A/N: Sorry a little late with this. The news was making it hard to focus on the triviality of fanfic. But writing makes me happy, and I hope reading it makes you happy, or you wouldn't be here, so I wrote this anyway. This is all of Santa Claus in one chapter. While the bracelet scene is so critical, there is very little other time where Chuck and Sarah interact, hence the short chapter. A few loose ends tied. It must have paused the damn streaming 50 times to look closely at the bracelet. The charms: a heart, a key, and an angel. I'm not sure if the charms change later...seems like I never realized that before. Also, why did Chuck have it with him on Christmas Eve at work? Unless...he brought it with him to gift wrap it and never got the chance.

A/N #2: Site is still crapped out and I have no idea who's reading this but wanted to let everyone know the other reason this was a little late was I started writing a Christmas fic (M rated, which is weird I guess?) It's short, like 7 chapters, and almost all of it is written so I can hopefully start publishing after Thanksgiving. Seems like Chuck Christmas fic is a thing, so I dove right in. Until then, enjoy.

Sometimes I think about how far into myself I had allowed myself to be, at the deepest point, how strong and high the walls I had constructed around myself. Those walls are gone now, a shadow of memory, but there was a time when I was so totally fortified inside my walls no light could get through. I had started building those walls when I was only seven, and like the rings inside a tree trunk, I had just built wall upon wall until I was surrounded..

The walls were there when I was with my father, strengthened once I was alone and recruited into the CIA. The nature of my relationship with Sam had left those walls intact, and his death and the secrets he kept from me had added another layer of protection. My relationship with Bryce had cracked it, only a crack, and his betrayal of me had forced me to reinforce them all the more.

In Budapest, I was so far beneath my skin, so isolated inside my walls, assassinating 11 men in less than two minutes barely affected me. I was like a robot, my mind so far from my heart they were like separate entities from two different people.

It was Molly, her helpless innocence only defendable by me, who created the first dent. That was me, trying to burst out from the inside, suffocated by vestiges of my own creation. I gave Molly to my mother, firstly for her safety, but also because as much as a part of me had wanted to keep her, I knew the walls were too thick in between her and me.

Chuck was the one who finally broke through. It took a long time, day after day of him chipping away at my walls, his patience and persistence, his refusal to give up, even when I almost did. Once they were down, and he was inside, they never went back up. The walls would only separate me from Chuck; I wanted him closer, as close as he could be. And once I had him, the walls weren't necessary.

So once my father had gone again, two years after I had met Chuck, my walls were thinner than they were when I had left my father in jail when I was 17. The consequences of that–my pain was harder to ignore, harder to bury. I was in pain, but at least I wasn't alone this time.

Chuck took care of me during this time in a way I had never been cared for in my life, except maybe by my mother during a time I could no longer remember. He made sure I was ok, that I wasn't alone, that I was surrounded by people at all times. That mission, and my father's subsequent necessary abandonment of me again, was only two weeks before Christmas.

Last year, I had gone back to D.C. and only seen Chuck, holiday speaking, at Ellie's New Year's Eve party. Now, we were long-term dating, albeit fake, for well over a year. I had never Christmas-ed, but I would be expected to Christmas with Chuck. This year everything Christmas themed seemed to hurt me somehow, remind me of what I didn't have, and the fresh pain from dealing with my father again only worsened it.

I was ripped down the middle when I thought about Christmas. I wanted to be with Chuck in a way I never had before, to spend the holiday with him, embrace the season, even if on the surface it was fake. In my heart, it wasn't fake any longer. He didn't know that for sure, not yet, but I did. I hadn't admitted it to myself yet, but I know looking back, for sure. I also knew indulging that deep desire would only make everything worse…because it was fake. We weren't together. I couldn't show him how I felt. Even a tiny slip up was dangerous.

The ache was fresh, at the surface, when I woke up on Christmas Eve. We had been relatively mission-less since my father had left. Chuck had flashed a few times on some Fulcrum operatives, but after brief follow ups by Casey and me, nothing had gone any further. I was back to serving frozen yogurt, as restless as I was miserable.

Chuck came by to see me at the Orange Orange in the morning before the Buy More opened.

He came to remind me that we had a cover date for Christmas at his apartment. He had mentioned it, in passing, a few times during the past two weeks, but I had expertly diverted and/or changed the subject every time. It had come to a head, because it was Christmas Eve. No more time to avoid it.

I thanked him politely and told him I didn't do Christmas.

He got upset, insisting that I should celebrate it, just like everyone else. That somewhere underneath the spy, the real girl was wanting to celebrate Christmas. He knew me better than I knew myself, of course.

But that wasn't the only reason I was bothered by it all.

He knew more about me than anyone else in my life, ever. As much as I wish he didn't know, he did. I told him the way my father and I had always celebrated Christmas was with a Salvation Army con job.

Chuck's forgiveness, his understanding, during that whole debacle with my father, gave me the courage to say that to him there. I'd hoped he would then understand why Christmas wasn't full of happy memories for me.

But in the best way possible, the very best of the man, Chuck wouldn't let me dwell on that. He knew, and he never tormented me with what he knew. He moved past it, instead stressing that at his sister's apartment, they would be wearing pajamas and watching The Twilight Zone all day.

I was out of sorts during this conversation, which is why I didn't understand what he was doing when he did it. I sort of laughed at him, tossed my rag at him when he was being silly.

But what he had tried to do was connect with me again, make me feel like I wasn't alone, even in my weird Christmas. His Christmas sounded just as unorthodox as mine, only no lawbreaking was involved. Those advertisements on the wall in the yogurt shop weren't pictures from his past, either. He had been alone with his sister and the shadow of his father, and then just his sister, while still a young boy. He didn't want me to be alone, ever, and the more he learned about me, the stronger he fought to keep me from being alone, from isolating myself.

He didn't understand completely yet that part of the reason for my isolation was because of how I felt about him. How I was unable to manage those feelings, how I could never show them to him. The distance between us was the only thing protecting me.

"I'm not taking no for an answer, Walker, so prepare to be heart-warmed," he insisted. I think that was the only time ever that Chuck called me only by my last name like that. He rarely made demands like that, so maybe he thought talking to me the way Casey did was the way to go. It made me smile, though, his cute little smirk when he walked out of the Orange Orange.

The day wasn't quite so bad, I thought after that. But it was about to get infinitely worse, in almost no time.

A few minutes before the Buy More was due to open, I saw a car being pursued by a parade of law enforcement vehicles, careening through the parking lot of the shopping complex at breakneck speed. I could hear the crash inside the Orange Orange, glass and metal destroyed as the car plowed into the store.

Immediately, I was worried for Chuck. I locked the door to the Orange Orange and ran down into Castle. I texted Casey, whom I thought was inside the store, but as it turned out, he had already exited the Buy More through the secret entrance in the Home Theater Room before the assailant crashed into the store. Casey came looking for me to see what was going on.

I quickly checked the video surveillance in the store. Only employees seemed to be there, and I eventually saw Chuck as I kept switching my view. Morgan, Anna, and the rest of the crew including Chuck's boss, Big Mike, were unharmed. As I scanned, though, I saw Ellie and Devon as well, which was odd, considering the store wasn't open for business yet.

The man in the car had a gun and was wielding it as it herded everyone into one area. I was worried, but it seemed like a routine criminal issue, coincidental and unrelated to the CIA or NSA presence in the store. Beckman pretty much confirmed the same thing after she called when I contacted her.

It seemed Beckman had authorized the use of deadly force to extract Chuck from the situation. I tried to convince her otherwise. I was in favor of monitoring, since allowing local law enforcement to do their jobs in this situation protected everyone's cover. I was cautiously waiting. Beckman agreed to let us lay low, but requested that we try to extract Chuck quietly without anyone noticing. It was iffy, expecting this criminal to not notice one of his hostages go missing, but I at least wanted to try.

Casey and I entered the Buy More through the hallway and stairs behind the lockers in the Buy More break room. The room was empty; no one was around. Casey and I crept down the hallway until we were at the door that opened onto the sales floor. I opened the door a crack and motioned until I got Chuck's attention. In no time, he was back with us, alone. I don't know what he told the assailant, but he acted quickly and effectively.

He was relieved to see us, I could tell. Chuck had two years experience keeping calm in dangerous situations, so he was far less stressed than one might expect. But he was still worried. I quickly learned, what tension I could see in his shoulders, in his stance, was because his sister and future brother-in-law were in danger as well.

We tried to grab him, but Chuck wouldn't leave with us when his sister and Morgan were still in peril. I tried to reason with him, telling him we would keep everyone safe, that he had to be the priority because of the Intersect. I quoted him rules, orders. He yanked his arm away from me, openly defying me, unwilling to leave his friends and family unprotected.

I often wonder what would have happened, what would have been different, if I had been able to convince Chuck to come with us. And I'm talking about the big picture, like, knowing Ned was a plant, and that Mauser was Fulcrum and they were trying to figure out what Casey and I were protecting. What would have happened if we just removed Chuck, and Ned found him inexplicably gone.

Chuck would never have watched me kill Mauser, I know that. That episode was traumatic for us, and it impeded interactions between us for a long time. Chuck seeing that, knowing that about me, was crucial for us to grow together, crucial for him to understand me. It was how I knew not only could he forgive me for stealing from decent people for half of my life, but he could also forgive the unforgivable, the monster inside me, the cold-blooded assassin who took lives because I was ordered to, executioner without the fortification of justice or even knowledge of justice. That one was harder to forgive, but Chuck did. He only could do that with understanding, having seen the darkness in me up close, and seen what that darkness had done to me.

There is also a good chance that, because we removed him, Mauser would have gotten the answer he was seeking, what we were protecting, and no one else would have known. Fulcrum would have struck and we would never have known. They could have come after Ellie, fully aware of who she was now.

I wonder too what they would have done if Casey had been there instead of in Castle. He would have been the hostage of choice to release first, maybe. Or worse, he could have been a casualty. Fulcrum knew who he was.

Chuck took too long and Ned came back looking for Chuck. He saw Casey and me and freaked out. Chuck covered for us expertly, and tried to calm Ned down.

Ned shot Casey accidentally…on purpose.

Ellie jumped into action and provided first aid to Casey, who had the majority of his baby toe shot off.

I sat by myself and pretended to be scared, knowing the fake Sarah would have no exposure to a situation like this, and would be terrified. I let Ellie keep me calm.

I don't know if it was her medical training, or how she would need to stay calm as she's dealing with life and death situations, but she was unshakably calm, collected, despite being held at gunpoint. The others were not so poised.

Devon had everyone gathered around him, and they were conversing in quiet tones that I couldn't hear. Chuck rushed up to them, agitated about something. Ellie and I moved closer to see what was going on.

Devon was devising a plan to take Ned out with the others. Chuck objected adamantly, worried about everyone's safety. Casey reiterated Chuck's point, but Devon got a little haughty, a little cavalier with them, putting them down for working at the Buy More when he was a doctor.

I had never seen that side of Devon before, but he was under stress too, just reacting to it differently than the average person would. He would do stuff like this multiple times over the years–it was in his blood, that heroic streak. He was, after all, awesome.

Ellie was able to talk them down from their plan. The cops called again, and Chuck was called away, but he emphasized the need to do nothing before he walked away.

Chuck convinced Ned to let everyone make a phone call. Ellie and Devon, Big Mike, even Casey…everyone was on the phone.

Even if this was real…who would I call? I had no one. I felt acutely alone, desolate.

And then Chuck called me.

He was crouched down in the DVD section. He hung up when he saw me. I knelt in front of him, telling him it was good for the cover…that he called me. He said I was his girlfriend. He added the 'sort of,' as an afterthought, taking nothing away from the fact that he called me his girlfriend. The desolation from before had bored a hole in me, and he filled it with warmth and the tenderness of his voice.

I asked him if his invitation for Christmas still stood. He smiled that beautiful smile. If I hadn't already been kneeling, I might have swooned.

"I actually, um…" He reached down by his feet and picked up a small purple velvet bag. "I have something for you." His face got so serious, his eyes intense as he looked at me. "I was gonna give it to you tomorrow, but considering the circumstances, I kind of want to give it to you today."

"Chuck, we're gonna get out of here. We'll be fine, I…promise." While I was talking, he pulled a silver charm bracelet out of the bag and held it up to show me. I lost my breath, almost not able to say the last word.

It was beautiful.

"Wow. It's beautiful," I said, shrugging shyly as he moved to put it on my wrist.

"It's good luck," he told me. "It was my mom's charm bracelet. My dad gave it to her when Ellie was born." He fastened it around my wrist.

A family heirloom? I couldn't believe it. My mind started racing. What would Ellie say…if she knew I was just a spy, not his girlfriend? Why didn't she have it? Why was he giving it to me?

"Oh, Chuck, I can't take this," I stammered. "This is something real, something that you should give to a real girlfriend." He held my wrist in his hand, gently running his thumb on my forearm, then the other thumb on the back of my hand. It was sweet, affectionate. He looked at the bracelet, holding my hand, then looked back up at me.

"I know," he said gently. His eyes were soft, so full of emotion I couldn't breathe. My empty, broken heart had sprouted wings…and I could feel it soar. He smirked. The air between us was charged, electric.

The phone ringing interrupted us. It felt like pain when he released my hand, like he had pulled part of me away with his hand. I kept looking at the bracelet after he was gone, turning my wrist to admire it. There was a heart, a key, and an angel, with plenty of room for other charms. Had Mary left before she could add more? Or had Chuck's father simply never thought to buy her any more.

I only knew it was the only piece of my own jewelry that I had ever owned. It was the only real gift anyone had ever given me. Whenever I put it on, I'm reminded of all that it represented–hope, love, even in the face of impossible odds. Not to get too morbid, but the last spy will that I wrote before we stopped spying had instructions that I was to be buried with that bracelet. That instruction is also in my regular will. Everything else, they can keep. That, I wanted to stay with me always.

The hostage negotiator came in unarmed and bargained himself in exchange for two hostages. Casey and me. I'd like to think that if the whole bracelet thing hadn't knocked me off kilter, that I might have been suspicious of that. Both Chuck's protectors alienated from him. The argument was logical…injured man, someone dear to the person dealing mainly with the hostage taker.

Chuck freaked out when Ned suggested me. Everyone else reacted badly, thinking he was cowardly or something, for objecting to me leaving so strongly. It made me feel good, knowing how much he trusted me, and believed in my ability to keep him safe. I was relieved that I made him feel that way.

I hugged Chuck goodbye. I wrapped my arm around him, reaching up on my toes to whisper in his ear, "I'll never let anyone hurt you." I mean it, every possible nuance of that. It came back to him after he saw me do the unthinkable.

Casey and I were collected by the police on the scene. Because of Casey's injury, the police brought us to the medics right away. The S.W.A.T. team was gearing up and getting into position as we made our way through the crowd of law enforcement presence.

The commander of the S.W.A.T. team knew who we were and quickly asked Casey for a debriefing. We talked about Ned calling his wife. The commander told us Ned wasn't married, that there were no records of him being married.

I felt my heart sink to my feet, all the blood rushing to meet it.

If Ned wasn't married…then…what was going on? Who did he call?

Casey and I ran, heading back to the Orange Orange to get back into Castle to do some more investigation. I double checked and found no evidence of Ned being married. Casey traced the call he made while he was in the Buy More. It was Mauser. The hostage negotiator.

Ned was in on it. He and Mauser were working together. Everything was staged, planned, to get them alone in the Buy More with Chuck. They were Fulcrum.

Damn it! How had we let our guard down so completely?

Chuck!

I didn't find out what happened inside the Buy More after Casey and I were removed until almost a month later, after I found out that Chuck saw me shoot Mauser on the Christmas Tree lot. Mauser threatened Ellie. Chuck had no choice–he had to tell Mauser that he was the Intersect. True, Chuck should never have trusted Ned after he had flashed on Mauser, but he was overwrought, worried, and honestly, just as fooled as the rest of us. Casey and I didn't peg Ned as Fulcrum either and we were heavily trained.

Chuck's dismay over watching me kill Mauser in cold blood was exacerbated when he realized he had created the scenario in the first place by divulging the truth. He understood it a little better because of that, I think. He didn't have any other choice. And neither did I.

Casey and I were gearing up when we saw Chuck being led away on the surveillance monitor. Mauser accompanied Chuck into a waiting ambulance. We ran out the door of the Orange Orange just as the ambulance went by. Casey was impaired due to his injury, but he was trying to keep up with me. I managed to shoot the tire of the ambulance out, causing it to spin out of control and stop. It crashed into the booth at a Christmas Tree lot.

Chuck got out of the ambulance and ran. I shot at Mauser as he left to chase Chuck, then I ran after them.

I found Chuck before I found Mauser.

I came up behind him and covered his mouth so he would be quiet. He was terrified, rambling, telling me Mauser and Ned were Fulcrum and that everything was a set up. I told him we already knew. He was worried about everyone in the store; I told him our team was moving in. Turns out, Devon et al had taken Ned down already without anyone else's help. Hence the nickname, as we like to say.

I told Chuck to run. He refused to leave me alone with Mauser. The hero in him, knowing how much better equipped to deal with Mauser I was than he, but he wouldn't leave me. Stay in the car, stay inside, run away, go home…every time he didn't listen to that…was because he wouldn't leave me. Not because he thought he was any better defense than I was for myself, but because, no matter what, he was at my side. Life and death, always there when I needed him. My Chuck.

He didn't argue, but he also didn't leave.

Casey was nowhere, but Mauser found me right after that. He kicked the gun from my hand, then belted me across the face. I grabbed him, smashed his gun from his hand and tried to flip him. He punched me in the side and across my face. I kicked him and he knocked me flat on my back, then kicked me, hard, while I was down on the ground. I grabbed his foot to stop him before he broke all my ribs. He knelt down and grabbed my throat, squeezing until I couldn't breathe. I grabbed him with my legs and flung him off me. I grabbed the gun first when we were both down.

He knew he was beaten, but he taunted me. He told me Fulcrum won. He knew Chuck was the Intersect.

I didn't let him see any reaction from me even though I was screaming inside. My worst fear manifested.

He continued, telling me how no matter what we did, what he knew would be passed to Fulcrum. The entirety of Fulcrum would be relentless until they had Chuck. He sing-songed how poor pathetic Chuck's life was over.

As much as I wanted to believe he was wrong, I knew he wasn't.

Everything hurt–my ribs, my side, my face, my head. My insides iced over, the assassin long-sleeping inside me suddenly waking up.

It had been a long time since I'd killed someone outside of life and death altercations, in the moment for defense. When I'd had to kill someone because their life, their continued breathing, was contrary to the benefit of something greater than myself. Being in Burbank with Chuck had kept me from that…until now. The only consolation I had, and it was small, was that this time…it was to protect Chuck. I didn't need orders to follow through with that. I had made that promise to myself long ago, that I would protect him no matter what. I had just reiterated it a few hours ago.

I let that cold-blooded assassin rise, pushing the real girl, the woman Chuck cared so much for, out of the way. She was fodder. I sacrificed her to save him. Even if he could never look at me the same, if this was what made that look change, then so be it. His life was worth more than mine, more so now than ever.

I sucked in my breath, steeled myself, raised the gun, and shot Mauser point blank in the chest.

I didn't know Chuck saw me do it. He didn't see the brawl, or hear the cruel words Mauser spat at me. Only saw me raise my arm with the bracelet he had just given me still dangling, and shoot someone in cold blood.

I stood there for a long time, breathing in the chill of the night air, unsure of what to do. Casey eventually found me and I explained what had happened. I asked him if Chuck was safe. He said he didn't know, hadn't seen him, but that hopefully meant that he had run back to the store like I'd told him. We were stuck in the Christmas Tree Lot with the cleaners for a few hours, but they were still cleaning up the Buy More too, so everyone was still there when I finally made it back to the Buy More.

Once I could go, I ran back to the Buy More. I searched for Chuck, feeling my breath start to calm as I saw him standing near Morgan, safe and sound. I steeled myself, pushed the demons down deep, and put on my best smile and ran to find him.

Thinking back on it, he was acting strangely, stiff, anxious, not himself, but I didn't understand. I kissed him, a quick cover peck on the lips and hugged him. His eyes were shaded, veiled when he looked at me.

I know part of that awkwardness was because I was lying to his face, and he knew it. I'd never intentionally lied like that, outside of that first date that was supposed to be my mission. In the end, to him, my lying was worse than my killing Mauser, even though Chuck lied to me plenty of times, and even after we were together for real. We got past it, but it took a while before Chuck brought it up.

He was still acting strangely, but Ellie came over and hugged him, hugged me. She went straight for the bracelet, not the least bit surprised, which made me think Chuck must have talked to her about it before he gave it to me. Ellie thought we were serious, together, so I'm sure that's why she had no objection.

I couldn't reconcile the horror I saw on Chuck's face when I looked up from Ellie's gushing over it.

I didn't know why but the way he always looked at me…was gone, altered. I had feared it so many times, and it had seemed so steadfast, so unwavering. I didn't even know what had caused it this time, but it was gone. Like a razor cutting straight through my heart, the cut was so clean I couldn't feel the pain right away. And now, looking at him, it was all I could feel.

It didn't really leave, that look. He had to digest what he had seen, what he now knew of me and what I'd done. More hurting for me, if I'm honest, which was a deeper and darker pain, especially for someone as pure and good as he was. It speaks to me of the man that he was, that he is, to stare such ugliness in the face and still dare to love anyway, almost in spite of it.

That's exactly what he did. It was how he saved me. It was traumatic, but it started here, the healing. Wounds 27 years old, 27 years deep, finally starting to heal.

He didn't know it, but that was another gift I got from him that Christmas.