A/N: A post-finale Christmas one-shot, totally from Sarah's point of view. Reflections of Christmas in her past, her present and what it looks to be in the future.
Thanks to Captainrick944 who pre-read an early version of this. However, it's gone through a number of revisions since then, and the result is unbeta'd, so please excuse any mistakes or Anglicisms.
Christmas Past, Present & Future
Sarah lay in bed, considering how she used to feel about this time of year. They were not all happy thoughts. Well, They had been until she was twelve. By then, she'd realized that what she and her dad had been doing since leaving her mom was wrong.
The guilt she felt about her past was stronger at Christmas time than at any other time of year. And if that wasn't enough to ruin it for her, she'd always been alone, whether or not physically with others. Alone in her head and with no one with whom to share the Christmas cheer. She shook her head at that thought. What Christmas cheer did her past have to offer her?
She shivered and pulled the quilt further up her body, covering all but her shoulders, to fend off the chill that spread through her from those memories. It wasn't really cold here in California, but it had been in some places where she'd spent Christmas. Siberia had been the coldest. That memory triggered an even stronger shiver.
Rather than focus on the cold, she listened briefly to the sounds of happiness downstairs, which brought a smile to her lips. She should get out of bed and go down, but felt that a few private moments of reflection would be good to help her fully appreciate all that she now had.
She cast her mind back to that year of realization. Up to age twelve, she had just thought that she and her dad were having fun together, and she'd reveled in the praise she'd gotten from him for successfully carrying out the tasks he gave her. The year was 1994 and they had moved once again, a couple of weeks earlier, and were now in Portland. It was the furthest north she'd been to that point.
It hadn't snowed, but was very cold, at least for a girl from southern California. At the time, she'd wished for snow, something she'd never seen, but since then she'd been out in it, and it wasn't as great as she'd thought it would be. Of course, experiencing the blizzards that had accompanied it in Siberia probably tainted her view of snow now.
She had only just started to grow in height, but looked younger than her age, and was still able to sweetly go to peoples' houses 'selling' the rubbish her dad brought along, and conning the people, women usually, that came to their doors out of their money. It was likely that most could afford it, but some of the older ones may have struggled.
So, that was the year that she found these deceptions hard. She was tempted to walk away from some of the people having taken nothing from them, particularly the older ones, but she knew that would make her dad angry with her and, besides, they needed that money to survive themselves.
Christmas Day had been uncomfortable, as Sarah and her father had been trapped by the weather in the room, neither willing to talk to the other. Sarah had defied her father for the first time, refusing to steal from three of the older women, and he was angry.
The following year, they'd gone east to Denver, south of Portland but still very cold. She was growing taller, not her full height yet, but no longer able to pretend she was young enough for those house-to-house calls. She'd advanced to pick-pocketing or snatching from the bags of shoppers. Initially, that felt better as these people had money to go out shopping. Sometimes, what she took was purses, but sometimes gift items. However, on later reflection, she felt awful about those thefts, too. Christmases for some families ruined by the absence of much wanted presents.
On Christmas Day that year, she'd just stared at the soft toys she'd taken, thinking of the children deprived of those Christmas presents and hated herself for it. The following two years were more of the same, just in different cities, with Sarah hating herself for what she had to do for survival.
When she was sixteen, they moved to San Diego, so back in the warmth of California. They stayed there for a year and a half, the longest time so far. Her dad's cons took longer, but the last one before they arrived had made him enough money for them to settle in a temporary apartment and she even enrolled at the local school. Up to that point, she'd been self-taught.
Fortunately, she was a fast learner and quickly picked up what she needed to know to be able to hide at the back of classes at James Buchanan High School. She made no friends there and her dad was focused on his cons, so both that year, 1996, and the following year, she was completely alone on Christmas Day. At least, by then she'd told her dad that she wouldn't participate in any of his cons anymore. So, while he went out, she ended up sitting on her own at home for long periods of time, where she grew increasingly lonely.
The following Spring, her dad's luck ran out and he was arrested. Langston Graham, who at the time was a deputy director of the CIA, used the arrest to persuade Sarah to join the CIA. He told her that she would do good from that point forward, indicating her skills were just what were needed in a CIA operative. She assumed he meant her knife throwing skills, even though she'd missed him, but that proved to only be part of it.
The loneliness she felt during the Christmas period continued for that first year at The Farm, although that was partly self-imposed. Sarah avoided the attention of the male students, especially after she received her makeover. Sarah's exceptional performance, coupled with her new appearance also caused her to be shunned by the female students. However, she was aware of the other students forging friendships and partying together, which just made her feel even more of an outsider.
This continued for all of the following year. The perpetual loner became known as the Ice Queen due to her rejection of male advances. All the students, both male and female, were now jealous of this much younger woman who excelled at everything, easily maintaining the top position in all classes.
Once Graham started sending her out on assignments, she threw herself into her work, largely to avoid facing that loneliness. That resulted in her spending each Christmas period working, including that very cold Christmas in Siberia.
The Siberian assignment had been her last before joining the three other female agents in the Clandestine Attack Team. It was a solo assignment to get information on new chemical agents in development to use against the west. She had to get this from Yaropolk Morozov, the lead scientist at the Vektor laboratory in Siberia's Novosibirsk region. Security was tight, and he was very unwilling to talk, but he was known as a womanizer, in spite of being supposedly happily married. She had been observing him for over a week and knew where he drank before returning to his wife.
This was her first seduction mission and she hated every minute of it. She didn't have to have sex with him. But he'd been very handsy when drunk. She managed to inject a truth drug into his neck and get the information required before administering a tranquilizer that caused short-term memory loss. She was fixing her dress to leave when he suddenly woke and hadn't lost his memory at all. She spotted him reaching for a gun, and reacted instantly, pulling a knife from her ankle holster and throwing it. As she escaped, she thought of the woman who wouldn't see her husband the following day, Christmas Day.
She was ashamed that killing a man didn't upset her. She put that down to the fact that it was self-defense, unlike her later Red Test which she convinced herself wasn't, but she still felt it should have affected her more than just ruining her Christmas.
Her two years in the Clandestine Attack Team was a blur to her. An alcohol filled blur when not on missions. She thought she must have enjoyed that, although the Christmas periods were still time alone. Each agent disappeared to whatever location they holed up for those days. Sarah stayed wherever they had been before the others departed and just hid from the revelers beyond her door.
Her time with Bryce should have been happy. She'd eventually succumbed to his desire for a sexual relationship, but that was all it was. Neither shared anything about their past, something true partners did. So, in both the Christmas before they became a couple, and the second one with him, she closed off, hid away in her shell. He couldn't understand, but receded from her, letting her keep her walls up.
The only person to truly break through those walls was Chuck Bartowski. Even before they became real boyfriend/girlfriend, he had managed to find out her true feelings about Christmas and pulled her into his family's warmth. She smiled, thinking about that time. With her full memories back, she remembered it with fondness. He really was a wonderful man and his sister was equally welcoming.
However, unhappiness seemed to follow her, and affected Chuck as well after they became lovers. She knew it wasn't her past that ruined the mood in the latter part of 2010, but Shaw not being dead, as they thought he was. Him escaping prison and murdering Chuck's dad was awful. Sarah was completely incapable of lightening the mood that Christmas, for either sibling, and felt it would have been inappropriate to try. However, she was sure that the pair of them would have been better off together, just consoling each other, without her or Devon around.
The following year, 2011, should have been wonderful as she and Chuck were now married, but Daniel Shaw managed to ruin that Christmas as well.
Then, Nicolas Quinn captured her and wiped five years of her memory. She left her husband mid-February 2012 for a three-month period as she tried to "find herself" as she'd told him. In the last month of that time, she regained some of her memories, but couldn't fit them into the time frame as they weren't things that either Chuck or her video log had covered. She realized that the man who she had left, in spite of strong feelings for him, was the only person who could help her, and she returned to him.
Thankfully, her amazing husband welcomed her back. The two of them then worked together and, as more memories returned, at an increased rate, he helped her fit them into the puzzle that was those five years of her life. He was wonderful, taking whatever time was necessary for her to understand her memories, some of which were quite unbelievable. All of them centered around him. She now knew that he had captured her heart from the beginning of her time with him, but that it had taken her quite a while to fully understand her feelings for him, to overcome her fears, and for them both to make mistakes and false assumptions before they finally became lovers.
After that memory loss, Chuck had not only captured her heart once again but guided her to fully regain and understand her memories. It was only a month before she was sharing his bed again, their bed. That brought a flush to her cheeks. That reconnection had surpassed her expectations. It had also resulted in her first pregnancy.
Christmas 2012 was an alcohol-free one for her, much as many before, but the reason was one of joy, with her belly getting larger and the thought of being a mom no longer frightening, but exciting.
As she was thinking of that happy time, the bedroom door burst open and a brown-haired five-year-old boy peeked in. His curly mop of hair made him look just like Chuck had in early photos of him that Sarah had seen. He was just as adorable, too.
He clearly saw her looking at him. "Mommy!" he cried as he ran to the bed. He leapt onto it and scrambled up to launch himself at her chest. She opened her arms with a huge grin gracing her face. When he landed on her and wrapped his little arms around her neck, she hugged him tightly and then kissed the top of his head. "Merry Christmas, Nathan."
He lifted himself up and his chestnut-colored eyes, so like his father's, peered into her blue ones. "Merry Christmas, Mommy. You have to come downstairs."
She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, do I?"
"'Ryn is running circles around Daddy and he says he really needs to get more of the food cooking," he replied. She still wasn't as good a cook as her husband and, although she helped with the preparation, as she had the day before, he still was the chef. She felt guilty now for leaving him alone with the two children, particularly as three-year-old Kathryn was such a handful.
She lifted Nathan off of her and climbed out of bed, threw on a robe over her nightie and followed her son downstairs.
Chuck looked up from where he was trying to load vegetables onto the trays on which they'd cook in the oven. His eyes lit up on seeing her. She knew that wasn't just because he now had help. Her husband always looked at her that way. She also knew she looked the same at him. They loved each other so much. "Merry Christmas, Beautiful," he said.
"Merry Christmas, my gorgeous husband," she replied and gave him a quick kiss before bending down to the three-year-old dynamo hanging onto Chuck's legs. Sarah picked her up. "And Merry Christmas to you, my lovely daughter."
The big wet kiss Kathryn planted on her cheek was welcomed and she kissed her daughter back.
"Sorry I was lazy this morning. What would you like me to do, Chuck?"
He smiled at her. "Keep these two amused in the living room? Then, I can get the cooking started."
"Have they opened anything yet?" she asked as she clasped Nathan's hand and led him out of the kitchen, while still holding Kathryn in her other arm.
"Some things," Chuck replied, vaguely.
"Let's go and look," she said to the two kids.
"Luv you, Mommy," Kathryn said as they walked into the living room. Sarah stopped walking and looked into eyes that were an even brighter blue than her own. Sarah, being her mother, obviously thought Kathryn was the most beautiful little girl she had ever seen. With her shock of blonde hair, Kathryn's maternal grandmother often commented on how she looked just like Sarah had at that age.
Thinking about her mom, Sarah called though to Chuck, "Have you heard from mom?"
"They're on their way," he called back. "Should be here in about an hour and a half."
She frowned, realizing how her tardiness was going to be a problem. "Sorry, babe, but I'll need to shower and dress before they get here." She set Kathryn down near toys on the floor.
"Don't worry," Chuck called. "Once I've gotten everything on the go in here, I can rejoin the kids in there."
"Thanks, my love."
Kathryn was now happily playing with her new soft toy, Rudolf, and Nathan started to show Sarah the wooden train set he'd opened. The two children were so happy with such simple toys. 'God, I love my family,' Sarah thought.
Christmas time, and Christmas Day in particular, had been such a wonderful time for Sarah since returning to Chuck. To be honest, so had everything else about her life. Chuck seemed to have a magical touch.
Sarah's deepest regret was staying away for so long, which she knew had hurt him. If only she could have talked to herself as she sat on that beach all those years ago. It was more than just trusting him, because she had, even then. It was about trusting and not being frightened of her own heart. Sure, the lack of memories, and her life being so different to what she was used to, was scary, but her heart yearned for what she had already. Walking away from all of that was her biggest mistake ever and she was so lucky that Chuck, hurt though he was at that time, was patient and accepted her back.
"Hi, take over time," Chuck said as he walked into the living room.
Sarah quickly stood, walked to him and grabbed his face so she could stand on tip toes and give him a deep kiss. She could feel the tears welling up.
As they parted, Chuck had his eyes closed and his lips were seeking hers again, so she obliged in another lingering kiss.
"Wow! Merry Christmas indeed!" he gasped out. Then, he noticed the tears seeking escape from her eyes. "What's this all about?"
"I spent time thinking about past Christmases and how they were all bad until we got together, and how they've been so wonderful since you welcomed me back with such an open heart, even though I'd hurt you so badly." She held his gaze, looking lovingly at him. "Thank you, Chuck. I love you so much."
He brushed her tears away with his thumbs. "And I love you, too. I'm still so glad you returned." He gave her a quick kiss, then he turned her toward the hallway and said, "Go get ready for your mom and sister." He gave her a quick slap on her backside to encourage her to go.
She jumped slightly and gave him a look that told him how much she liked what he'd done. Then, she headed upstairs after noticing the kids had completely ignored the interplay.
"Merry Christmas, Sis," Molly said, as she gave Sarah a hug.
"Merry Christmas, Mol," Sarah replied, trying to hold onto the twelve-year-old. She failed of course and soon Molly was off playing with the two kids in the living room.
Sarah didn't have to raise up much, because Molly was already growing so quickly, and then she enveloped her mother in a tight embrace. "Merry Christmas, Mom."
Her mom said the same as she hugged her oldest. "It always has been since you returned to him," she whispered in Sarah's ear.
"I know, Mom," Sarah replied. "My whole life has been wonderful since then. Every day is a reminder of that."
Emma held her at arms-length. "No tears this year, Missy."
Sarah grinned. "They're happy tears, Mom."
Her mom huffed. "Maybe, but the kids don't always see them that way. Grins and laughter are more reassuring for them."
Sarah chuckled. "Well, I'll be doing a lot of both, I'm sure."
"Hi, Emma, Merry Christmas," Chuck said as he walked up to them, having been sent away by his sister-in-law who wanted exclusive access to Nathan and Kathryn. He had to bend down quite a bit to hug Emma.
"Merry Christmas, Chuck. I've got presents in the car that I'd appreciate some help bringing in."
"Sure," he replied. He stopped to give Sarah a quick kiss before setting off to do just that. She held onto him for longer that he expected as she gave him another kiss.
Emma smiled and said to Sarah, "I love how the two of you are around each other."
"That's what love is all about, Mom," Sarah said and then watched Emma turn and try to catch up with Chuck. And it was what love was all about. She and Chuck couldn't stop the displays of affection. Having her memories back had shown her how he struggled with PDA when she first arrived in his life. It wasn't just that it was a cover relationship back then, but he genuinely was PDA-adverse. That was no longer the case. When she first returned to him, she was worried that he was displaying such affection openly out of nervousness that she'd leave again, or at least subconsciously, but she soon realized that he enjoyed it as much as she did. They now kissed in public wherever they went. Chaste kissing, but she loved it anyway. The kissing that was not chaste in any way at all was reserved for their night times, and boy did those kisses work wonders!
As with all the food Chuck cooked, the Christmas meal was absolutely perfect.
Sarah watched with amazement at how Molly got Kathryn to not only behave well at the table, but also eat what was on her plate without making a mess or throwing anything. "You have a way with little kids, Mol," she said.
Molly looked up at her. "No. Just these perfect specimens." She winked at Nathan who grinned at her.
Sarah snorted, but had to agree with her sister. Nathan and Kathryn were perfect. She had never expected to even have kids, let alone these two wonderful children. Of course, the way she and Chuck had brought them up was part of the reason for that.
She looked over at her husband. She was looking forward to giving him a couple of his presents tonight when they were alone. She wished now that she'd given him one before he got up with the kids this morning.
After clearing away the dinner from the table, boxing up the leftovers and putting them ready to go in the fridge, and also loading the dishwasher, she and Chuck rejoined the others in the living room for more present opening.
The afternoon passed happily with that until her mom asked Sarah why she wasn't drinking. "Are you not feeling well, Sarah?"
Sarah controlled her reaction easily. She still had all her spy skills, after all. "No, Mom. I just don't feel like drinking." She quickly thought what to say as to the reason for that. "I want to just enjoy watching the kids enjoying their Christmas. It's more meaningful to Kathryn than last year."
Her mom nodded, but then looked at what Sarah was wearing. She looked back into her oldest daughter's eyes and smiled knowingly, obviously having guessed. 'Was that female intuition?' Sarah wondered.
Well, if her mom knew, Sarah couldn't hide it from the man she loved. She looked at him. He was happily watching Nathan rip open his last present, so she waited and watched that too.
When the three kids we occupied with the opened presents, Sarah leaned over on the couch and grasped Chuck's hand. "I was going to save this present until later, but I see mom has already guessed."
He looked at her lovingly. "You're pregnant again," he said.
Her jaw dropped. "How did you know?"
"I still have some spy skills," he said as he grinned. "I've noticed you're not drinking, as well."
She sheepishly smiled at him. "I wanted telling you to be a Christmas gift."
He pulled her to him. "And what a magical gift it is, my love!" The kiss he gave her was only borderline chaste and her mom coughed her reminder of who else was there with them.
As they separated, he said, "Just how far?"
"Ten weeks now," she replied, peering at him through her lashes.
"Wonderful!" both Chuck and her mom said.
"Merry Christmas, Chuck," Sarah said as she pulled him into another kiss.
Molly was the one to put both kids to bed after their baths. Sarah was so happy that her sister loved them so much. Molly and their mom soon had to leave to head back to San Diego, after that. Both Chuck and Sarah had hoped they'd stay the night, but Molly had an all-day party to go to the following day.
After watching them leave, Sarah turned back to Chuck. "Another wonderful Christmas Day, Chuck. Thank you so much."
"It would've been good to have the Woodcomb gang here, and mom, but the two doctors had to work, so they all stayed in Chicago." He briefly looked sad about that. She knew how important sharing Christmas was to the two siblings. Then, he brightened. "But such wonderful news, Sarah!"
"Yes. Next Christmas we'll have another lovely son or daughter!" she said. "Another wonderful thing to look forward to, my love."
He picked her up at her waist and twirled her around as she giggled. She absolutely loved his youthful enthusiasm, partly because it drew the same out of her. "Put me down, you goof!"
He did so and she wrapped her hands behind his head and laced her fingers into his curls. She pulled him down into a heated kiss. As she released him she said, "Bed. Now."
He grabbed her hand and they ran back into the house, with Sarah stifling her giggles. She did NOT want to wake the kids with what they both had in mind.
When they got to their bedroom, she quietly shut the door and turned to him, holding her arms wide. "Time for you to open your other present," she said in a seductive voice.
His unwrapping took very little time, although he did pause for a few moments. "You've always been the best present I've ever had," he murmured. As she'd hoped, his eyes lit up as he saw the red lacy set she was wearing.
Once she was lying on the bed, as he started to kiss her neck, she couldn't help thinking that Christmas was a wonderful time with her family and her lover… her amazing husband. Then, he took her breath away and she stopped thinking about anything else.
A/N: Somewhat sad at the start, but getting brighter once Chuck entered her life and full of joy at the end.
Some of you may question why others aren't present such as Morgan, Alex, Casey and Gertrude. This one-shot is just about Sarah's thoughts and being with her close family, not the wider Chuck 'family.' Those others will be enjoying Christmas elsewhere, even Mr. Grumpy.
I hope you all liked how this story played out, whether Christmas is something you celebrate or not. Happy holidays, folks.