back. A few things, here and there. Just snippets, flashes really—though she hesitated to call them that. She tried not to let it show that she was disappointed, and there were moments, just small teeny tiny moments every so often, where she would catch something in the way Chuck looked at her. A longing of sorts. She knew he wanted her to get her memories back, but there was nothing she could do about it. And he knew that too. And so he repeated it, over and over, "We'll make new memories. New traditions. Just for us."

It was sweet and thoughtful and it warmed her heart that he was so eager to reassure her. But she wanted those memories back, too. And she wondered if she might never get them back, if she would see that look of longing in his eyes for the rest of their life together.

It didn't matter either way. She wasn't giving up on this, on him. She was happy, even with the flashes (that damn word again) of melancholy that she couldn't give Chuck the Sarah he'd married, the Sarah he'd fallen in love with in the first place.

Something caught her eye and she was torn from her reverie. At the very bottom of the box was a flat, plastic container. Written on the lid was "Sarah + Chuck Xmas 2011". And it was written in her own handwriting. She reached in and pulled it out. There had been somewhat of a disconnect for her as she'd unloaded the ornaments from the box—these were Chuck and Ellie's things. Chuck and Ellie's memories of Christmas past. And while that didn't mean she wasn't comfortable hanging them on hers and Chuck's Christmas tree, she didn't feel as though she was really a part of it. It didn't upset her, really. It was what it was.

But suddenly there was something in this box that she had purposefully written on. Something that was perhaps hers?

2011. That was probably hers and Chuck's first Christmas as a real couple. Had she bought this for him? What was it?

Just when she was going to slip the lid off of the box, the front door opened and Chuck himself stepped inside, his arms full of burlap grocery bags. His face was so content and jolly as he scanned the room for her. When their eyes met, she felt warmth flood through her, as it always did. As it always had, even when she didn't know who he was. "Hey," he grinned.

"Hi there."

Chuck kicked the door shut and walked into the kitchen, putting the bags down on the counter and coming back around, shrugging his jacket off and draping it over the back of the couch. "What are you do—hey! Our ornaments!"

The way he said "our" ornaments made her smile softly to herself. He knelt down next to her and fingered some of the bags on the floor. "You weren't gonna put these up without me, were you?" He gave her a suspicious glance.

"Of course not. I thought I'd get us started by at least emptying the box. After all, when we were putting this tree up, you were so serious about it being perfectly straight and in the perfect spot in the room, et cetera…" She trailed off then as his grin dimmed a little.

"This is where it's always gone." He reached up to push a tendril of blond hair that escaped from her bun behind her ear. She had no way to hide the look on her face and he immediately moved closer, rounding her shoulders with his arm and kissing the side of her face. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that to upset you. It's just…I mean, of course you wouldn't know that. I'm sorry. I have a way of sticking my foot in my mouth."

"Well, I know that much at least," she teased in an attempt to let him know she wasn't upset with him.

He chuckled and kissed her face again.

"And I knew you would want to put these up together. I wasn't sure if there was anything special about where they go or if there's a way to string the lights that's best or…I've never done this before. Decorated a Christmas tree."

She paused. "I mean…obviously I have." She lifted the box still in her hands. "But I don't remember it."

"I know," he said simply without even an ounce of hurt or regret in his tone. "Hey, we can make new memories, right?"

She smiled as best she could. "Right." Then she looked down and offered him the box she'd written on two years earlier. "So what is this? I recognize my handwriting."

"Ah, yes. This was our first Christmas that we spent together as a real couple."

"I take it it was a good Christmas."

Chuck melted a little, his smile filled with memories she couldn't share with him. But at the moment, she didn't care, because he was sharing it with her, and that would have to be good enough. It was good enough for now. "It was such a good Christmas. But, anyway…I gave you these a few weeks before Christmas." He popped the lid off and handed them back.

There were six glass ornaments of various shapes, with pictures inside of them, pictures of her and Chuck. And one of her and Chuck standing next to Ellie and Devon. And even one with Morgan.

"That one right there is a picture Ellie took of us when we first started dating—not, uh, not real dating. She thought we were real dating. But we weren't."

"Sure looks like we were real dating," Sarah teased, smiling up at him a little saucily.

"As I'm sure you're aware, there wasn't anything in the world I wanted more than for that to be true. I mean, everyone knew how crazy I was about you. There was no faking it for me."

"Well, I don't know this for sure, obviously," Sarah said quietly, sweeping her eyes over the rest of the pictures and staring closely at herself in each one, "but it doesn't look like I was faking it, either."

He just smiled happily at that. "I can't exactly blame ya. I'm kinda fantastic."

"Yeah," she said seriously. "You are."

She thought for a moment she felt Chuck tense next to her, but then he just grinned and cupped her face in his hand, kissing her solidly. His lips were cold from the early December cold breeze sweeping through LA County, but they felt so good. He felt so good.

When he pulled back, gently stroking his thumb over her cheek, she couldn't help the giggle that bubbled up from her chest. "You think we should do this now?"

"Probably. And then I'm thinkin' of cooking up some ground turkey, slicin' up a bit of 'cado, and frying some tortillas. Taco niiight." He did a little robot move with his arms and shimmied his shoulders, doing his adorable eyebrow dance and biting his lip.

She giggled again. "That sounds amazing. Even though you're a massive nerd."

He waited for her to put the box of ornaments down before he grabbed her around her waist and tugged her against him, eliciting a squeal from his wife as he pretended to eat the side of her face.

When they simmered down, the ornaments began appearing on the tree one by one. Chuck teased her when she asked him to hang one of their picture ornaments on a higher, thicker branch she couldn't reach without risking dropping it and shattering it all over their wood floor. And he received a hard slap to his backside once he finished, which in turn meant she was tackled onto the couch and tickled ruthlessly until she relented.

Usually she wouldn't have relented, but the faster they got the ornaments up, the quicker she could eat Chuck's tacos, and she was definitely hungry.

So here she stood now, wracking her brain for a way to answer Chuck's question, the last three ornaments needing to be hung sitting on the floor beside her feet. Chuck was finishing up on the other side of the tree, waiting for her response.

He had asked what she wanted to do on Christmas day. It was such a nonchalant question. And a valid question, too, considering it would be just the two of them. Morgan was out of town, Casey was off on a mission somewhere, and the Awesomes were unable to get enough time off for the holidays to fly back from Chicago.

And things were still slightly…tense…between Sarah and her mom. Chuck had told her everything that had happened with Ryker. How he was dead and that she could see her mom and Molly again. That she had started spending a little more time with them before Quinn stole it all away from her. But the fact of the matter was that she couldn't take that step just yet. Not this soon. And it seemed like Emma, at the very least, seemed to understand her need for space. That Sarah was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that five entire years of her life were wiped from her memory and all of a sudden she could see her mom that she'd been estranged from for so long (even before Ryker), and that she had a little sister…sort of…who had apparently grown very attached to her husband. No surprise there. Chuck seemed to have a way with all sorts of people, but especially children.

And that last thought made her even more fidgety and nervous, so she focused on the first thing that made her fidgety and nervous.

She couldn't remember what their Christmas tradition was. And she knew beyond all doubt that Chuck would understand if she couldn't remember. She couldn't remember the details of their wedding, for God's sake. Which hurt more than she could bear sometimes. But Chuck understood. New memories.

The only thing was that she wanted this one. So much. Especially now that she knew she'd become a part of the Bartowski family tradition, whatever it was. At some point, whether it was before she and Chuck started dating for real or after, Sarah had been accepted into their family. She was initiated into their ranks…as a Bartowski.

She wanted to continue that tradition. But she wanted to remember it on her own. She wanted to prove to Chuck that she could be that Sarah again, the Sarah he most likely thought he lost all those months ago, the Sarah he probably had since resigned himself to living without. And while he was happy, she couldn't help but wonder if he wished for things to be as they once were…if he wished for her to be as she once was. That Sarah. The old Sarah.

If she could remember Christmas, maybe he would truly be happy with her. Not that he wasn't. She knew he was. She knew he loved her for her, not because she was all he had left of that Sarah, but for her own traits and the person she was now. To think anything different would be idiotic. But that lingering doubt was ever-present.

She just wanted to remember Christmas. What did they do? Did they eat a certain food? Did they go…Christmas caroling or something? She didn't like singing. But…if that's what they did, she would go. She would do it for Chuck. It'd be odd, having only two people singing carols at people's doorsteps, but…she would give anything just to remember.

"Sarah?"

"I'm done!" she chirped, quickly tossing the last three ornaments up on the tree and moving around to stand next to him. "Let's see how it looks!"

Sarah tugged her husband back a few feet and peered up at their tree. The colored lights were blinking here and there, shimmering off of the ornaments hung around them. And she knew her tactic to deflect the conversation hadn't gotten past him, but he was her sweet, understanding Chuck so he didn't push.

"It's beautiful," he whispered in her ear, rounding her shoulders with his arms and pulling her back to his chest.

"It is," she murmured, aware that this was the first time she could remember looking at a tree that was hers and not someone else's through a window. Or in a department store. Or in the middle of Times Square. It had never meant anything to her after she was old enough to see the paltriness of the holiday. But suddenly, standing here with her husband, the man she loved, knowing she'd participated in this before (even though she didn't remember those times), it wasn't paltry at all. It wasn't cheesy or commercial or fake.

It was heartwarming. And wonderful.

And maybe if she lost herself in this feeling, maybe that memory would come back. And maybe she could make Chuck's Christmas exactly as it should be. A Bartowski Christmas. A new memory, yes…But also one that resembled the old.

A/N: More tomorrow! Thanks for reading and leaving a note.

-SC