Ever since the Patriots had been wiped out, Willoughby had gotten even more into the holidays. The whole town was going all out for Christmas. Personally, Bass thought it was all a waste of time and was planning on spending his time getting drunk and skipping fake Santa's appearance all together. It's not like any of those kids were going to get what they asked for anyways.

He was on the way to the bar, to drink off the memory that he was stuck in Christmas land with a bunch of over-excited kids while he hadn't seen his own in months, when he turned a corner and found a man in a truly pathetic Santa costume shooting up.

"You have got to be kidding me," he muttered.

Rachel was a little too excited at the chance to have another real Christmas with her daughter after all these years and frankly it was driving Charlie a little crazy. Miles was absolutely no help, even though he knew that her mother was treating her like she was five years-old. He thought it was funny.

"Please, Charlie?" Rachel tried again.

"No," Charlie argued. "I'm not a kid. I am not sitting on Santa's lap."

"Come on, Charlie," Miles insisted with a smirk. "Get in the Christmas spirit."

She shot daggers at him with her eyes. She didn't know how, but she was going to find a way to get back at him for this later.

Bass never should have said anything. He should have just kept walking and let Santa go out drugged, but, no, he had just had to interfere and what good had that gotten him? None.

"If you think you can do better, then go ahead."

Pretending to be Santa was not at all how he wanted to spend his afternoon, but the guy had thrown his suit at him and stormed off. There wasn't even a sketchy Santa anymore and it was his own damn fault, so he had sucked it up and put the suit on. There couldn't be that many kids in Willoughby. Could there? Maybe he wouldn't really be stuck there for that long.

"What the hell is he doing?" Rachel demanded through gritted teeth as her mood was abruptly soured by the appearance of 'Santa'.

Charlie followed her mother's gaze to find none other than Sebastian Monroe dressed up as Santa as various children cheered at his arrival. She had to let out a laugh at that.

"He is definitely going to scare off the children," Miles insisted.

A smirk formed on Charlie's lips as she decided that maybe this would be fun after all. Turns out she wouldn't even have to wait to get her revenge on her uncle after all. "I'd better go get in line if I'm going to sit on Santa's lap," she commented.

Bass spotted Charlie in the line and thought at least something interesting might come of this. He wasn't sure what she was doing in line with Miles and Rachel around, but he didn't overly care. He probably should. After all, they were her family and Miles was his best friend. But Charlie had been getting flirtier lately, especially when they were out of earshot of those most likely to overreact. Maybe nothing was really going to come of it, but with Miles spending most of his time with Rachel, Connor nowhere to be found, and no fight to throw himself into, Bass would really take anything she was willing to give him.

He forced a fake smile onto his lips as a boy about six years-old came running up to him. The mop of curly brown hair and the big grin on his face tugged at Bass's heart. Was this what Connor had looked like at that age? Had he been this excited to go see some fake Santa at the mall?

Charlie had thought Miles had been exaggerating a little when he'd claimed that Monroe would scare the kids away, but she was still surprised when the guy actually turned out to be good with kids. She doubted the authenticity of that wide grin spread across his face, but the kids seemed to be eating it up. Who would have ever thought Monroe would end up the one spreading Christmas cheer to a bunch of little kids?

Her turn was almost up and she noticed a few of the parents were giving her strange looks, but that didn't matter. It was her own family she was trying to get back at. Besides, she really wasn't that opposed to sitting on Monroe's lap if she was perfectly honest with herself. The guy had been hitting on her practically nonstop lately and she even let herself flirt back sometimes. It wasn't like there was a whole lot of competition around to throw herself at to try to avoid what she had been dreading feeling about him for a long time. Besides, Miles and her mom were so wrapped up in each other now and Monroe had practically turned into a hero. It didn't cancel out all that he had done before, but he was a different person now. One she could almost see herself with if she could find a way to break it to her family.

She didn't even hesitate before sitting right on his lap and focusing her attention solely on him. Or so it appeared.

"Are they still watching?" She questioned.

Bass peered over her shoulder and scanned the crowd for a moment before spotting Rachel watching them with a look of sadness and disgust while Miles glared from her side. "Did you really think they'd just look away while you're in my lap?" She looked very satisfied with herself, but didn't utter a word in response. "So what do you want for Christmas, Charlotte?"

She shrugged. "All I really want right now is revenge and I seem to already be getting it."

"Then what is Santa supposed to bring you?" He teased.

"Surprise me," she responded with a wicked smile.

He glanced over at the line of impatient children and parents and frowned. As much as he would like to keep her there for longer, it was probably not a good idea. He had to finish her turn up.

"As long as you've been a good girl, you should get a good present." His lips were practically touching her ear as he murmured, "I don't have any candy canes to hand out, but I do have something else you can suck on."

"Please tell me you are not saying that to the children," Charlie responded.

"Don't worry," he responded. "That's a special offer just for you."

"In that case, we'll see," she taunted as she rose to her feet. She leaned over to whisper one last thing in his ear before giving the next person in line their turn. "Depends how good my present is."

A/N: Please read and review! This is a gift to selenehekate as part of thegoodshipcharloe's A Very Charloe Christmas. Sorry for being so late to post this, but I hope you like it. The next chapter should be up sometime today and things should get a little more inappropriate in it. ;)