A/N: A Christmas Tale. A little dark and short but, I hope, ultimately a little sweet. Set in December 2023. Various features of characters and canon have been changed.

Bite the Hand

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me
I wanna bite that hand so badly
I want to make them wish they'd never seen me

— Elvis Costello, Radio, Radio

Chapter One: Collideascope

Los Angeles, California
December 23rd
Early Evening

Chuck Bartowski wearily shut his locker in the Buy More employee lounge.

It was 6 p.m. on the day before the day before Christmas, the Eve Eve, as Ellie, his sister joked that morning, and there was a long, twelve-hour shift ahead of him the next day, the actual Eve, with the dreary likelihood that Big Mike, the manager, would extend it to closing, adding six more hours, for a total of eighteen, 6 a.m. to midnight.

What a way to spend Christmas Eve that would be!

Chuck was sick of it all, sick of the job, sick of the lassitude that kept him in it, sick of the longueurs of his days, the feeling that his life was a rusting train, permanently derailed at a wretched station that he did not want to visit.

Sick, sick, sick.

He pulled on the handle of his locker, making sure it was locked, and he turned slowly to leave the store. He had loosened his tie, and unbuttoned a couple of his white shirt's buttons, revealing his whiter undershirt. His nametag was in his pocket and he yanked his tucked shirttails from his black pants. It needed to be obvious to anyone he saw as he traveled from the rear of the store to the front that he was done for the day. He swung his jacket over his shoulder.

Done. So utterly and completely done.

As he walked slowly toward the front exit, he felt like a mummy lumbering from a crypt.

He hated his job.

Big Mike was clueless and lazy; Buy More Corporate was stupid and evil. How he had spent five years entombed in the place was beyond him. Everyone knew he did not belong there; everyone told him so, Ellie especially. He told himself so, hourly, daily, weekly. And yet he stayed, as if cursed, trapped there for eternity.

Got a condo made of stone-a, King Tut! The thought of the Steve Martin song did not cheer Chuck.

"Chuck, Chuck," he heard a voice from behind him. Big Mike.

Chuck turned, reaching up to undo his loose tie, a sign that he was done. Done. At least for the day.

Big Mike, 'big' because he was big, hustle-waddled toward Chuck. He had a clipboard in one hand and a Dunkin Donuts cup in the other. Chuck could see powdered sugar smeared on the lower half of his face from a careless attempt at wiping it with a napkin. As close to a white Christmas as I am going to get. Behind Big Mike, Chuck could see the napkin on the aisle floor.

"Yes?" Chuck asked, bracing himself. If Big Mike had chosen coitus interruptus with his donut to chase Chuck, it couldn't be good. A bad Big Mike sign.

"Um, look, Bartowski, I know you are working twelve hours tomorrow, but could you stay until later? You know we're open until midnight — for last-minute shoppers. And I need the store to make money tomorrow…"

Big Mike wouldn't say it, and Chuck wouldn't either, but they both knew the store only ran efficiently when Chuck was in charge. He made it profitable. Even though Chuck had foreseen this, he still felt his heart sink and his stomach twist. He had hoped to spend the night with his sister and her boyfriend, watching movies, and relaxing. He had been working non-stop ever since Black Friday and he just wanted to forget the Buy More for a while. It was closed on Christmas, and Chuck had coveted the thought of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as his — as belonging to him and not Big Mike or Buy More Corporate.

Big Mike smiled, unaware of the smeared powdered sugar that made him look like an off-duty circus clown.

Chuck suppressed a sigh. He had seen this coming. At least he had Christmas Day. Ellie would at least applaud the ambition; Big Mike had been talking about making Chuck the assistant manager.

"Okay," he said and turned to walk out.

As he did, Big Mike thanked him. "I'm promoting someone to assistant manager the day after Christmas, Chuck…"

Chuck waved his hand in acknowledgment of the comment but did not turn back around or speak. His anger would have been visible if he had — or more visible.

He threw on his jacket and stalked out the Buy More doors into the cool and gathering December night.

As usual, LA's light pollution masked the stars. Chuck shook his head and dropped his chin.

He had no idea why he always looked up when darkness fell.

No, that wasn't true. It was because of his dad, Stephen Bartowski, who had bought him a telescope for his eighth birthday and taken him away from the city and its lights, and taught him about the heavens, the planets, the stars, and the constellations.

"In heaven, it's Christmas year-round," his dad had once told him, "the stars are God's Christmas lights. Twinkle, twinkle."

Chuck had never forgotten those lessons, those comments, and they had become more precious to him over the years after his father had walked out on Chuck and his sister. As angry as that abandonment made him, he still found comfort in the thought that perhaps he and his father still shared the night sky. The impulse to look up was always there when darkness fell, but particularly at this time of the year, when he missed his father most. Christmas had been special when he was a boy. He and Ellie tried to keep it special, and they had succeeded to a degree, but they both knew that the extra measure of magic, stardust, that only their father could provide was gone. He took it with him.

Chuck walked toward the edge of the parking lot. He always parked there, although perhaps it was not the best choice. The lights in the lot were broken or defective out by the edge and that meant his car was always submerged in the dark when he worked late. But he persisted in parking there, because it somehow made him feel that he was only on the edge of the Buy More's gravitational field, that he was just about to break free, to find a new path, a new orbit, even to careen into space. Anything but the pointless circumgyration around the Buy More that had been his last five years.

He frowned at his car, the only one he had been able to afford while saving for his own place. He loved his sister and liked her boyfriend, but he needed a place of his own. Something, anything, of my own. The green junker, an old Civic, wasn't much but it was something. It was his. He fished in his pocket for his key, when he felt a jab in his ribs and heard a voice in his ear.

"Don't make a sound. Take out your keys and hold them to the side."

He couldn't believe it. Someone was stealing his car. Why?

And not just someone. A woman. The voice was unmistakably female.

He pulled his keys from his pocket and held them out to the side, as told.

A cold hand took them from him and the woman must have pushed the unlock button; the Civic's lights flashed and he heard the tell-tale click.

"Now, walk around the rear of the car and get in the passenger seat."

"Look," Chuck said, his voice squeaking a bit as his heart raced, "you can just have it. I'll call an Uber."

The woman behind him laughed. The laughter sounded surprised to him. She cut it off immediately. "I want you, not the car. But I'll take both."

Chuck did not understand but the jab in his ribs was repeated.

A gun. She's got a gun.

He had known it from the beginning but only then thought about it consciously. His whole body shuddered but he tried to subdue it, hide it.

He started around the car. He reached the passenger side door, got in, and sat down, too afraid and too confused to lift his eyes and look toward the woman. She stood still near the driver's door.

A moment later, she opened the trunk, closed it quietly, and then she was in the driver's seat, her gun in one hand, pointed across her body at him, his keys in her other hand.

She was wearing a hooded jacket, fleece, black, and the hood was up. Blonde hair showed from the hood, around her neck, but her face was hidden by the hood and by the shadows. She did not look at him. With one deft, continuous motion, she started the car. Chuck automatically reached up and put on his seatbelt.

The woman chuckled again, for a second, a sound that seemed to fountain out of her against her will. "Safety first?" she asked, causing the absurdity of his action to be clear to him. His seatbelt was no protection against her gun.

Chuck shook his head at himself as the woman wheeled the car out of the space. Again, her actions were deft, masterful, even driving with one hand. She left the headlights off until they'd reached the exit from the lot, and then she turned them on. Chuck kept trying to see her face but he could not; she backed up using the rearview. He could smell her, though, a faint pleasant lavender scent that made no sense given the unpleasant silver gun in her hand.

"Why do you need me?" Chuck asked as the car jetted along the street, the tiny Honda engine screaming in outrage. Chuck had a light foot and was terrified that the old car would break down if he pushed it at all. The woman was doing more than pushing it; she was punishing it. But the car kept moving. The woman put the gun down in her lap. She had been holding it in her left hand, Chuck realized, driving with her right. But the movements of her left hand with the gun had not been clumsy or slow. He guessed she was ambidextrous. Capable of killing me with either hand.

It crossed his mind that he could try to grab the gun and then he rejected the thought as foolish. Hooded or not, the woman radiated competence and deadliness. She'd kill him before he touched the gun.

They sped on. The woman did not speak and Chuck reached out to hold onto the dashboard as they took each turn, the car always on the edge of fishtailing but never doing so. Each time the woman kept the car under control.

"You can let go of the dash; we're not going to crash." The woman spoke with cool assurance and absolute authority. "I'm not suicidal and I have no plan to hurt you, so long as you help me."

"Help you?"

"You're some kind of computer guru, right? A hacker, or something?"

Chuck looked at her again. Computer guru she might have gotten from his working at the Buy More. But how could she know about his hacking? He had quit years ago, at least as a serious pursuit. Since then, he had only tinkered, and that rarely, only to keep his skills up. He hadn't done anything dangerously illegal in a long, long time.

"I work at a Buy More, and I oversee computer sales and service, yes," Chuck said, his voice sounding strange to him, still artificially high-pitched, squeaky. "But I'm no hacker."

The woman gave him a look. It was the first time he'd seen her face — her stunningly beautiful face, her blue eyes, red lips, her strong jaw — and he felt his jaw drop. Her eyes found his and gripped them in a gaze that frightened him, challenged him. He had never seen such resolution in anyone's eyes, such icy self-control. But the look she gave him was one of disbelief.

"Don't lie to me, Chuck; I don't like to be lied to." Her tone chilled him.

"How do you know my name?"

She put her eyes on the road. "Little guy, beard. Got off work a couple of hours before you. He told me. All about you."

Chuck gulped, both out of fear for Morgan and fear for himself. Morgan Grimes, Chuck's best friend and co-worker, knew about Chuck's hacker past.

The woman was now steering with both hands.

"Why would he tell you — all about me?"

The woman tugged her hood down and sighed, still staring at the road. He could now see her long blonde hair. A halo. Chuck got another whiff of lavender. Shampoo?

"I'm persuasive," she said with finality. "You're going to help me for a few hours tonight. Do what I ask, as I ask it, and you will go home unharmed, driving your car. Do not do what I ask — "

She broke off her sentence and finished it with those blue eyes. Eyes that could and would finish him.

Chuck nodded. "Okay, but my friend, Morgan, is he okay?"

"He's asleep, tranqed, in a dumpster behind the Buy More. Harmless drug. He'll wake in a few hours. When we reach our destination, I will send a text to the police; he'll be fine. Although he will not smell fine." She frowned; Chuck saw it in profile.

"He's, um, spent nights in that dumpster before," Chuck said.

She turned to him then, a question in her eyes. "A bet."

Chuck shrugged. Now the woman nodded. "Oh — right." She did not seem too surprised on second thought.

"You're sure he's okay? I could call someone at the Buy More, they — " Chuck took his phone from his jacket pocket.

The woman's right hand snaked out, a cobra strike, and Chuck's phone was in her hand. She shoved it in her jacket pocket. "Sorry, can't let you have that until we finish. Your friend will be fine. I don't hurt civilians, not seriously, anyway. I hoped he could help me — and he did, I guess, by telling me about you."

Chuck took that in, mulled it over, but said nothing. He would have to hope that she was telling the truth about Morgan, about Morgan's condition. Believing the woman felt crazy — she had kidnapped him! — and yet Chuck trusted what she said. It was those eyes, her eyes. He glanced at her again, her lovely profile. It was obvious that she was no stranger to death or danger. Cool — she was cool to a degree that no one Chuck had ever met was cool. Grace under pressure. Controlled. But not cruel. How he knew he couldn't say: whatever evidence he had was imponderable.

He looked out the windshield ahead of them for the first time — at least the first time when he paid attention to what he saw. They were in a pricey area of LA, West Hollywood, with lots of boutique shops and expensive hotels. Chuck knew the area but almost entirely from passing through it. He had never had the kind of money that would allow him to visit such shops or stay in such hotels. The only time he had visited the shops was when his college girlfriend, Jill Roberts, had traveled to LA with him one weekend. She had wanted to see the shops and so Chuck had taken her, but only after making it clear to her that they would only be window shopping. But Jill had predictably insisted on going inside, insisted on trying on clothes and jewelry, while Chuck stood, nervous and embarrassed, knowing that he could afford nothing that Jill liked.

The woman noticed Chuck staring out at the shops. "Familiar places?"

Chuck half-heard her question as sarcastic; it took him a moment to realize it wasn't. "Hardly. I can't afford those places."

She turned to him for a second. It was clear she was surprised and clear that she disliked surprises. That explained the quick endings to her earlier laughter. Chuck had made her laugh and she hadn't expected to be made to laugh. Not that Chuck had been trying to make her laugh…

"A world-class hacker can't afford these places?"

"World-class? Is that what Morgan told you?"

"Is that a lie? He was very convincing. Very. In a situation where I judged he wouldn't lie."

Those icy eyes again, commanding.

Chuck shrugged. "I guess…I mean, once I was. But I don't do it much anymore. A few forays now and then. You know, finger-exercises."

"Finger-exercises?"

"I keep in practice, sort of. But even when I was…serious…I never stole anything from anyone. I could have but that would have been wrong."

She lifted her eyebrows, although he could only see the one closest move in profile. "Wrong? But wasn't the hacking wrong, virtual trespassing?"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, sure, but I just wanted to prove that I could do it, and I never did it except to shady companies. It was my way of penalizing them for not being better. Look at me. Would I be working at a Buy More if I were stealing huge sums on the internet?"

"Maybe the Buy More is your cover? You know, the way Superman pretends to be normal, mild-mannered Clark Kent."

The way she said 'normal' was odd, but Chuck seized on the other adjective. "'Mild-mannered'? Does anyone talk like that anymore? You've got to be kidding."

The woman seemed to blush, and it flabbergasted Chuck. They both seemed to have forgotten that she had kidnapped him and that she had a silver gun still in her lap.

She ignored her change of color but it took her a minute to respond. "So you were an internet Robin Hood, except you didn't take from the rich, you were just a pain in their ass?"

It was Chuck's turn to laugh in surprise and he did. "That's true enough, although I didn't see myself in such romantic terms."

"You didn't steal anything and you didn't glamorize yourself. What kind of hacker are you, Chuck? What kind of man?"

"Hacker? Mainly a theoretical one. I like the challenge, the puzzle. Mind vs. mind. Man? I don't know. My ex seemed to think I was mainly a joke as one of those." Chuck couldn't believe he said that, said it now, to his kidnapper.

Jill popping into his mind always seemed to unhinge him a little, even after all these years. He cleared his throat. "So what is it you want me to do? Is it going to get me into trouble?"

She shook her head. "No. That's not the plan. You should walk away, no problem, no consequences. I just need you to…create an opening. I'm the one who will walk into it. Believe me," she seemed to grit her teeth, "once I do, no one's going to be worried about you."

"Create an opening?"

"Get me inside so I can take care of something shady."

Chuck looked at her hard. "Get you inside?"

"I'll explain more soon. We're almost there. Act like we're a couple. Or else." She put the silver gun in her pocket.

She had slowed the car, Chuck realized, and he saw the Sunset Marquis ahead of them.

The woman nosed the car off the street to the curb in front of the hotel.

"Here?" Chuck asked. "The Marquis? I've never been here. It's legendary. Hollywood history, all the great stars."

She gave him an unimpressed look. "I didn't choose it." She did not elaborate. "Remember, we're together."

One of the Marquis' valets hurried to the car, a sneer on his face as he stared at the old green Civic. But when he got to the driver's door, and the woman got out, he choked on his sneer. She unzipped her jacket and pulled her long blonde hair out of the neck of her coat, fanning it free.

The woman then walked around the car and opened the trunk and pulled a black suitcase out.

Chuck had gotten out and was watching all this.

The valet looked at Chuck then at the woman then at Chuck again. The woman had her blue eyes on Chuck as she threw the keys to the valet, her gaze admonishing. The valet caught them and drove the car into the parking deck. The woman pulled the suitcase behind her. When she reached Chuck, she took his hand in hers. Her hand was no longer as cold as it had been in the Buy More parking lot.

Chuck was stunned again by her beauty, seeing her under the bright lights of the Marquis. Her hair was longer than he had realized, wavy. Very blonde. She was tall, much taller than Jill had been. She smiled at Chuck, big and wide and white. For a split second, Chuck believed that smile, the way it reached her eyes. It was convincing. And then he remembered the gun in her pocket, her threats. She might not be cruel but he was sure she did not make empty threats.

He could run, or shout for help, but he had no idea what the woman would do if he did. He was worried about what would happen to him but even more worried about what might happen to the bystanders, including the sneering valet.

He let the woman hold his hand and lead him inside.

Christmas music was playing in the lobby, White Christmas. A tall Christmas tree stood in one corner, festooned with dazzling lights. The woman led Chuck to the lobby desk. The man behind it was precisely dressed, his uniform looking as if it had been dry-cleaned and pressed only moments before. He tugged on the bottom of his uniform vest. "How may I help you?"

"Hi," the woman said, her voice suddenly syrupy, sweet, "I'm Mandy Sutcliffe. We have a reservation."

The man turned and began typing on his computer. "Oh, yes. Miss Sutcliffe. Your suite is ready, prepared as you asked."

The woman, Mandy, reached into her other pocket and took out a small leather wallet. She produced a credit card. Chuck was standing at the desk too and he saw the name on the card, It was Mandy Sutcliffe. The clerk ran the card and then handed it back to Mandy. She put it in the wallet and placed the wallet in her pocket.

The clerk looked at Chuck, considering him, considering Mandy, and gave him a tight, quizzical smile. "Do you need two room cards?"

"No," Mandy said, not giving Chuck a chance to answer, "we only need one." The clerk nodded and handed a room card sleeve to Mandy. "Here you are. Your room is 202. I'm Carl. Let me know if you need anything. Just call the desk."

"Thanks, Carl," Mandy said, her voice still syrupy. She took Chuck's hand again and tugged him toward the elevator. She pushed the Up button and as they waited, hands no longer joined, Chuck turned to her. "So, Mandy?"

The woman shrugged. "Close enough for government work."

He had heard that phrase before but never in such a strange context.

The elevator arrived and they boarded. "What's in the bag?" Chuck asked as the door slid closed.

"Mostly for you, Robin Hood."

He looked at Mandy for a moment, meeting her eyes and holding them. He feared her; she was his captor; her gaze was terrifyingly blue, bottomless arctic water. He wondered about Morgan in the dumpster, about Morgan staring into those eyes.

"Ah, did Morgan, did he, um, hold his water?" Ever since they were boys, moments of serious stress caused Morgan to lose control. Weak bladder.

Mandy shook her head, her nose wrinkling.

"No. But don't worry, Chuck. I wrapped him in a blanket. It's not that cold. We'll make sure your little friend is fine as soon as we're in our room. The room."

She shook her head again, at herself, and gave him a smile that she seemed to intend to reassure him, but it was much weaker than the one at the entrance to the hotel, low-wattage. Then she sagged, barely perceptibly, against the elevator wall.

She had one hand in her pocket with her gun.

It was then that it dawned on Chuck that Mandy's beauty (because that is what she was, beautiful) — and the entire, dangerous, crazy situation — had hidden her weariness from him.

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Mandy gestured for Chuck to get out, keeping her hand in her pocket and making the gesture with her shoulder. "202, remember? You've done good so far; don't mess up now."

He started toward the room, Mandy close behind him.

Mandy handed him the key card at the door and he opened it. Inside, the room was impressive, spacious and luxurious. Despite his situation, Chuck immediately wondered if Bogart and Bacall had ever stayed in there. They entered a large living area, with a couch and two armchairs, all plush. On the coffee table stationed amid the furniture was champagne on ice, two flutes next to it, and a bouquet of red roses. They walked further inside and Chuck could see through the open doors to the bedroom. Folded robes were on the foot of the bed and a single rose was in the middle of it. Outside, through glass doors, was a balcony, enclosed in glass, and it was lit with twinkle lights. There were chaise longues there, next to a jacuzzi, its water reflecting the twinkle lights. It was as if the hidden stars had fallen onto the balcony, as if they were close enough that he could scoop them up and hold them, liquid and warm, in his hand. No need for his telescope: the sky not above but on the balcony, the constellations at the feet of the chase lounges.

Chuck blinked away the strange mood and turned to Mandy, who had her phone in her hand. In a quick, clipped voice she said. "Hello, I want to report a man sleeping in a dumpster behind the Burbank Buy More. Yes, I think he's just asleep, not dead. Oh, and he may be, um, foggy, about how he ended up there." She ended the call and glanced up at Chuck.

Foggy? "Can't they trace the call?"

She shook her head once. "Not to this phone," she said darkly.

Chuck stood for a moment and when she did not say more he gestured to the room. "Wow, it's quite a room. And it looks like it's intended for couples, you know, lovers."

He blushed after he said that. Blurting things out was more Morgan's problem than Chuck's but they each suffered from the affliction. He had Bogart and Becall in his mind, not the present occupants of the room.

Mandy had stiffened and she was staring at him, her look akin to Carl's at the desk. She was considering him — and his blush. She laughed again but this time she did not cut the laughter off immediately. It was a pleasant sound, the audible counterpart of her lavender scent. The tinkle of her laughter rhymed with the twinkle of the balcony lights.

"Now you match the roses," she said through her soft laughter.

Chuck decided to change the topic, to get the word 'lovers' out of the air, incongruous between kidnapper and kidnapped. Unless I am already gripped by Stockholm Syndrome, the strange bonding captives sometimes experience with captors. That seemed unlikely. He hadn't been Mandy's captive for nearly long enough. The Syndrome took time to develop; it wasn't immediate; it couldn't just come over you immediately, like a headache or nausea.

"So why is the room set up like this, champagne and roses?"

"To help our cover, my cover. We're supposed to be a couple. I asked for the Lovers' Package."

That word again. Mandy raised an eyebrow slightly. "Carl at the desk was wondering about it."

Chuck felt his blush intensify and Mandy continued to laugh. "Don't worry, Chuck, I have no plan to shoot you — and no plan to bed you."

She wheeled the suitcase to the desk on the side of the room. A small artificial Christmas tree was standing on the desk, green with small, red ornaments. Mandy pushed it aside. Her laughter ended and her face became expressionless again.

Chuck felt a twinge of disappointment. Stockholm Syndrome?

She picked the suitcase up and put it, flat, on top of the desk. "Ok, we need to talk about why you're here."