A/N1 A Christmas tale.

Don't own Chuck.

The 564 Days of Xmas

Words are few
I have spoken
I could waste a thousand years
Wrapped in sorrow, words are token
Come inside and catch my tears

You've been talking but believe me
If it's true you do not know
This boy loves without a reason
I'm prepared to let you go

If it's love you want from me
Then take it away

Do you really want to hurt me
Do you really want to make me cry?

- Culture Club, Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?

'Twas the night before Christmas...and...to hell with it. — Chuck turned off the tv and threw the remote at the angel atop the tree, knocking her sideways. Hanging there, crooked to the side, she gave the tree a Grinch-like lean.

Chuck stood abruptly and stomped across the living room to the kitchen counter and throttled the bottle of Johnnie Walker that Casey had given him for Xmas. Casey had shoved a box into Chuck's hands and grunted: "Maybe it'll help. Mostly holidays suck, especially if you're alone."

Casey had then boarded a plane. He flew with his wife, Gertrude, Alex, his daughter, and Morgan, Chuck's best friend, to the mountains. They were going to spend the holiday in a hunting cabin back in the Rockies. They asked Chuck to come, but he knew his presence would make the Rockies...rocky. He was marginally better; he sure wasn't good. Not close to good.

He was sitting there with the tree lights blinking mercilessly and no one around - Ellie and Devon had gotten snowed-in, they couldn't get out of Midway Airport. They would be stuck in Chicago for the holiday.

Chuck poured the Walker carelessly into a glass, smiling bitterly at that way of putting it. The Walker.

This Walker was second place to the one he wanted by...well...infinity. He and Sarah had kissed on the beach and she had thanked him for their story. Morgan had been wrong, though. The kiss was not magic — or maybe it was the wrong kind of magic, dark magic, because Sarah had just disappeared. She walked off the beach and beyond Chuck's horizons.

He had done everything he could to find her. Beckman had thrown the resources of the NSA behind his search, and still nothing. She was gone. Vanished. Not a word. Nothing. He thought she was silent when he first met her. He had no idea of the depth of silence she could achieve. Deeper than did ever plummet sound. Months. She had been gone for months.

Chuck was about to chug the whiskey — like he said, to hell with it — when he noticed that Casey's box wasn't completely empty. A thumb drive was taped to the inside, near the top, where Chuck would, presumably, notice it. Chuck had a sudden spy tingle. What the hell?

He tore the tape off the drive and crossed rapidly back across the room. He plopped down on the couch and opened his laptop. He plugged in the drive. His screen was filled with Sarah.

He could not breathe for a minute. He had taken down their pictures around Thanksgiving. All the pictures of her. They were killing him, each one a torment. Ellie had been furious when she found them in the trash outside the apartment. She brought them back in, huffing and cursing, and put them in a closet with a don't-you-dare-touch-them-again glare. Chuck hadn't. They were still in there unless they had disappeared by dark magic too. — The point was that it had been over a month since he had even seen Sarah's picture. Her beauty struck him again like the first time, a body blow to his heart.

As he shook his head and began to listen to what he saw, he realized that this was her video log, that he was witnessing Sarah's first entry after arriving in Burbank, and after meeting him.

He sat there, rapt, for hours. It was nearly midnight, nearly Xmas, when he got to Day 564. Sarah confessed to the camera that she loved Chuck Bartowski but did not know what to do about it. Chuck stopped the replay. It was too painful. Too awful.

And then he heard Xmas carols. They weren't being played by someone nearby, on a stereo or radio. They were being sung, live. Outside. The voices were good, but they weren't going to be hired for any Dickens' musicals anytime soon. Chuck grabbed his glass. The whiskey was still untouched.

Carrying it, he groused to himself about how Xmas spirit was fine and all — but to everything there was a season, damn it. A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. Times and seasons. It was too late for carolers. Too late. It was Chuck's season of loss.

He opened the door. The carolers, three of them stood there, women. Chuck boggled. They were dressed in Dickensian-period costumes. They started singing again, seemingly in mid-song:

Gone away is the bluebird
Here to stay is a new bird
She sings a love song
As we go along
Walking in a winter wonderland

In the meadow, we can build a snowman
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown
He'll say, Are you married?
We'll say, No man
But you can do the job
When you're in town

Later on, we'll conspire
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid
The plans that we've made
Walking in a winter wonderland

Chuck stopped grousing.

Maybe it was the song lyrics after the video log. But he felt better than he had for a while. Lifted. He had begun to doubt, after Sarah left, if she had ever really loved him, if maybe what she thought was love for him, being his wife, was just a cover she had lost herself in, not real. But whatever the reason, he felt a bit, wee bit, heart-warmed. And it was the first warmth his heart had felt in a glacial age.

The women stopped singing, Chuck felt the warmth start to ebb, but then one of them stepped toward him. She spoke in a silly, put-on London accent: "Tell me, good sir, what day is it?"

Chuck recognized the reference. "Why, it's Xmas day," he answered, double-checking his watch to make sure, and dumping the whiskey on his shoes. And then he heard the woman who had spoken laugh. He knew that laugh.

"Carina?" Chuck hazarded the question, blinking at the woman.

The woman pushed back her bonnet. It was, indeed, Carina. Chuck launched himself at her and hugged her as hard as he could. He never imagined, when he first met her, that he would come to like her as much as he had, or that he would miss her as much as he did. He had tried to contact her after Sarah disappeared, but he had no luck. But now she was here. That was good in itself. Maybe she would know something about Sarah. Even if she didn't know where Sarah was, or could not or would not tell him, she might at least be able to tell him something. Anything. He was past starved for anything, any crumb, any hint of information.

Carina laughed and pushed him back, looking at him. He saw concern flicker in her eyes, although she retained her smile. "It's good to see you too, Chuckles. Merry Happy Holidays — and all that. We brought you a gift."

Chuck looked over at the other two, and the one nearest him pushed her bonnet back. Zondra. He launched and hugged all over again. Zondra didn't say anything, but she kissed his cheek and then rubbed it with her hand, sympathy in her eyes.

And then it hit Chuck. The third caroler. He looked at her and noticed for the first time the blond hair beneath her bonnet. His breath caught.

And then Zondra spoke quickly. "We brought a new partner with us. This is Caroline." The third woman pushed her bonnet back. She had Sarah's coloring but was not Sarah. Chuck had to lock out his knees to keep them from buckling, the force of his disappointment was so strong. Caroline smiled kindly.

"Good to meet you, Chuck. I've heard a lot about you." Chuck shook her hand but he was too choked up to speak. Too disappointed. He just nodded.

After a moment: "You guys...um...ladies...want to come in? Things are a little...askew, but I could use...I'd like the company."

Carina gave him a soft smile. "No, we can't stay. We're on a mission. CATs Redux." She reached out and squeezed Chuck's hand as she mentioned the CATs. "We had a little extra time, and I thought we could be the Xmas Attack Team. Bring some cheer. We'll try to make it back before we leave town, maybe the day after Xmas?"

Chuck managed to smile, his disappointment growing. "Sure, that'd be great."

"And, hey, Chuckles! Keep the faith. It's the season of miracles. They happen in places other than 34th Street." Carina gave him a bright smile.

Zondra gave Chuck another quick hug and Caroline shook his hand again. They left.

Chuck stood and watched them go, only then realizing he had juggled the empty whiskey glass through hugs, greetings, and conversation. He still hadn't managed to have a drink. He headed back inside. He needed one more than ever. Back inside, door closed, at the counter, he poured another glass.

"Chuck! Pour one for me. We're celebrating."

Chuck froze.

He looked up. The voice had wafted down the hallway, from his bedroom. It was Sarah's voice. Not the flinty voice of the woman who had taken his wife's place at Quinn's bidding. Not the uncentered, lost voice of the woman who had kissed him on the beach and then disappeared, dissipated into nothingness. No, it was Sarah Bartowski's voice, his wife's. Cheerful, maybe a little forced.

Chuck's feet felt wet.

He had poured the entire remaining contents of the bottle onto the counter, and the Walker was running off it and onto his feet, wetting them more, soaking his tennis shoes. He put the bottle down and walked, or sloshed, down the hallway. He reached the bedroom.

The door was cracked open. He could see the light from the bedside lamp. He pushed the door open with his hand, his heart hammering. There, on the bed, was his wife. Sarah was there on the bed. Her hair was long again, like in the first entries of her video log. Then he noticed she had his computer, that she had been looking at it, at herself frozen on the screen.

"Chuck, I'm sorry. Morgan was right, sort of, but not like he thought — you know, about the kiss." She was talking quickly, urgently, trying to get her words in before he reacted. "My memories came back, but not all at once. But they started as you kissed me on the beach and they never stopped. But they came back in the opposite order, not in the order in which they were made.

"It was like I was reading a book from the last page to the first. I didn't understand. I didn't see how to connect the woman I thought I was, the one from before the memories I lost, the one before Burbank, to the one I remembered being, the one who was your wife and who was hoping to start a family soon. I wanted to stay, but I needed the gap to close. I disappeared. I know how to do that. I had the money I set aside for Dad. I was sure you would help him if there was a problem."

She stopped and gave him a smile, but she was studying his face; the smile was worried, nervous, expectant. "I didn't want to hurt you any more than I already had, Chuck, so I decided I would stay away until I either figured things out or knew I couldn't. I didn't want to return until I knew it was to stay."

She stopped and swallowed, then gestured at the computer. "To help myself remember, I worked backward through my mission log entries, marking them off each time I could remember having made the entry. It was slow going. Sometimes I would remember a couple of entries a day — on a good day, three or four or more. Some days I remembered none. But then I got to Day 564. And when I remembered that day, I remembered it all. Everything. Me. You. Us. All we went through to be us. That was around Thanksgiving."

Her eyes shifted around the room; she was waiting for his response. She was already in half-cringe.

Chuck caught up. "A month? You've had your memories back for a month but…" Chuck wanted to be angry. Maybe he was. But he finally noticed she was wearing a Mrs. Claus outfit, a daring one, with a tiny skirt that had been pushed even higher by her movement on the bed. Her long legs were fully visible. She saw him look and she uncringed, relaxed, smiled permission. His eyes swept slowly up from her white boots to the bottom of the skirt — and snagged. There, on the very top of her left thigh, was a tattoo. Small but noticeable.

He stepped toward her, looking more closely. It was a number. 564.

"I went to Carina, Chuck. I had been on a small island in the Pacific, working as a waitress at a beach bar, unhappy, missing you, missing me, missing us, waiting for my memories to return. To be whole. — But it took so long, and I left you without explaining.

"I suck at explanations, by the way, I know that...remember that now — I went to her to talk and I ended up helping her new CATs team with a mission. They don't have a mission now, or, rather, getting me in here without you knowing it was their mission. But they will be back to see us after Xmas. That is, if you still want there to be an us. — I do, Chuck. I do. Please say that you do, too…"

Chuck did not answer her question; he asked one: "So, Carina?"

"Yeah, Carina. She convinced me that I could come back. That my fears were unfounded — my fears that you would not still love me. She convinced me that you were the sort of man who wouldn't give up on me. That you would understand, forgive. Although…" Chuck followed Sarah's gaze. Chuck saw that the box of photographs Ellie retrieved was on the bedroom floor.

"I found that box when I took a quick, get-reacquainted tour, Chuck. Spy, remember. No, ex-spy. Anyway, while you were outside. I wondered what happened to our pictures. — Are we done, Chuck? Are you done with me, like the pictures?"

"I was never done with the pictures, Sarah. Ellie brought them in. I...I threw them away. But I would never have left them out there. I was just hurt…"

"...And I was lost. I'm so sorry, Chuck."

"I'm sorry, too. — And I do. Us. Yes."

She moved on the bed, deliberately shortening her short skirt, now clearly shortened past PG height, more NC-17.

"So, 564?" Chuck moved toward her and pointed at the tattoo.

She grinned slowly, expansively. "Carina talked me into getting it. Day 564. She told me she did not want any more of this forgetting shit to deal with." As Sarah explained, she reached out and curled her hand, impossibly warm, around his pointing finger. She pulled him toward her, guiding his finger to the tattoo. He traced the numbers, her hand still clasping his finger.

"Why here?"

"So only we would ever see it, Chuck." Sarah's voice was husky and thickened, leonine, a purr. He knew the sound, and it resounded through him. It was probably the best sound he knew, the sound of her loving desire for him.

"All I have to give you this Xmas is me, Chuck…"

"It's all I ever wanted. Welcome home."

"C'mere, home."

She pulled him to her and kissed him, one hand holding him against her, the other beginning to undo the buttons of the Mrs. Claus suit.

Outside, the carolers started again. Carina, Zondra, and Caroline - they were back. The carolers now were a small shivaree.

Gone away is the bluebird
Here to stay is a new bird...

A/N2 Enjoy the holiday if you are celebrating.

By the way, the 'X' throughout is not the letter you may expect, although there is a small running joke that plays on the expectation. It is the Greek letter, chi. Carina gets it.