A/N: Disney owns everything else, including the Disneyland Hotel, but they don't own Chuck. I think.
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Chuck had lost track of the number of cups of coffee he had consumed in the last two and a half hours. He idly flipped through the feeds from the multiple cameras and found nothing interesting. His three teams were deployed and waiting for the arrival of Fulcrum's Sachem. He spotted Sarah on one of the camera feeds.
Adjusting his com connection, he spoke to her and her alone. "Hello, beautiful."
He saw her twist away on the camera so that no one could see her speaking. "I certainly hope that this is my fiancé. Because you should know that I'm already spoken for."
"None other. Just wanted you to know that Snow White hit on me and I sent her away disappointed."
Sarah giggled. "Well, I think you're too tall for her."
"You think that was it? I don't know. I think I...ooops, gotta go. Bryce needs to talk to me. Business first."
"Love you," she said.
"Love you back," he said. Switching channels, he said, "Hey, Bryce."
"Hey. Just wanted to give you a heads up. I'm leaving my station for a bit. I have to go pee."
"Damn. I wish you didn't say that. Pee for me too, while you're there."
"Too much coffee?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry, buddy," Bryce said, chuckling. "You're on your own."
"Ugh."
Chuck switched his com link back to the general link. He sipped his cold coffee and watched Minnie Mouse come out of some hidden door someplace with exquisite timing. A couple of dozen small children, about six years old or so, came into the lobby from the front entrance. They were all wearing orange shirts with the name and logo of their summer camp and had three somewhat harried looking camp counselors with them. Chuck wondered for a moment how much joy the counselors got from dealing with the small children all day and if it offset the pressure of dealing with small children all day. Minnie made a big silent show of greeting them. The little kids were excited, making Chuck smile.
He turned back to his computer and the video feeds from the wireless cameras they had set up. The feed he was on was blacked out. It had been working only moments before. He switched channels to another one of the feeds. It too was blacked out.
He switched his view to look at all the feeds at the same time. All were black.
Suddenly alert, he spoke to the three teams, "Guys, heads up. Something is happening. All our cameras have just gone black."
Frankie, outside with Marty, said, "Two limos pulling up. Guys getting out. Looks like a dozen or so. Suits. Looks from here like some of them ...maybe all of them...are packing."
The men began to pour into the lobby. They seemed to be surrounding and protecting a gray-haired man. Chuck said, "Who can get a look at the man in the middle? The guy with the gray hair?"
"I got nothing," said Fitz.
Colt said, "I'm blocked too. I can see the hair, but that's it. Too many people. Let me move over."
As he said it one of the men put out an arm to stop the movement of the group. He put a hand to his ear and looked around the lobby, suddenly on high alert. Whatever he saw, he didn't like. He spoke to the others and they began to usher the gray-haired man out of the room and back to the limos outside.
"Dammit. Frankie," said Chuck, urgently, "can you get a look? They are bugging out. Something spooked them. See if you...NO, Forrest, stand down."
Forrest, in her disguise as a man, was out of her chair and moving towards the door, her gun in her hand held down near her thigh.
"Negative, Chuck. I'm taking out the Sachem," she said, moving across the lobby towards the doors and the men.
"No. No. Stand down. Stand down," he almost shouted into his microphone.
One of the camp counselors, a young woman, spotted Forrest and her weapon and screamed, "HE'S GOT A GUN."
All hell broke loose. The counselors tried to herd their young charges away from the bearded man with the gun. The men moving the Sachem out of the hotel doorway pulled guns of their own. Civilians screamed and ran in every direction, some running directly into, rather than out of, danger. Children began to scream and cry. Minnie Mouse disappeared. Some of the children fell down and were scooped up by the counselors.
Forrest pushed a random man out of the way, shot one of the men near the door, and was herself shot by return fire. She was wearing a vest and the force of the impact knocked her backwards onto the carpet. From the ground she sighted again and shot a second man. Someone shot her, hitting her arm. Both Fitz and Billy had their weapons drawn and fired at the men, to give Forrest some scant covering fire. Colt and Hershey, both unarmed, had turned over the stone coffee table and taken cover behind it.
A single little boy in a camp tee shirt, who had somehow been missed by the counselors in the chaos, stood crying between the two groups as bullets passed over his head. He seemed to be frozen in place, looking around with panicked eyes.
Colt growled, "Goddammit." He left the cover of the table and began to run across the large room. He was shot once in the side, but he didn't slow down. He scooped up the little boy and kept running, twisting his body to put his huge bulk between the boy in his arms and the gunmen by the door. The second bullet took him high in the back of the shoulder. The third grazed across his back.
He made it to the cover of a bend in the wall and collapsed to his knees. Fitz was by his side instantly, putting himself between Colt and the men, grimly firing at a steady rate. Billy took the child from Colt and moved the little boy to safety.
Leaving three of their men dead, the men at the door retreated outside and into the limos.
Chuck said, "Frankie, Marty, do you have them? Do you have the limos?" There was silence to his query.
Nothing to be done about that now. Have to handle this scene first, he thought. What a goddamn mess.
He pulled out his cell phone and called for one of the IC response teams. They could handle the cleanup from the mayhem and keep to whatever story they fabricated. He waded into the chaos of the lobby. Sarah, Casey, Bryce, Leo and Marco were by his side moments later.
Casey went right to Fitz, who was working on Colt to stop the bleeding, and began to help. Sarah noticeably relaxed when she saw that Chuck was unhurt.
He looked around. The air smelled of cordite. One of the glass doors had been shattered by the gunfire and the glass was strewn on the lobby's carpet. Three of the Fulcrum men were dead. Colt and Forrest were wounded, Colt seriously. As he scanned the lobby, he saw no one else hurt. A camp counselor ran across the room and took the crying camper from Billy, hugging the child to her chest.
Leo ran outside to look for the limos or the two remaining men from Colt's team. He reported in their ears that everyone had gone without a trace.
Chuck said to the others, "Colt ran across the gunfight to grab a little boy and get him to safety. Looks like he was hit three times."
"Wow," said Sarah, truly surprised by the news. Marco and Bryce went to attend to Forrest.
"Yeah," said Chuck.
Hotel employees were venturing back into the lobby and the scene of the violence.
Chuck moved over and bent down to Colt, who looked up at him with pain in his eyes. "Jim Brown," said Colt.
"Charles Bronson," said Chuck, taking his hand and squeezing it, not even noticing that his hand had become covered in Colt's blood.
Colt looked at his blood beginning to seep into the hotel's carpet by his side and said, "Naw, I don't think so."
"You listen to me, Colt. Charles Bronson. You'll be around for the sequel," said Chuck with certainty, hoping he was right.
"There was a sequel?" asked Colt.
Before Chuck could respond the ambulance crew arrived and took control of Colt's treatment. A second crew began to attend to Forrest.
They were putting Colt on a stretcher as Chuck watched. Sarah took his hand and said, "You want to go with him. You go ahead. Casey and I will stay and deal with this insanity."
"Thanks, Sweetie. I love you."
"I love you too. He's going to be ok. He is," she said, giving Chuck a quick kiss.
Chuck followed the crew out to the ambulance and got in with Colt. It was only when the doors closed that he realized he hadn't spoken to or checked on Forrest.
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Casey and Sarah arrived at the hospital about forty-five minutes later. They found Bryce with Forrest as she was having her arm bandaged.
"How are you?" Sarah asked Forrest.
"I'll be fine. Wasn't much of a wound," she said.
"You got lucky," said Casey gruffly.
"Luckier than the Fulcrum assholes. I got two of them," she said with pride.
"In the midst of a lobby full of civilians," said Sarah, with anger in her voice. "And you disobeyed orders."
"You told me yourself we don't have a real chain of command in this team, Agent Walker," said Forrest.
Casey growled deep in his throat and his hands clenched into fists. Bryce looked on with sudden concern.
Before Casey could take a swing at Forrest, Sarah said to Bryce, "Where's Chuck?"
"He's downstairs in the SCIF, briefing the bosses," said Bryce.
Casey and Sarah immediately looked at each other with alarm. Without a word spoken between them they began to run through the hospital corridors.
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In the hospital's SCIF Chuck faced Beckman and Graham on the wall-mounted screen, who were clearly furious.
"What the hell happened, Chuck?" demanded Graham. "A gunfight in a crowded public place? We have to brief Director Malone in a few minutes and you can be damn sure he's going to be briefing the President. This is non-stop on all the cable news channels. A shootout in Disneyland, for chrissakes. What a goddamn clusterfuck." He spoke quietly, which Chuck knew was a sign of fury.
"We had a solid stakeout set up in the hotel where the Sachem was to be. As the man we assume to be the Sachem arrived all the wireless cameras we had set up went dead. Some kind of jamming, I guess. Then something spooked the Fulcrum team with the Sachem and they began to back out. A gunfight was started and …well, they got away. Colt and Forrest were hit. Colt is in surgery, but Forrest is going to be fine. Three Fulcrum men were killed. Thank God, no civilians were hurt."
"A gunfight was started among all those civilians? That's ridiculous," said Beckman. "Whose decision was that?"
"It was my team that instigated the confrontation, Ma'am. My responsibility. I was coordinating the operation. The fault is entirely mine and mine alone. I'm very sorry."
"Chuck, I know you don't have the training that others..." began Beckman with exasperation.
The door behind him burst open and Casey and Sarah came in. They closed the door behind them and Sarah said, "Sorry to be late. What did we miss?"
Beckman said, "Chuck has just taken full responsibility for the disaster at Disneyland today."
Sarah reached out and took his hand, his palm sweaty.
Casey growled. "Yeah. That's exactly what we were afraid of. That's bullshit, Ma'am, Sir. Forrest initiated the gunfight. Bartowski told her three separate times to stand down and she flat out refused. It's not his fault. Not even a little bit. This shitshow is all on Agent Forrest. One hundred percent."
"No, Case," said Chuck. "I could have explained it to her better before the operation began. I could have..."
Casey was furious and, unlike Graham, he got louder with his anger. "Forget it, Bartowski. In the pre-mission briefing she raised the possibility of taking out the Sachem and you shot the idea down. You told her flat out there would be too many civilians around. We discussed this exact scenario this morning. She knew this and she did it anyway," said Casey. "If she was going to object that was the time to do it. Instead, she pulls this shit."
"But..." Chuck started.
Graham interrupted him. "No, Chuck. The Colonel is right. You are very loyal and I appreciate your covering for a member of your team, but this is absurd. I'm ordering her back here to Langley. I want to have a serious conversation with Agent Forrest." His voice had gotten very, very quiet.
"Sir, please don't," Chuck said. "Everyone can make a mistake. She's had a great career. Let's not let this define it. Let me talk to her. Please."
Casey said, "I can't believe you are still defending her after all this. She could have gotten a bunch of kids killed."
"And I'll bet she feels terrible about it."
Sarah began to shake her head slowly. "Nope," she said quietly.
Graham sighed and said, "Against my better judgement, but ok, Chuck. Talk to her. But if you don't like what you hear, you send her to me. Understood?"
"Yes, Sir. Thank you. I will do that."
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Chuck found Forrest waiting with the others to see how Colt's surgery went. Colt's man Jack was waiting as well. Marty and Frankie were still missing. Chuck assumed they had made good their escape in the confusion. He knew they could track their car, but assumed they would be finding a different car promptly. He had several ideas to find them, but hadn't had a moment to implement anything in all the general awfulness of the afternoon.
"Agent Forrest, can I speak to you for a few minutes?"
"Of course," she said, getting up to follow him out of the room and into the hospital hallway.
"How's the arm?
"It'll be fine."
"Good. I need to talk to you about what happened at the hotel. I told you to stand down. You started a gunfight in a room full of civilians."
"Yes, I did. I'm sorry I didn't get the Sachem. He had too many guys surrounding him," she said.
"It could have turned into a disaster. As it is, the DNI has to brief the President about what went wrong," said Chuck. "The room was full of kids, for God's sake."
"It could have been a disaster, but it wasn't, Chuck. No civilians were hurt. It was worth the risk. We might have been able to put a stop to this whole Fulcrum threat." Forrest said, "We could have taken out the leader. If the worst happened it would have been some unfortunate collateral damage, but..."
Chuck reacted as if he'd been slapped. "Collateral damage? COLLATERAL DAMAGE? What the HELL is wrong with you? That was a small child with his entire life ahead of him. With parents who love him and have dreams of his future and ...and..."
Forrest realized that she'd screwed up. She began to back-pedal. "No, no... Chuck.. That came out wrong... I didn't mean it...No."
But it was too much even for Chuck. As angry as he'd ever been, he said, "Yes you did. You certainly meant it." Chuck shook his head. He took a breath to steady himself and said, in a firm commanding voice, "I'm sorry Agent Forrest, but I can no longer work with you. You are off this team. Clean your stuff out of Castle and return to Langley. I'm told the Director would like a word or two. Good luck with your next assignment."
Chuck turned on his heel and walked away from the sputtering woman. She called to him but he didn't even seem to hear. He didn't notice the others in the waiting room, listening to every word.
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Dr. Ellie Bartowski was almost done for the day. Which was good, as she was to have dinner with Chuck and Sarah tonight. The plan was to head out for sushi.
She opened the door to her office and stopped when she saw two men waiting for her, but she froze when she saw the gun.
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A/N2: Forrest is off the team. A dead or injured child would be mere collateral damage? Even Chuck couldn't stomach that attitude. Perhaps Zondra will be back in the field for the next arc.
A/N3: What do you guys think? Still having fun? (I am, at least.)