A/N: So after Zettel gave me an idea for Small Town, Dillwg PM'd me about an idea for ski school. We went back and forth about it, and I decided I would write it once I was done with Small Town. The MySongStory wanted to do the 2019 Christmas fic challenge and Dillwg and I got to talking about this for a Christmas fic. The next thing I know he's written over 8000 words and sent it to me with the note, he's turning it over to me. So, I've taken it, tweaked parts, but this first chapter is basically all him, hence the name DC and Dillwg present. We hope you enjoy it, thank you Dillwg for the great idea, amazing outline, and for always supporting whatever I right. Also thank you MySongStory for this year's challenge and some of the technical assistance in this fic. (We're shooting to make sure I don't have any more Christmas traditions screwups this year.) (Fic takes place present day) This will be stupid fluffy, just in case you were wondering, and land speed records may be set for getting them together.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Christmas, Chuck, fluff, or a pair of skis.

Thanksgiving

"So what did you want to see me about before we have dinner with your sister and Devon?" Jill asked, watching Chuck wipe his hands on his pants.

"Since we've gotten back together after college, I feel things, you know, between us," he said, motioning to the two of them. "Are good," Chuck began.

"Are we gonna go through that again, I said I was sorry for cheating on you, Chuck," Jill replied, looking slightly irritated.

"No, we're not going through that again," Chuck said quickly. "In fact, it's forgiven, I've moved on. WE'VE moved on, and I thought it was time, we move together."

Jill went a little pale. "What are you saying?"

"I'd like you to move in with me, and when the lease runs out in February, we find a house together, and begin….well, our future." Jill stared at him. "Jill?"

She swallowed and looked away a moment. She blew out a breath and turned back to him. "Chuck," she began.

"No," he said softly.

"Look, Chuck, I really like you, and we have fun, but…moving in? What's next, marriage?"

"Yeah," he replied. "That's kinda how it works…"

"No," Jill said shaking her head. "I-I…I can't Chuck. I don't want that future, I don't want kids and all that."

"Who said anything about kids?"

"Chuck, come on, it's you," she replied with a soft smile. "I know you, and what you'll want." She crossed her arms and looked up at the ceiling. "I was hoping to get through Valentine's Day without this happening. I don't need my parents on my case."

"What are you talking about?" Chuck asked.

Jill gave him a look. "Chuck, you need to be real. The past couple of years I've been a distraction from your work." Chuck started to speak, but she cut him off. "Don't. Don't deny it, because I have been for you, and you have been for me." He stood there, stunned. "Chuck, we didn't want to hear things from our family, so we made this work, neither looking too deep at what was there….or not there. I don't want to hurt you, I truly care about you, but moving in, marriage, family….no, Chuck. I'm sorry."

Chuck looked down at the ground and stuck his hands in his pockets. "We're breaking up, aren't we?"

Jill turned toward Ellie's apartment and then back to Chuck. "We both know she really doesn't like me."

"Jill," Chuck began.

"Goodbye, Chuck," she said, as she kissed him on the cheek. "Do you want me to come by and get all my things or do you want to pack them up for me and I get the boxes."

"Whatever you want," he said, defeated. She gave him a hug and left, him standing in his doorway watching her go.

Ellie's door opened and she saw Jill walking away. She turned toward Chuck and saw his face. "Chuck, what happened?"

}o{

December 22nd

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year was playing in Devon and Ellie's apartment. Chuck was sitting on the couch, trying to find a reason not to go with them. He knew they wanted this family time. He knew they wanted him with them, but he was still depressed. Jill had broken his heart, again, but at least this time she was honest, and she hadn't been cheating like she had been in Stanford. Then, he had buried himself into his degree, now….now he was going to go skiing with Ellie and Awesome. He'd probably die. He thought about that for a second, his heart couldn't hurt if he was dead. He sighed. Jill was right about one thing, they had been a distraction for each other. Chuck realized he was lonely, but not for Jill, just for…someone. He wasn't mad or upset with her, just with himself for not realizing what was going on, and getting lost in his dream. Maybe this trip was what he needed, to just meet someone, nothing serious, just…to meet someone. Chuck was lost in those thoughts when Awesome walked into the room.

"C'mon, bro," Devon boomed out with his typically overly enthusiastic tone. "Reports out of Squaw Valley are calling for record levels of powder. It's going to be…"

"Awesome?" Chuck filled in, although rather unenthusiastically.

"Well, I was going to go with epic," Devon responded with his trademark toothy smile. "But awesome works pretty good too."

"So, what you are saying, Captain, is that there's going to be tons of snow up there, right?" Chuck said, causing Devon to keep grinning, on the assumption that he had converted Chuck's opinion. "So, that means that when I fall every ten feet, I'm going to be covered from head to toe in snow." Devon's grin dimmed noticeably.

"Ok, work with me here, Devon," Chuck continued undaunted. "At some point, likely when I most look like the California version of the Abominable Snowman, we're going to head inside of some building."

"The lodge," Devon offered up, although not as excited as he had been a few moments earlier.

"The lodge. Thank you, Captain," Chuck resumed. "And presumably this lodge will be significantly warmer than the ski slopes. Am I right again?"

Chuck resumed without waiting for any response from Devon. "Now, by applying the second law of thermodynamics, we know that this snow will melt when I go inside of the lodge. At that point, everything that I am wearing will be soaked. At some point after that, even if it just to run outside to Ellie's Mustang to ride home, the melted snow will turn to ice, creating a giant Chucksicle."

"Chuck," Ellie groaned out. "Devon and I have worked shifts for three straight weeks in order to get the time off for this Christmas trip. And I know that you have been working crazy hours as well, because that's what you do when you sulk," she added with a significant look. "I get it that you would prefer to stay here in Burbank, and hide from people." Chuck winced a bit at that one. "But, Devon and I are heading up to the Woodcomb's chalet for Christmas. Give me one good reason why you would refuse to share Christmas with me."

Chuck was sunk, and he knew it. He didn't have anything against Squaw Valley, or the Lake Tahoe area in general. It just meant going outside of his comfort zone, which admittedly, only extended as far as the living room the three of them shared for the past several years at Christmas. Jill had even said she felt like an intruder, and had stayed away. It was just that he liked their Christmas traditions: making some eggnog and a big Christmas dinner; sitting on the 'comfort zone' sofa all day while watching Twilight Zone and Mystery Science Theatre marathons. It wasn't much, and it certainly didn't qualify as traditional. But it was their tradition.

"Besides," Ellie continued, although in a less confrontational tone than a moment earlier, "you never know. You might actually enjoy skiing."

Chuck gave her the flattest look in his repertoire. "El, I love you to bits. But seriously? I saw the photos from the last time you and Devon went on a ski trip. The top of the mountain with a little rope strung around with an opening with a sign on each side. One side reading 'Expert Terrain-ski at your own risk' and the sign on the other side reading 'You or your heirs will be responsible for any search and recovery costs'. Your heirs, El."

"Bro, those signs were way over-hyping the danger there. It wasn't even that challenging a slope," Devon spoke up again, while Ellie sent him a 'you are so not helping the cause here' look. "Besides, we won't take you up on any black diamond trails. We'll keep it easy. And your sister is right, like she always is, you won't know how much you will enjoy skiing until you give it a shot."

Chuck let out a quiet groan as he realized that there was no way that he was going to win this one. Ellie and Devon were set on a destination Christmas, so unless he wanted to both disappoint the only family he had left as well as spend Christmas by himself, he was going to go with them. But not on the ski slopes. That was not happening. There was no way. None.

}o{

Sarah let out a quiet groan, accompanied by an eye roll as she watched the award ceremony for the World Cup race in Val d'Isere, France. Bryce had managed to get on to the medal platform with a bronze, and had some young woman wrapped around him staring at him with a fawning look. Sarah switched off the TV before she gave herself a concussion from all the eyerolls.

She didn't miss the grind of it all. The punishment that her body had taken as she had hurtled downhill as fast as she could go-which was usually the fastest of anyone on the mountain. Nor did she miss the grueling training regimen that not only punished her body, but also kept her away from her mom for the majority of the year. For eleven years, since the age of fifteen when she joined the Junior Olympic Team, she had been pushing herself and pushing herself. She glanced back at the darkened TV. She DEFINITELY didn't miss dealing with Bryce and his ever wandering eyes and more-often-than-not, his hands.

They had been the "it" couple for Team USA Skiing, but the reality didn't live up to the PR hype that the Association had kept generating. Between the year round conditioning and travel from one continent to the next on the World Cup Tour each year, it was next to impossible to have a relationship if it wasn't with someone else on the Tour. But "dating" Bryce Larkin had the added difficulties of his penchant for flirting with any female with a pulse, as well as his ego getting bent out of shape whenever she beat him in training run times, which was often, or on medal podium placement which was pretty much constant. She couldn't help the grin that covered her face.

But after getting dual golds in downhill and GS at the last Olympics, Sarah had begun the process of walking away from the sport-or at least the World Cup Tour part of it. She had tried to stay on the tour for the next year, but she knew she wasn't going to compete in 2022, and someone else deserved her spot, so she stepped away, to the dismay of many, hearing constantly how she was too young to leave the sport.

She still loved to ski, loved the rush of racing down the steep slopes on the razor's edge of control. But she was content with racing against the mountain now, rather than the clock and opponents. There was freedom in that, the freedom in which had made her begin to ski.

She had made the decision that she would retire from competition after the St. Anton event was rescheduled in Cortina d'Ampezzo…which she had won. Bryce hadn't shown up for the press conference. Sarah hadn't been surprised. Their relationship had been one of convenience, and it wouldn't be convenient to him to be tied down to a girlfriend who stayed in one place while he traveled the circuit. Truth be told, it wouldn't have been convenient for her to try to keep tabs on Bryce to make sure that he wasn't constantly cheating on her when she wasn't on Tour.

But Sarah would still watch some of the races, seeing fewer and fewer familiar faces among the competitors, as well as some of the most beautiful spots on Earth that she had visited numerous times, but never gotten to actually visit. Whenever she saw the races in Val d'Isere, or Turin, Italy or Wengen, Switzerland, Sarah thought that someday she would like to go back there to ski just for fun, for personal pleasure.

But when the tour would get to Kitzbuhel, Austria, Sarah would get envious of the racers. The Hahnnenkamm was always Sarah's personal favorite race. Every race had been important to her. Her coach, Langston Graham, had nurtured her competitive spirit to always go for the gold medal. But there was always something different about the Hahnnenkamm, something that really connected Sarah to the mountain. She had never lost in Kitzbuhel. It was as though the mountain itself wouldn't stand for it.

"Pretty boy made it up on the podium stand again?"

Sarah didn't even turn. "Why is it that I was the one who dated him, and yet I'm the only one around here who will still call Bryce by his actual name?"

"Just because you like to keep it refined and professional, doesn't mean that the rest of us have to," Zondra Rizzo replied. She and Sarah had been close friends on the World Cup circuit. Then came a race in Calgary when a freak gust of wind had shot up the mountain just as Zondra was going over the big bump on the course. The wind had knocked her sideways. The resulting off-balance collision with the side of the mountain had knocked her out, not to mention an ACL tear, MCL tear, a fractured vertebrae and three cracked ribs. Zondra had undergone surgeries and extensive rehab. As a result, she was still able to ski, but her days competing on the Tour were over.

Sarah found it somewhat amusing, and a lot endearing, that her friends in the community were harsher on Bryce than she was, and yet she had been the one in the relationship with him. She didn't even have any animosity towards him once she had taken stock of their situation and realized that their relationship had been built on convenience rather than passion or even compassion.

"While I would love to sit here and listen to the latest trash talk you have come up with for Bryce, I've got a class to go teach," Sarah said with a smile as she gathered her jacket, knit cap and gloves.

"How is it that you can get so much enjoyment out of teaching these little three, four and five year old kids when less than a year ago you were kicking ass and taking names at the top of the FIS leaderboard on Tour?" Sarah shook her head. She and Zondra had had this conversation enough times for Sarah to know that neither was going to convert the other-but that didn't dissuade Zondra from still trying from time to time.

}o{

As the car rolled to a stop, Chuck said a silent prayer of thanks. It had been a 400 mile drive with little in the way of stopping. Their one stop, other than bathroom breaks, Awesome believed in packing snacks and drinks for his road trips, had been at a little town about two hours from their destination. There, snow chains had been put on their tires, for five bucks a tire. Chuck had wanted to do it himself, just to get a break from the car, but Awesome told him they had twenty dollars to spare.

Chuck let out a long groan as he stretched to his full height as he climbed out of the Mustang. While Ellie's car was fun for driving around Southern California with the top down on a sunny day, it was not the optimal choice for a long distance road trip for a guy who topped the charts at 6'3". After his neck cracked a few more times than was likely healthy for his future, Chuck took stock of the house, strike that, chalet, that Devon's parents had loaned them for the holiday trip. One of Devon's brothers was receiving an award from UCLA, so Woody and Honey had elected to go to LA for the holiday.

If the chalet had been the primary home for the Woodcombs, it would have been impressive. But for an occasional ski trip get away house? It reminded Chuck again how lucky Elllie was that her future husband was as down to earth as he was, between the facts that he was not only born with a platinum spoon in his mouth, but he routinely had people's hearts in his hands as he saved their lives.

"So, sis, level with me here," Chuck said as Devon headed inside with most of their baggage. The fact that Devon could handle eight bags without the least bit of awkwardness as he crossed snow covered ground made Chuck want to be a little peevish, but Devon was too, well too awesome to think poorly of, especially unfairly. "Is the reason for our destination Christmas based on the fact that Honey Woodcomb is going to be in LA over the holiday? Hmm?"

"Pure coincidence," Ellie replied with the most angelic face she could muster.

Chuck let out a laugh at his sister's poor poker face, but he didn't blame her. Honey was intense where Chuck was concerned, and he wasn't the one that would ultimately be marrying into the family. As he shouldered his laptop back, Chuck took note of the natural beauty of the area. Cold, yet beautiful. Now all he had to do was try once more to figure out how to keep himself occupied for ten days with activities that didn't risk grievous bodily injury. Devon was a truly great guy, but he refused to accept the fact that the words "hand eye coordination" and "Chuck Bartowski" were mutually exclusive concepts.

Chuck sighed. He was here in this beautiful destination, it was Christmas, and all he was doing was thinking about what could go wrong. There was a lot that could go right. He chuckled and shook his head. It wasn't like he was going to find the love of his life here and have some Christmas miracle. That stuff only happened in sappy Hallmark movies.

"Chuck!" Ellie yelled.

Chuck put on his best smile, and made himself think positive thoughts. He was going to enjoy this trip….if it killed him.

A/N: Oh….oh my…it's like I put the curse of Christmas on Chuck. More soon.