A/N1: Ownership of Chuck. Ok? There I said it. Now leave me alone.

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Recap: Last week, I left you guys in mid-action. So, I think I'll drop this note, just to help anyone who has to catch up. Big picture, the Carmichael team is staging a multipronged assault on Roark Instruments' campus in Ventura to access the computers where they hope to find a roster of Fulcrum agents. Smaller picture, while Roark himself is busy losing his shit upstairs, there are dozens of Federal agents in the lobby. Meanwhile, Team B is infiltrating through the back door to access the only area on the campus which is restricted and computer airgapped. Chuck has been tranked and is being carried out by Casey. Roark has personally shot two FBI agents and orders Fulcrum to kill all the Federal agents on the campus. His intention seems to be to evacuate the Fulcrum team by helicopter.

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Rachel was standing at the back of the crowd of agents and chatting with Fitz and Billy as Culp came down, talked to Taylor and took Taylor and Mason upstairs to meet with Roark. 'So far, so good,' she thought. Taking Roark out in handcuffs and having him spend the night in jail would be the capstone of a really shitty day for the man. And, of course, while the drama was going on here no one would be looking for their team heading into the secured wing of the building. This was going to work out perfectly.

The first sign that anything was amiss was the sound of a firecracker detonating to one side of the lobby. It was immediately followed by a second and then a whole bunch. Too many detonations to count. While she was looking around in surprise and still trying to understand what was happening, her world slipped downhill into chaos. Time seemed to slow down. Her peripheral vision disappeared, leaving her with a form of tunnel vision. And, at the same time, things were coming to her stunned mind in flashes, like a scene lit only by strobe lights.

She was picked up by a hard strong arm around her waist and moved a few yards in a single lunge to be deposited on the marble floor behind the plinth of a tall metal sculpture. The plinth was about eighteen inches tall and made of stone. Fitz pushed her head down and yelled to her, over the sounds of what she now understood to be gunfire, to keep her head down.

She hadn't had time to be afraid but kept her face to the marble anyway, with her eyes open. There were sounds of screams and more gunfire. She could see the feet and lower legs of people scrambling around the lobby. As she watched, a woman in a Treasury Dept. jacket twisted in pain and fell to the floor to lay still, blood beginning to pool from underneath her body.

Fitz was next to Rachel on one knee, a weapon in his large hands firing aimed shots steadily. His face expressionless, his eyes focused and hard. She twisted her head and put the other cheek to the marble floor under her face. Billy was on the other side of her, also on a knee and likewise firing over and around the sculpture and its base. His affect was a deadly as Fitz's. She suddenly had to stop herself from peeing on the floor.

She heard Fitz yell over the sound of the weapons, "Billy, shoot the roof."

"Right," said the other man. She saw him raise his aim and begin to fire steadily up at the glass roof above the group that Rachel suddenly realized were Fulcrum agents. She twisted her head and saw Fitz likewise firing upward.

Although she'd been told to keep her head down, she couldn't help looking up as both men's rounds impacted on the glass roof of the lobby, directly over the heads of the bunched Fulcrum shooters. As she watched, two panes of glass shattered to pieces. The deadly glass shards fell onto the heads and backs of the Fulcrum agents, who stopped firing their weapons and ducked down.

Fitz barked to Billy, "Right, Billy, get her out of here."

She found herself once again lifted bodily and carried at a run out of the lobby. She said, weakly, "I can run." Or maybe she just thought it, because Billy ignored her and kept going away from the action. They got to the SUV they had arrived in and he opened the back door and helped her inside.

He was sweating and had an intensity about him that would have terrified her if directed in her direction. Looking at her with hard brown eyes and an attempt at calm, he said, "Listen, Rachel. This car is armored. The windows are bulletproof. Just stay here. Lock the doors and don't open them for anyone you don't recognize. Ok?"

She nodded. Billy said, "I need to get something out of the back. When I close the gate, lock the car." She nodded again. She didn't think she could actually manage words.

Billy slammed the door shut and went to the back of the vehicle. She twisted in her seat and watched him take an armful of long guns from a hidden compartment, followed by a large satchel that looked heavy. He slammed the back gate of the truck and waited for her to lock it down. When she did, he gave her a quick nod and then he turned and ran back to the fight.

Rachel sat in the car for ten seconds, watching people in the front of the building moving around. She could see the flashes of weapons. She could also see bodies on the ground inside the lobby. Too many bodies. She saw the dark stains of blood under some of them. It looked like the Federal agents still fighting had mostly retreated out of the lobby to the cover of large decorative planters in the courtyard in front of the building and were firing into the lobby at the Fulcrum agents with handguns.

Rachel began to scream and pound her small fists into the tops of her thighs. There was no thought or plan behind it. As her mind unlocked, the horror and fear and shock had hit her all at once. She'd been in an actual gunfight. People...good people were fighting and maybe dying. Maybe her friends. Maybe the men and women she'd been talking to over the last few days. Had lunch with. It could have been her. She could have been killed or shot. She pictured herself lying on the marble floor, her life pooling out under her broken body. She kept screaming in the otherwise silent car.

And a voice in her head spoke, 'you know you're hysterical.'

Another voice in her head screamed in response, 'OF COURSE I'M FUCKING HYSTERICAL, YOU STUPID COW. I WAS IN A FUCKING GUNFIGHT FOR FUCK'S SAKE. ANYONE WOULD BE HYSTERICAL.'

The calmer voice said, 'No. Not anyone. Not Sarah. Not Billy. Not Fitz. Not your...'

Instantly, she stopped screaming. Her other voice said, more calmly, 'ok, point taken.'

She took a few deep breaths, physically shook herself, and took out her cell phone.

A moment later she said, urgently, "Jorge, this is Rachel."

"Oh, thank God. What the hell is going on? From the video feed it looks like chaos in the lobby. Are you ok? Are our guys ok?"

"It is chaos. Billy tucked me into one of the cars, but there's still a gunfight going on. Last I saw, both Billy and Fitz were ok, but I didn't see Leo. Put me on speaker."

"Ok," he said. She heard the click in her ear as the sound at the other end changed.

"Brett, Johnny, you guys there?" When they affirmed that they were, she went on. "Ok, guys. It's hitting the fan now. This shit is totally insane. I'm looking at a fucking war zone. There are dead bodies out there. Bodies of good guys. We have to step up. It's on us, guys. On us. We have to do what we can to help out friends. Right?" They agreed. "Ok. Jorge, get on to Chuck's team. Tell them what's going on out front. Get Casey to direct the disposition of Mike's reserve team with this new development."

Jorge said, "Chuck got tranked by accident and is being carried out by Casey. I've already told Mike to have one of his men move to Point Delta to protect Chuck in the car as he sleeps off the trank dart."

"Well, shit," she said. "Ok. But get back to Casey. With the violence in the lobby, he may want more of Mike's guys with him. When you get the direction from Casey, let Mike know."

"Right. Will do," said Jorge.

"Brett, get on to the Ventura Police Department. Tell them Federal agents are under fire at the Roark campus and need immediate back up. SWAT if they have it. The 82nd Airborne if they have that. Emphasize it's a big fucking fight with dead people. I don't want any of them walking into it casually. Also, tell them to block all roads to and from the campus. I don't know how the Fulcrum assholes intend to get out of this, but that's a good start. Tell them we'll need every ambulance in Ventura, but there's an active firefight so you can't let the EMT's in until the shooting's stopped. Have them get the local hospitals on standby for multiple gunshot victims."

"Got it, Rach," said Brett.

"What do you want me to do, Rachel?" asked Johnny.

"Start calling DC. Malone, Graham, Beckman. Fuck, if I thought you could get through to the President I'd tell you to do that too. When that's done, start calling the bosses of the guys we know are under fire. FBI, Homeland, Treasury. All of them. Their people should know what's happening. Probably not too much to do about it right now, but they should know."

"Will do," said Johnny.

"Ok. I'll keep this line open in case there are any developments here that you need to know," said Rachel. "You guys mute yourselves so you can hear me, but I can't hear you unless you need me to."

Her team acknowledged her instructions and got to work.

Meanwhile she sat in the safety of the car and watched her friends being shot at. Her hands were shaking and her knuckles were white. She started to cry silently, but not hysterically. She had too many responsibilities to allow herself to be hysterical.

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"Good news, Sarah," said Stephen. "I've found the Fulcrum files and identified the roster. I'm going to download it now."

"Great. Quick as possible, please," said Sarah.

From a bag at his side, Stephen took a portable hard drive and connected it to the mainframe. Then he sat back down at the terminal and resumed typing.

"Sarah, Casey, Zondra," said Jorge in their ears. "Fulcrum has started a hot war in the lobby of the building. Our agents there are under fire. Rachel is safe in one of the cars and she's giving us what direction she can from there. Casey, how do you want Mike's men deployed?"

"Shit. Tell Mike to send me Marty and Frankie to Point Delta. Tell him to have Jack set up a nest and snipe at the Fulcrum agents he can see. Mike himself should use his own judgement. Put him in direct touch with Rachel if he needs a live sitrep," ordered Casey. He continued, "Sarah, how're things going with Stephen?"

"He's found the roster and is downloading it to a hard drive," she said. "Is Chuck safe?"

"I'm just approaching the car. He'll be locked inside in a few minutes."

"Right," said Sarah. "If it's turning into a hot war, I could use you back here."

"Ok. I'll be back as soon as I can," he replied.

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Marco stood outside the door to the closed wing, behind which he knew Stephen and Sarah were working. He was next to his janitor's cart and was pushing a mop back and forth over a spotless area on the floor.

Five men with submachine guns in their hands rounded the corner of the corridor and jogged towards him.

"Out of my way," one of them snarled.

"Sorry, Sir," said Marco. "You can't go in there now."

"What are you talking about," the man asked, annoyed.

"The exterminator has just been in and he's left his extermination gas...you know, the bad shit...in the air. You have to wait at least a half hour to let it dissipate before opening the door," explained Marco reasonably. "Least that's what he told me."

The man stared at Marco for a second or two and said, "I don't believe you. Out of my way."

He put a hand on Marco's arm to shove him to the side. Marco said, with a shrug, "Oh, well. It's your funeral."

As he said that he knocked the end off the mop. Free from the burden of the mop head, the end of the stick hit the other man in the crotch very hard. As he started to buck forward with pain, the stick in Marco's hand spun and the other tip connected with the head of one of the other men.

Stepping forward, Marco slammed the edge of a foot into the side of a man's knee while using the tip of the stick to knock his weapon aside. With a wide swing the two ends of Marco's stick hit two of the men simultaneously. For one, he broke an arm and knocked the weapon to the floor. For the other, he hit the man in the head and knocked him unconscious. With another swing, he swept the foot out from one of the men.

A man lunged at Marco to grab the stick. When the man's hand was firmly attached, Marco spun and pulled the man forward over the fulcurm of his hip, dropping the man to the ground and tangling him in the legs of one of the others. Marco stomped on the man's solar plexus and tapped him in the head with the end of the stick. He continued the stick to clip another of the men in the side of the head and shift the tip to jam another one's throat.

With only one man left, Marco knew he was in trouble. The man had, wisely, backed away from the janitor with the deadly mop stick to raise his own weapon. Without thinking about it too hard, Marco lunged forward, adding his weight to the throw. The tip of the stick thrown like a spear hit the other man in the middle of the forehead, knocking him unconscious.

Marco stepped forward to pick up his stick. He looked at the five downed men on the ground and, with a small smile, spun the stick in his hands. A critical observer might have decided it was a bit of a triumphal spin of the weapon. Or maybe even a less critical observer, if truth be told.

As he spent a couple of seconds looking at the downed men, he heard the sound of pounding feet down the corridor. Looking up, he saw twenty or thirty armed mean heading his way. He instantly grabbed two of the weapons of the downed men at his feet with a few magazines of ammo.

With the tip of his stick, he destroyed the keypad lock on the wall and then banged on the door behind him and yelled, "Sarah, it's Marco. Let me in." The door opened towards him and he threw himself inside. Sarah pulled the door closed behind him.

He looked at her and said, "Shitstorm on its way."

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A/N2: Aw, crap. Look what I did. Two weeks in a row I left us in the middle of a major fight. You guys are right. I'm falling down on the job. On the plus side, I'm feeding a tiny bit of New Day into the Chuck fan fiction multiverse every week (sorry, my son and I just finished Loki and loved it, so I'm thinking multi-versal at the moment).

A/N3: You know what I'm about to suggest. Make your decisions accordingly. Love you guys. All best wishes for a happy and healthy new year for you and your families. This community is what makes the whole thing fun.