A/N1: Ownership of Chuck. Yup. There, I said it.

A/N2: Last chapter I forgot to drop an A/N about the events of December 27, 2008 in real life. I mentioned Beckman working to provide information to the Israelis, but didn't follow through. There really was an Israeli invasion of Gaza on that date to stop Hamas rocket attacks. I think it was Mark Twain who said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."

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DNI Malone, his wife, and his son and daughter-in-law left the suburban steakhouse in Clinton, Virginia in a good mood. His son's wife was carrying what would be his third grandchild and, if the tests were proven true, his first grandson. They had come up to visit Malone and his wife for Christmas and would be driving home to North Carolina the next day.

The festive dinner was also a goodbye, as they would be leaving early for the long drive.

"You sure we can't drive you?" asked Malone's wife to the younger couple.

"Mom," said her son, "the hotel is right over there." He gestured down the street. "Like, literally, right there." He was pointing at the building less than a quarter of a mile away.

"And I could use the walk, Mom," said the pregnant woman. "I have to walk off the cheesecake we had for dessert."

"Ok. Love you both," said Malone's wife. "Safe drive tomorrow. Call when you get home."

"Will do," the young man said. He gave his mom a hug and a kiss and his dad a hug. "Love you too."

As the two walked away to their hotel holding hands, the parents turned to circle the building to their car in the parking lot behind the steakhouse. They were accompanied by Malone's two bodyguards, one in front and one behind.

Malone enjoyed this particular perk of his office as Director of National Intelligence. Having a driver meant that no one had to worry about drinking with dinner and driving home impaired. He didn't expect the DNI job to last, though. In a few weeks the new administration would, without a doubt, install its own people in the top intelligence slots. He'd probably take some time off and then look for a lecturing gig somewhere. Georgetown maybe so he could stay in the DC area, although Princeton had a top-notch school for international affairs.

The limo was in the back of the parking lot, with the third bodyguard a shadow behind the wheel. The lead bodyguard opened the door to the rear of the limo for them. That was when the sound of the gunshot startled them all. For all his years of military service, Malone had never been in a gunfight and didn't immediately recognize what he'd heard. His bodyguard collapsed to the ground, unmoving.

The guard behind them drew his weapon and lunged in front of Malone and his wife, to protect them from the threat. He didn't make it, as an automatic weapon stuttered out a loud rip and he was riddled with slugs. He collapsed next to his partner on the cold ground. Malone could barely make out two shadowy figures in the gloom, but he had seen the flashes of the guns they carried.

Malone's wife screamed. He twisted and pushed her towards the open door and into the car. "IN!" he yelled. Off balance from his push, her legs caught on the edge of the frame and she tripped and fell, halfway in and halfway out of the vehicle. A voice from the darkness said, "Fulcrum wins."

Both of the shadowy figures fired together and Malone felt the bullets rip through him. He fell on top his wife.

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Morgan took his seat beside Lou and next to Zondra on the other side. Casey and Eileen were across the table from him and the rest of the family and wedding party were up and down on either side. Ellie and Devon's wedding party and guests were behind him at the other table on the other side of the room, sort of bifurcating the event. He didn't mind that too much. He didn't know any of the doctors and nurses other than a few casual conversations months ago at the joint engagement party.

He and Lou were having a fun time. Chuck and Sarah's friends were friendly and easy going, although they both knew that those men and women were incredibly accomplished heroes. And, of course, there were a few they didn't know at all. The cockney Englishman Reilly. The giant Russian on the other side of Zondra.

Lou said to him quietly, "Are you going to be a tough critic on the hotel food?" She had a bit of an impudent grin, teasing him.

Serving people were wheeling out covered carts, presumably with the beginnings of their dinner.

"Probably. You know how I can be," he said, chuckling.

"Yeah. You can be a little snarky..." her voice trailed off as she looked around the room.

"I know, but with..."

Lou gasped and grasped his arm and said, "Morgan..."

He looked up and saw the waitstaff spreading through the room with guns in their hands. 'WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?' he thought, stunned. Morgan recognized them from Call of Duty as MAC-10 submachine guns. He twisted to look at Chuck and Sarah and saw a man standing in front of them with one of the guns in his hand.

Aloud, he whispered to Lou, quietly, "Is that Ted Roark? Hasn't he been missing since the Battle of Ventura?"

Roark stood in the front of the room facing the bride and grooms' table. Behind him was a tough looking bald dude with one of the small machine pistols in his left hand, his right arm hanging limp.

Roark looked at Chuck and Sarah and said, "Not so cocky now, huh, Carmichael? And you, Walker? You told me I was wrong to not be afraid of you. Well, guess what, you arrogant bitch. You were wrong to not be afraid of me and my people. And you and your friends are going to suffer for it."

Chuck and Sarah stood from their seats, facing Roark head on. They did not seem scared to Morgan. Chuck said, "What happened to the real waiters and waitresses, Roark? No need for you to hurt them. They have no part in this fight."

There was a stir among the guests sitting behind Roark once they heard the name. From his angle, Morgan had been able to see the man from a side view and wasn't surprised by the identity of the intruder.

"They are in the kitchen, under guard. And they'll stay there until we're done here. I hope you paid for the party in advance, Carmichael. You sure as shit won't be paying afterwards," he snarled. Roark sounded like he was trying to speak with confidence, but sounded more than a little unhinged.

Chuck said, "So that's your plan, Roark? Show up with a bunch of guys with guns and have a massacre of all these unarmed people? Your fight is with Sarah and me. Leave everyone else alone."

Roark gave a quick bark of laughter. "You idiot, Carmichael. I'm smarter than you are. I know that the third member of your team is here. Colonel Casey, I think. Stand up and be recognized." He tried for the false bonhomie of a game show host, but it came out like a shaky shriek.

At the mention of his name, Casey stood up.

Sarah looked at Casey and said, "Myślisz, że któryś z tych dupków mówi po polsku?"

Casey looked to her and shrugged.

Roark looked upset and said, "What did you say?"

"I apologized. For getting him in this trouble. He's going to die, because I got him involved in the war with Fulcrum," said Sarah. She looked and sounded defeated and resigned to her fate.

Looking back at Casey, she said, "Czerwony, przekaż wiadomość. Poczekaj na mój sygnał, a potem niech wszyscy uzbrojeni agenci wybiorą cele i natychmiast wystrzelą. Cywile uderzyli w pokład."

Casey again shrugged.

"What the hell did you say this time?" screamed Roark. "Speak fucking English or I shoot someone."

"I told him I'd see him on the other side. In front of Saint Peter," said Sarah with a sad smile, shaking her head.

Zondra leaned over to Morgan and said, "Pass it on. At Sarah's signal all armed agents are to pick targets and open fire. Civilians to hit the deck."

Morgan nodded and whispered the message to Lou, who in turn whispered it to the person on her other side.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's where you'll see him next," said Roark. He turned to Stephen Bartowski and said, "Asshole. You aren't going to get killed tonight. We are taking you with us. You'll be developing the Intersect for me after all, Orion."

Stephen stood up from his seat at the table, near Anna and Emma. He walked around the far end of the table and slowly walked towards Roark. His pace was measured and his demeanor calm. When he got to Roark he stopped within arms length of the other man and looked at him calmly. "I told you, Orion," continued Roark. "I told you. If you fucked with me, I'd kill your whole family. Well, here we are, you fucking asshole."

"Now that's no way to talk to your oldest friend. I'm here, Ted. You can kill me. But leave my family alone." He spoke quietly, forcing the people in the large room to listen closely. "There's no need to hurt anyone else."

All the Fulcrum agents seemed to be listening with close attention to the drama unfolding between the two men.

"Are you crazy?" asked Roark. "Killing your family in front of you is the whole point." He was throwing his arms around in his excitement.

From behind the table Chuck said, "Hey, Teddy. I've been curious. I know we killed hundreds, maybe thousands, of your Fulcrum assholes. I'll bet so many of them died cursing me. Cursing Carmichael. How did you and these dipshits get out of that hole in the ground where you chose to make your last stand against my friends and me?"

Morgan made the reasonable assumption that the people with the guns were part of a group called Fulcrum. Those people shifted around a bit. They looked at Chuck with hatred and fury, and ignored the seated guests

"Back door into the desert, of course. These are the men and women who made it out with me," said Roark. "These will be the core of the resurrection of Fulcrum. You'll see. Well, you won't, Carmichael. You'll be dead, along with everyone here." Everyone else was listening to the discussion at the front of the room. Half of them, Ellie and Devon's guests, had no idea what was going on, but knew enough to stay still and quiet, although with the occasional sob of terror.

"They won't, Roark. You can't get away with this. Fulcrum isn't clandestine anymore. It won't work. The fight with the government is now public." Sarah said.

"And anyway, Ted," said Stephen, "these Fulcrum idiots don't know you like I do. When are you going to tell them that you were just using them? You couldn't give two shits about the politics. About their goals. All you wanted was the Intersect. All you saw was the dollars signs attached to that new technology."

"And why not?" said Roark. "We can replace all the world's education systems with the Roark Intersect. Every nickel that goes to educate people will come to me. I'll be the richest man in human history. King Midas will have nothing on me. They want to reshape the world with their politics? Fine. I don't give a shit. I'll let them have it all. Meanwhile, I'll own everything. The politics is just a means to an end."

Morgan could see the Fulcrum people looking at each other in confusion as Roark's real motivations became clear.

By his body language, Roark was becoming increasingly agitated, his hands trembling, his weight shifting from foot to foot. In addition, he seemed to have developed a twitch, pulling his head to the left side at random times.

Stephen shook his head. "You're nothing but a thief, Ted. All you want to do is steal what other people have created. You're a pathetic loser. And now, you've lost everything. All your money. All your power. Your company is gone. And how's that feel, you stupid asshole? Everything. Except for these knuckleheads you've brought with you, all your Fulcrum followers are dead. You're alone again. You're all done, Ted. And now I'm going to kill you," said Stephen, deliberately smirking at the other man.

With all the prodding by Stephen, Roark lost his shit. He screamed and raised his weapon towards Stephen's face. In a series of moves performed too quickly for Morgan's eyes to follow, Stephen disarmed Roark, took control of the weapon and threw it over his shoulder. As the gun was in the air, Sarah screamed, "NOW!"

And all hell broke loose.

Roark, suddenly finding himself unarmed and facing his hated enemy, grabbed Stephen by the throat, pushing him backwards while trying to strangle him. He was screaming the whole time.

Tables turned onto their sides as Fitz, Leo, Marco, Billy, Zondra, Casey, Cole, and the other Englishman suddenly had guns in their hands and began to fire their pistols almost mechanically. They seemed to be killing all the Fulcrum agents they could see. Each of the agents were firing single shots and moving to the next target instantly. It seemed that the hope was to kill the enemy before they could get shots off. Single shots from their weapons came so close together that it was almost impossible to count, but the ripping roar of the machine guns in the hands of the Fulcrum operatives firing in response were deafening.

Cutlery and smashed plates and glassware were all over the floor from the upset tables, but no one was paying any attention to that in the chaos.

Morgan grabbed Lou and threw her to the ground, coming down on top of her and covering her body with his. He kept looking around, though. He saw Anna tackle Emma and take them both to the ground, as did Kevin knocking Mickey to the ground. The other civilians wisely followed suit and dove down under the tables or behind the overturned ones.

A woman Fulcrum agent fell to the floor in front of him, with a bullet hole in her head and her sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. The noises were a cacophony of gunfire, screams, curses, and breaking glass. Morgan wanted nothing more than to bury his head down and close his eyes. But he couldn't do that. He had to see, even with the chaos around him.

Morgan watched in horror as two of the Fulcrum men behind the Russian had raised their weapons to fire at the cowering civilians at Devon and Ellie's table of guests. The Russian reached out as he was standing from his own chair, took them by their heads and smashed them together with jaw-dropping ferocity and a loud crunch that could almost be heard over the gunfire. The Russian dropped one body and picked up the other by the man's throat and leg. Morgan could barely believe his eyes as the Russian lifted the body over his head and threw it at another two Fulcrum men with their guns raised on the far side of the table, knocking them to the floor. Casey twisted and fired his weapon twice downwards at those men

As the body of the dead man was still in midair Morgan watched stunned as Carina threw herself back. She fell to the floor as her chair caught on the carpet. She was twisting the head of her cane on her way to the ground. She pulled a sword from concealment inside the cane's shaft. Holding the handle of the cane with the sword protruding Carina fired it twice into the bald man's chest. Morgan realized that the cane, in addition to being a sword, also held a gun of some kind. Amazingly, the wounded man didn't go down. Even wounded, he began to swing his weapon down in her direction.

From the ground Carina threw her sword to the giant Russian. He caught the weapon cleanly and swung it with his mammoth strength, catching the bald man on the side of the neck and decapitating him with a single swipe of the razor-sharp blade. Arterial blood sputtered up as the headless body collapsed.

Carpet rubbing his cheek, Morgan twisted to see Chuck and Sarah crouched behind their overturned table, each with a weapon firing at the Fulcrum people. Morgan was surprised to see Chuck with a gun, but saw that Sarah was using Roark's weapon on single shot, killing each of the Fulcrum men and women she could spot. He'd never seen something so impressive in his entire life.

The Chinese woman and the French woman had picked up weapons from the fallen Fulcrum men and used them to kill any of the enemy in their sights.

As the gunfire quieted, Casey yelled, "Everyone stay down until we give the all-clear. No one move." Morgan had no intention of doing anything else.

Lou was crying under him and said, "Is it over?"

"I think so, but we should stay here, like Casey said. Just stay here."

Chuck's phone rang and he gave some orders to whoever was on the other end. The call over, Chuck turned to Sarah and said, "Graham was attacked too, but survived. He's on his way here with a double strength hard team. Arriving any second."

The agents were checking the room for any remaining danger. The sound of two helicopters landing on the beach adjacent to the hotel came from the outside. Wounded Fulcrum agents were disarmed. The submachine guns were collected and placed back on the rolling trays from which they had been taken.

Miraculously, it seemed that none of the guests had been hurt in the gunfire.

Casey walked across the room to Chuck and Sarah and, on the way, looked at both pieces of the bald man. "Smith," he said to Chuck and Sarah, "motherfucker's dead now." Looking around, Casey yelled, "All-clear."

Morgan and Lou sat up, his arms wrapped around her as she trembled. She was crying, and wasn't the only one. The sound of sobbing and softly spoken curses was a murmur in the room.

Graham came into the room from the beachside at the same time there was a burst of automatic weapons fire from the kitchen area. He wore a vest and carried an assault rifle. He found and hugged Anna, Kevin and Mickey, then moved to Sarah and Chuck and hugged them both. Morgan could see blood stains on his left side, under his vest and suitcoat.

On the floor in front of the head table were Stephen and Roark. Morgan realized that, in the excitement, he'd forgotten about the two men. Roark's eyes were open and sightless, his face red with tiny red spots from the bursting of blood vessels. His neck was swollen and had the marks of Stephen's fingers. He was dead. Stephen, sitting on the ground next to the body of his old enemy, gave them a weary thumbs-up.

"Looks to me like Roark strangled himself to death," said Graham, looking at the body.

"I hate when that happens," said Sarah with a shrug, reaching to hold Chuck's hand.

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A/N3: I outfitted the Fulcrum attackers with the MAC-10 submachine gun. That was deliberate. With apologies to any of my readers who are employed by the Military Armament Corporation (MAC), this weapon is widely renowned for its inaccuracy. David Steele, a weapons researcher, is supposed to have said that the gun is "fit only for combat in a phone booth." The bottom line is, I didn't want any good guys at the rehearsal dinner shot, so, these Fulcrum agents all went to the Imperial Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship.

A/N4: Speaking Polish, Sarah said to Casey (but really to Carina): "Do you think any of these assholes speak Polish?" No one corrected her translation to Roark. Then, a few moments later, she said: "Red, pass the word. Wait for my signal and then have all the armed agents pick targets and fire immediately. Civilians hit the deck."

A/N5: Bing, bang, boom. Ok, there we go. Roark comes to visit and is dispatched, but not by some rando Ring guy as in canon. Instead, by someone who put a great deal of history and passion into the act. Smith is also finally dead. Both pieces of him. Now Fulcrum is well and truly gone. Next Saturday is chapter 300. I wonder what's going to happen? Thanks for sticking with me, my dear friends.