A/N: This covers the gap of time between Crown Vic and Undercover Lover. Again, wonky timing. There was a month long hiatus originally and the last two episodes aired on the same night in late January. Again, more of my imaginary back story that canon never contradicts.

The next month flew by. We had a handful of missions, only a few of which were directly precipitated by a flash of Chuck's. Stake outs, intelligence gathering, and nonstop meetings. It was a string of routine situations…things going right for a change. All three of us were back in our normal cadence of life, and everything felt fine, relatively speaking.

Ellie had asked Chuck, more than once, if something was up with us, especially after Thanksgiving, but he told her everything was fine. Just normal couple disagreements. We were back to our cover dating– watching movies, eating pizza, pecking on the cheek, hugging and the like. As much as I told myself I needed to not lose myself in the pretending, dreamily suspending my disbelief in each moment…allowing myself to feel like his real girlfriend, I was hopelessly back where I told myself I couldn't be. It was a gradual shift, so it sort of slipped under my radar.

The holidays were fast approaching after the relatively early-season Christmas party at the Buy More. True to their word, after the debacle at Thanksgiving, Ellie and Devon had booked a vacation for Christmas, their gifts to each other. They were going to Cancun for Christmas, and would be back for New Year's Eve. Ellie explained all of this one evening in early December while we were having dinner.

I could tell by his face that Chuck was surprised. I found out later that was the first Christmas ever that would be planned where he intentionally didn't see his sister; there was always the possibility of her having to work, being a doctor and all, but when it happened it was usually a last minute disruption, however. They were adults, and he wasn't pouty or moody about it, but he fretted a little bit anyway. Given their past history, I could understand where those feelings were coming from. Ellie's defense of their plans was me–that is, that Chuck had me, so he wouldn't be alone on Christmas. He smiled, grabbed my hand, pretended, but he knew I already had plans to fly back to D.C. the week of Christmas, which angered me and upset him. Ellie being away only added to that feeling. Casey was staying here to protect him.

The holidays were a terrible time for me, always, until I met Chuck. Growing up, I couldn't remember spending a normal Christmas with anyone. I never believed in Santa Claus or flying reindeer, or any of that. Those parts of childhood I just never experienced. Participating in cons with my father at an age where most kids still believed in those things, I was smart enough to know the idea of Santa Claus was also just an elaborate con. Sad, I know, even just saying it, but it's true. I made sure to give all that magic, that sense of wonder, to my children, every last thing I had never had growing up. Because before, I never knew any joy, only sorrow, at Christmas time. It's heartbreaking to tell, even worse to have lived it.

Everything one saw, heard, touched, smelled, even ate…everything was family and love and peace and goodwill. A 24 hour, 7 day a week commercial playing for a full month, highlighting everything I had never had, everything I wanted but could never have. I guess it could have made me Scrooge-like, so that I hated Christmas…hated the music, the decorations, everything…but I didn't. That was part of the problem. I wanted all of that, as enchanting as it always seemed. Just this impossible dream that hovered over me once a year, seemingly just to torment me.

There was no Christmas in the CIA. Just mission after mission. For someone who had no one, no place to go, that was almost a blessing. Working, even doing the jobs I was doing, was better than sitting home alone eating Chinese food in a hotel while the rest of the world was brimming with joy. Christmas last year had come and gone in Mexico without either Bryce or I even acknowledging the day. We sort of both realized it had passed while we were working, saying a quick "Merry Christmas" on the way out the door one night.

It wasn't until Thanksgiving had come and gone in Burbank that I began to think about Christmas this year, and what it would be like. A fake girlfriend would spend at least part of the holiday with her fake boyfriend, right? How would that be? What would it look like? I found myself anticipating, even becoming excited, for the chance to spend a normal holiday, even the semblance of one. Graham squashed those dreams, however.

He called to arrange my trip back east in the first week of December. He told me then it was during Christmas week, with the explanation that the airports would be extra busy, but Washington itself would be a ghost town. His need for my inconspicuousness should have clued my spy sense, but, in all honesty, it had taken a bit of a beating after three months in Burbank. It surprised me, since I had no idea why he would want to pull me out of Burbank for any reason, since Chuck was still there and he was still my primary mission. I tried to remain calm in that conversation, not let Graham see how agitated the thought of leaving Chuck made me. He did reassure me, without me having to ask, that it was temporary, and had nothing to do with a reassignment from Operation Bartowski. He explained it was just an opportunity to tie up some loose ends, since I had left D.C. in September with the intention of returning in a day and it had now been three months since I'd been gone. Clear out those dead plants, Agent Walker.

I was worried. I told myself to just remain vigilant, cautious, no matter what. He made assurances, but I didn't trust him at all. Just because he said he was sending me back to Burbank didn't mean that he would, not if he had other plans for me. My mind was working overtime, worrying about possible assassinations or something similar. I asked Casey about it, and he played dumb, I know now. Back then it only fueled my suspicions, because he seemed to not have corroboration from Beckman about what I was being asked to do.

Casey actually played dumb because, unbeknownst to me at the time, Casey had already been given orders to eliminate Chuck when the new Intersect computer, the one the U.S. government had been rebuilding since Bryce had destroyed the last one, went online. Casey told me this years after I regained my lost memories, right before he married Kathleen. I guess it was a sort of confession he wanted to get off his chest. As you may recall, I have mentioned this before.

In December, Casey was led to believe the new computer would be up and running within a month or two. It actually took almost nine, for various reasons, the most important and consequential being delays caused by variations of sabotage from enemy agents.

I always found it odd–like this instance–Casey was being paid to stay in Burbank and protect Chuck…so that he could then be the one to destroy Chuck. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but a lot of things the government does don't make a whole lot of sense. I learned that the hard way. My job was never to question, just to do as I was told. The longer I knew Chuck, the harder that became.

My call to Washington by Graham was a test–a profound, multi-faceted test that involved so many things I still don't know the complete purpose of everything. Beckman had always been the one questioning Casey about Chuck and me, wondering at the way we interacted or the barbed things Casey sometimes said. Graham usually stayed quiet, not seeming to focus on how Chuck and I interacted. Typical Graham, he just kept it completely to himself. What I know now–he had gradually noticed a change in me, just from the video briefings we had, probably the same changes I had noted in myself, only I thought I was doing a better job of masking them than I actually was, at least to him. He had been the one to issue all of my orders, speaking to me privately even as far back as when Bryce and I were partners.

Graham had never wanted Bryce to partner with me, but Bryce had manipulated that to his advantage. Now, I was with Chuck and Casey, indefinitely, another situation Graham hated. Mostly because it separated him from his star agent, his personal cleaner, his wildcard enforcer. How had he been coping without me to make him look spotless and guiltless when things went south? Not well, it turned out. Truth be told, Graham was counting down the hours until he was done with Chuck and he could have me back.

I'm speaking ill of the dead again (sorry, Dad) but here's the truth. He got what was coming to him…being blown to smithereens right as the order for Chuck's life was still active. But that's a bit later. Why I hated him so much, why I was almost glad when I learned he was killed, was because of, at least in part, this visit to Washington at Christmas in 2007.

Bryce and I had put Omaha, Fleming, Stanford and Chuck behind us, after that night I told him what I knew. He had told me then he was keeping the secret from Graham. Beckman was keeping the secret about Bryce from Graham. So many secrets, so many lies. Graham had started to wonder. He was the CIA Director, and he didn't get there by being dull-witted. He could certainly make conclusions based on evidence. Graham never came out and asked me about Bryce, but I couldn't shake the feeling he either knew or suspected that Bryce was alive…and keeping it a secret as well.

For almost an entire week, I was questioned about the Intersect. Again, they meant Chuck…like he was an inanimate object. At first, it was very generic, like Graham was taking second hand field notes, looking to see how the Intersect worked for missions and intelligence transfers. I wasn't all that suspicious until he changed tactics. He wanted ridiculously detailed information, information I don't know why he would think I would have, even having been briefed on Omaha all those years ago.

It started off slow.

How many times did Chuck usually flash in a week?

How much information and what type were the majority of his flashes?

Could Chuck remember the intelligence again once a flash was over?

He asked hours and hours worth of questions about specific intel…was it in the Intersect or not. Lots of classified information–agent names, cover names, enemy agent names, places, dates. I asked him straight out why he thought I would know that. I told him, Chuck didn't explain what happened when he flashed…he just…flashed. He would say what he figured out after the intelligence was mined from his head.

Had Chuck flashed about him (Graham)?

Had Chuck flashed about Bryce? Casey? Myself?

I knew a little, but I played dumb. The more questions he asked, the more wary I became that he had some ulterior motive I knew nothing about.

Had the Intersect in Chuck ever shown to give him the ability to break codes?

Had Chuck ever flashed about Sam?

I almost fainted when he asked that question. Why was he asking me that? What did that have to do with anything? Sam died six years before Chuck downloaded the Intersect. I think I recovered enough to not let Graham know how rattled I was at this turn of questioning. It seemed so non sequitur, so arbitrary. Then I started to worry–what if he was in the Intersect, and Chuck just hadn't flashed on that specific intel yet? I didn't want to know what Chuck knew, and I didn't want him to tell me. I didn't want him to know about any of that.

Graham never elaborated, of course, but I did end up finding out why he'd asked me that. Orion, Chuck's father, knew the Intersect could break codes. First and foremost, because he himself had designed it. Because Sam's codebreaking skills had been studied by Orion and then written into the Intersect as an algorithm. Orion told me that right before he died.

There was then a barrage of questions about my feelings and my interpretations. Stranger still, Graham asked me if I thought I was doing an acceptable job as Chuck's handler. Like a self-evaluation, which he had never done before. He had never even given me a legitimate evaluation, which was part of his job, only one I had never become aware of until Bryce mentioned one of his. In his twisted way, that was Graham's 49B, or the precursor anyway. I don't know how everything is connected, like I've mentioned before, because Graham died before I ever got a straight answer, but I'm fairly certain Graham's hurry to complete the new computer and eliminate Chuck was solidified after this round of questioning. No way to know if I was correct, sure, but, as you will see, the evidence corroborates my theories.

Could Chuck control his flashes?

That was the last thing Graham asked me, perhaps the most intensely of all. The answer to that was yes, but no one knew that here. I told him the truth as far as I knew it and said no. It was after I learned that he could that I would come back to this and wonder.

I actually found out about a year later, once Orion reappeared and showed Chuck that he had the ability to control his flashes, that he could flash on demand.

Orion…Stephen. They are the same, but they are different. When I refer to him in all of this, I call him Orion. Because it was the spy in him that I was interacting with, talking to. Stephen was Chuck's father. He was the same man, much in the same way I was both Sarah and Agent Walker. For the sake of Chuck's sanity when everything blew up, I separated them in my mind. Chuck didn't lose Orion–he lost his father, though it was Orion who saved Chuck. Shaw killed Chuck's father, angering the Ring because he had killed Orion. Confusing, I know. But that's the distinction, and it's important.

That line of questioning went on for an entire week, multiple days of asking the same questions in a variety of ways. What it left me feeling–I had a very strong suspicion Graham thought Chuck could be test subject 0326. He knew whoever it was had been at Stanford and knew Fleming. At the start, Graham hadn't known all of that, but he learned over time. Thank god I destroyed the disc, I told myself when that was all over. Omaha had long been defunct, but something was going on. Something bigger and better perhaps, which is horrifying to think when I think of what I knew about Omaha. Or something that Graham knew that no one else did, and he wanted to make sure no one ever did.

The only time during those few days that stands out in my mind–Christmas morning, waking up alone in my apartment, staring at the ceiling. Merry Christmas.

I was thinking about Molly and my mother. Three months had gone by. She would be about nine months old now. Crawling, perhaps? I tried to picture her in my mother's house, creeping around on the furniture. Baby's first Christmas. That was something momentous, correct? One of only a very few Christmas memories of mine involved a silver ornament, an angel praying, with my name engraved on it. Samantha Lisa. And the words…First Christmas. I would have been about the same age as Molly was, I thought.

I had never wondered about it before, but I had no idea where that ornament went–if my mother still had it or not. Was it on her Christmas tree? I almost pictured my mother, holding Molly in her arms, pointing to the angel as it sparkled between the glowing lights nestled amongst the green bows.

It was aimless wanderings of my mind…and it made every fiber of my being ache with a kind of all-encompassing loneliness that few people in the world could ever understand. That incurable, eternal loneliness that devours you from the inside out. Doing my job, both before and now, with Chuck, was the only distraction I had. Before, that had been enough. Now, it seemed, it was no longer enough; it would never be enough.

I missed Chuck. Like a flower dying in the desert misses rain. That image stayed with me the entire time I was there.

Chuck called me every night when I was in D.C. and he was in his apartment alone. He spoke a lot about Burbank and Buy More goings-on, which provided a great deal of comic relief to ease my stressful days. Chuck had ended up spending Christmas with Morgan and Morgan's mother. I learned during one of these conversations this time that when Chuck was younger, after his mother had gone, Morgan's mother had done her best to help both Chuck and Ellie. Some of the things Ellie knew how to cook she had learned from Bolonia, Morgan's mother. Each night when I hung up, I missed him more. I hated being away from him.

I left D.C. with a renewed sense of urgency to protect Chuck–not just from evil doers, but from Graham and Beckman as well. I wasn't sure how, but I knew I needed to.

He invited me to Ellie and Devon's New Year's Eve party, knowing I would be back in Burbank in time. I had never been to a real New Year's Eve party, only on missions a few times. (Lots of alcohol often meant loose lips and lowered inhibitions.) I told Chuck I would be there.

I was due to fly out in the early morning of December 31, but my flight was delayed for icing in D.C. and then I missed a connecting flight in Dallas. I spent most of that day in the airport, but I managed to get back to Echo Park around 11 at night. I was exhausted from traveling but the thought of seeing Chuck again had me charged like static electricity. I was almost giddy when I parked my car and walked through the archway.

The courtyard was full of people. As usual, Ellie's party had spilled from their apartment to encompass the entire area around the fountain. Sparkling lights, leftover Christmas decorations, and soft music filled the air. These were all Ellie's friends, I was sure, doctors and other acquaintances from the hospital. When they were home, it was always about family, but Ellie and Devon also had a lot of friends. I recognized a bunch of faces from Ellie and Devon's Halloween party. Same crowd, I thought.

I was scanning through the crowd at the perimeter, looking to see if I could see where Chuck was. With his height, he was never that hard to see, even in a sea of people like this. I was almost certain after about a minute of searching that he wasn't outside. Once I started to move towards the door, I saw him.

His back was turned, as he was twisting his way from inside to outside, a bottle of beer in one hand and a carrot stick in the other. He wore a simple black t-shirt and jeans and his regular shoes. His hair was delightfully askew with his bouncy curls. As he stepped into the courtyard, I saw him in profile. The lines of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone, and the gentle slope of his nose. A faint smile on his lips. He popped the carrot into his mouth and chewed heartily, then sipped his drink. I was holding my breath, completely unaware, as I soaked in the sight of him, balm for my surprisingly sore eyes.

It was almost like he felt me staring at him. He turned slowly, his hazel eyes scanning through the people. His eyes set on me and then he smiled for real, an enormous, beaming smile that made me feel like my bones had turned to jelly. I know I smiled back, my cheeks aching again without my awareness. He was there, and then he was right in front of me, like he'd somehow floated through the crowd.

"Hi…Sarah," he said, breathless, like he'd run to me, though I knew he hadn't.

"Hi, Chuck," I responded, not even sure at the moment if I was too expressively happy to see him. I was so happy to just be near him again, nothing else mattered. "I'm sorry I'm late. My flight was delayed and I missed my connecting flight," I explained.

"Is everything ok?" he asked me. I didn't think I looked worried, considering how buoyant I felt, but he was extra sensitive to me. I definitely had taken some of that bizarre questioning as a warning that I needed to be careful. I also didn't want to worry him with any of that.

"Yes, yes, everything is fine," I told him.

"Sarah!"

It was Ellie, after she'd seen me, rushing through the group of guests to get to me. She breezed past Chuck and grabbed me in a tight hug. "Happy New Year," she gushed with her chin on my shoulder. "I'm so glad you made it." She pulled away from me, keeping her hands on my shoulders. "Chuck said you had to go out of town suddenly for an emergency. I hope everything is ok."

So Chuck had covered for my absence, obviously unexpected when Ellie and Devon had returned from Cancun, prepared to catch the end of Chuck and me celebrating Christmas to find Chuck alone in the apartment. I didn't elaborate, unsure of exactly what Chuck had told them. He hadn't mentioned anything to me in any of the times we'd talked. I just assured Ellie that everything was fine now.

"I hated leaving Chuck here alone at Christmas, though," I added, reaching across the space between us and wrapping my arms around Chuck's waist. He responded the same way he always did, loosely holding me back, always cautious, a little uneasy. I had been dreaming about how he smelled the entire time I had been away from him, and my proximity to him filled my lungs with it. "And it took all day traveling to get back here."

"In the nick of time, Sarah. That's all that matters," Ellie added with a smile. "Go get her something to eat, Chuck. I'm sure she's famished."

Chuck grabbed my hand, a soft comfortable grip, and led me back inside to the table where all of the food for the party was laid out. A veggie tray, cheese and crackers, crab puffs. Chuck was talking, fluttery, easy conversation, catching me up on everything that had happened since I had talked to him the night before. I actually was extremely hungry, the only food I had eaten all day was a few handfuls of snacks on two separate flights.

I filled up a dish, walked outside with him, and sat on the edge of the fountain beside him. He kept chatting, rambling almost. I found myself listening less to the words he was saying and just listening to the sound of his voice, each separate intonation, like it was a piece of classical music. In no time, it was very close to midnight.

Everyone at the party stopped what they were doing, milling around the clock with excitement that bubbled all around us in the atmosphere. Chuck had taken my dish away and we were standing just inside the doorway to the apartment. Ellie and Devon came to find us, standing right beside us, as the last 20 seconds before midnight were counting down. Once the number had dwindled to ten, everyone there, in a harmonized chorus, chimed down the numbers from ten to one.

At the stroke of midnight, a roar of applause went up from the crowd. Champagne bottles popped and noisemakers honked. Everyone got their New Year's kiss. Even me.

Everyone around us was kissing. It could have been awkward, but Chuck pulled me into a hug right as the party horns started blowing. He kissed my lips, a soft, ghost of a kiss. It was sweet. Unpassionate, but that would have been too much here. It was the perfect display in front of his sister, how Chuck and I would have pecked each other on the lips for our cover dating, even though, at three months of fake togetherness, this was the first time Ellie or Devon saw that. If they thought it was strange, they never said anything to me. And I think if they had said something to Chuck, he would have said something to me.

To be honest, I think Ellie could see how we looked at each other, even when the other wasn't looking; real, genuine loving gazes that I know for myself anyway, I was unaware of what my face was actually doing when I would look at him. The frequency and/or intensity of our PDA never fazed her, because she knew what she was looking at otherwise. I also think that was why it was so hard for her to buy our on-again-off-again status, because deep down, she knew the truth of what we really felt.

I could taste the last sip of his beer on his lips when he kissed me. I closed my eyes, and I looked down at my feet instead of his face, afraid both that he would see something in my eyes that I couldn't control, and that I would see something more than I could handle in his. He squeezed me around the waist and whispered, "Happy New Year, Sarah."

I looked at him then, that sensation of warm, rushing liquid filling every inch inside me at the tender sweetness I could see on his face. I felt drunk…drunk on Chuck. "Happy New Year," I whispered back and smiled.

2008.

All in all, it was happy and it was sad. It was the first full year that I would know Chuck. Everything in my life had changed the moment I met Chuck, but for that entire following year, I saw him almost every day. And I fell more and more in love with him as time progressed.

Now that I know, after I've had time to reflect and process, I know how much I loved him, standing there in his arms in the courtyard at Echo Park at midnight on the first day of 2008. No one had ever even wished me what he'd said, never mind meaning it the way he did. The word filled me up.

Happy.

I was happy. However fleeting it was, however precariously it appeared.

I had never been happy in all my life, but, still, I knew that I was at that moment. A few moments of bliss. Because of Chuck.

Oh, if it only had lasted.