A/N: I'm so thankful for those of you who take a few seconds to review the story - I am blown away by how awesome you guys are!

Again - don't own anything related to Hawaii Five-0 or CBS. No copyright infringement intended.

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Steve quickly unfastened the metal ring attaching him to the rescue harness and moved well inside the helicopter. The flight mechanic hooked the cable to the rescue basket, and moved it back outside the cabin door. He lowered the basket down to where Ensign Micah Bennett was packaging Grace for transport.

They had to make sure that the basket touched the water before it came near Grace, due to the static electricity that built up on the steel cable. The plan was that the basket would be placed as close to the raft as possible, and Ensign Bennett would swim Grace to the litter and load her in.

The helicopter would need to move away while he was getting Grace situated and strapped in – they didn't want the spray from the rotors to do any further damage. Once the swimmer gave the signal that the straps were connected and the cables were locked in place, the pilot would bring the craft back in place.

After dropping the cable into the water to discharge the shock, the pilot held the big bird steady as Ensign Bennett quickly attached not only the basket to the cable, but himself to the basket. They would both be brought up at the same time.

Steve motioned to the pilot. "Hey. We're going to need that raft brought back as evidence in her kidnapping. Can we get a cutter out here to pick it up?"

The pilot nodded, immediately radioing the request to headquarters. Once that was finished, he relayed that a boat was no more than 4 minutes out, and they would gather the evidence and arrange for it to be taken to the crime lab.

Steve's focus turned once again to Grace. She was alive, but if it was heat stroke, then she needed proper medical attention ten minutes ago. He lightly ran his fingers over the sat phone and debated calling Danny. He wanted his brother to know that he had found her, but her vital signs were all over the place. He just wanted to be able to give him something other than heart crushing news. Ultimately he decided to wait just a few more minutes, until he saw how Grace was once they had a chance to try to stabilize her.

The flight mechanic shifted, and Steve knew that the basket was approaching the cabin door. He shut his eyes briefly, and sent up a prayer that he wouldn't have to blow his partner's world apart with bad news.

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Danny had dozed off into a restless sleep. Neither Chin nor Kono needed small talk, so they both sat, lost in their thoughts.

Kono had agreed to stay with Danny until Steve got back. After her knee surgery, she knew all too well, the problems associated with long alone times in the hospital – too much time to think usually translated to a dark path that nobody wanted to see Danny go down.

Chin felt his phone vibrate on his hip, so he quietly pulled it from the clip and retrieved the text message. It was Kamekona. He motioned to Kono to meet him in the hallway.

"The big guy said that he may have a location for us. I'm going to meet him at the shrimp truck and see what he knows.

Kono nodded before reaching out to her cousin for a quick hug. "Be careful, Chin. These guys obviously have no moral anything – no telling what they will do if you corner them."

Chin merely raised an eyebrow and stared, cold. "No, Kono. They need to be careful. They messed with the wrong ohana by taking Grace. They will pay."

Kono shook her head as her cousin headed down the hallway. As she moved back into Danny's room, she noticed his eyes moving underneath his eyelids, and his breathing was coming in short gasps. She hurried back to his bed and leaned over him carefully. "Danny? It's okay. Can you wake up for me? You need to wake up."

It took a few minutes before he was able to open his glassy eyes. As he looked around the room and allowed his gaze to lock onto Kono's, his heart sunk. He had really hoped that when he opened his eyes, he would see that all of this had been a horrible nightmare, but it hadn't. Every minute of the last few hours had been the harsh and honest truth – every single, damned, fucking minute.

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Chin was grateful to Kamekona. One of his contacts had panned out, and they now knew where the Paikuli cousins were hiding out. They possibly could have taken their money and gotten away with what they had done, but for Ka'ula's stupidity.

He had gone to a dive bar in the industrial side of the city; where the more alcohol he poured in, the more his thoughts poured out. His lips got looser and looser as the night wore on, and before too long, his new 'best friends' seated next to him at the bar knew not only what he had done, but where he lived; thanks to his exuberant wish that they all came back to his place for more beer.

Chin had radioed for HPD and SWAT backup. They had all met about a block away, and finalized their plans. They would go in, subdue the two men, and take them to Five-0 and wait for questioning. All of that seemed very easy, on paper.

What they didn't expect to see, however, was Mako standing over the body of his cousin and holding an assault weapon to the large hole in his chest. "You couldn't shut your damn mouth, could you hupo! I can't believe you! I always have to clean up your mess, don't I? Well, no more. I'm done with you."

Chin chose that moment to kick the door open and yell, "Five-0. Freeze!"

Mako didn't take kindly to that order, so he whirled on the approaching officers and fired. Fortunately, before he could do any damage, Chin got off a shot that blew the rifle out of Mako's hand and spun the criminal backwards, while a SWAT shot dropped him to the ground.

Chin jogged over and carefully kicked the weapon out of the way. He knelt down and checked for a pulse, swearing loudly when he couldn't find one. Their only remaining link to find out why Randall Murdock had wanted to take Grace was dead.

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Steve reached for the edge of the basket and helped pull it into the helicopter cabin, while Ensign Beckett unhooked himself from his harness and moved to assess his patient. Steve grabbed a blanket and wiped some of the dripping salt water from Grace's skin and hair so that they would have a dry area to work.

A quick temporal scan showed that Grace's temperature was registering at a very high 104.6 degrees. Steve shuddered to think about what it might have been before he had done what little he could to cool her off.

The medic hooked her up to their cardiac monitor, and quickly readied supplies to start an IV, glancing at Steve with a wary eye. "Commander? I'm going to try to get a couple of IV's going – she critically needs fluids now. However, if I can't get her veins to cooperate, I may have to place an intraosseous device. Do you know what that is?"

Steve swallowed hard and nodded. He had seen them used while he was on active SEAL duty. They were used in emergency medicine when an IV line could not be established. He knew that Grace needed IV therapy in the worst way, but the idea of using a type of pneumatic gun to get a large-bore needle into her tibia made him want to throw up.

Ensign Beckett shook his head sympathetically while placing her on a supplemental oxygen mask. "I promise, Sir. I will do my best to not have to use that method, but I might not have a choice. She's really low on fluids right now, and I may not be able to gain access."

Steve took a deep breath. "I know. Just do what you have to do." One glance at the monitor showed them both that Grace was not doing very well. Her blood pressure and respiration rate were low, and her heart rate was elevated – both signs of dehydration and shock – and both signs of severe heat illness.

The medic grabbed a few cold packs from his kit and tossed them towards Steve. "Can you place these for me? Chest, armpits, and neck? Her temp is still too high for my comfort level. You can also wet these sterile gauze pads and use them on her arms and legs. If we can get some evaporation going, the heat loss may help start to cool her off." While he was giving Steve instructions, he was making every effort to get Grace hooked up to IV fluids, but unfortunately, her body was just not in a place to cooperate very well. Her veins had collapsed, and he didn't want to waste more time poking and prodding her.

"Commander? I'm going to have to go IO. There's no other way, and she can't afford to waste time here. I'm going to have you move up towards her head. Have you ever used an ambu-bag? I do not really like her breathing too much right now, and we may have to intervene."

Steve nodded and forced himself to detach from the emotions threatening to overwhelm him. After a few seconds, he felt his mind calm and knew that he was in 'that place' that he had to go sometimes in order to survive. He hated the idea of having to access his training when it was Grace involved, but he was afraid that if he couldn't compartmentalize, he wouldn't be able to help her. And that just was not an option.

He knelt with one knee on either side of her head, and looked at the monitor again, alarmed to see that her breathing rate had dropped even further. "Damn it! Gracie, come on, babe!" He swore as he pulled the regular oxygen mask off, before grabbing the bag valve mask and placing it over her nose and mouth. Making sure he had a good seal, he positioned her head so that her airway was open and gave one squeeze.

Her chest had good movement, so he continued the pattern – one breath of pure, clean oxygen every five seconds. Under his breath, he murmured quiet words every time he squeezed the bag – words that begged and pleaded with her to just make it – to not die on him, damn it. He would willingly fill her swear jar if she would just open up her eyes and scold him for using bad words at her – really he would.

As he was maintaining her airway, Ensign Beckett had swabbed the area of bone just below her knee and to the inside of her shin. "She's 10, right?"

Steve nodded, never taking his eyes off of his honorary niece. He really needed her to start breathing on her own. Really, he did.

The medic dialed the infusion device to reflect her age, which calculated the depth of the needle. There was no way the needle could go in too far, and the gun provided an easier way of getting the needle into the bone marrow.

"Once I get the needle secured, can you hand me the bag of fluid? We need to get her blood pressure up a little more than it is, and let those fluids start to rehydrate. That should go a long way to helping her body start to behave a little better. Once she gets some fluids on board, they should be able to get a regular IV going, and this can be removed. She may never know it was even there."

But I will, Steve thought to himself. He would never be able to forget this. He removed the mask from her face and watched the monitor to see whether she had started breathing spontaneously, and blew out a heavy sigh as he saw that her respirations had increased once again.

He saw that the Ensign was getting ready to place the device, so he set the mask to the side and knelt down low, by Grace's head. "It's okay, Grace. This might hurt, but only for a little while. You're being so very brave. Did you know that? You are doing so great. When you're feeling better, I'm going to take you for the biggest shave ice you've ever had – maybe Kamekona can make you one as big as your head."

He cringed as he heard the tell-tale 'pop' that signaled the correct placement of the needle within the bone marrow, and reached to catch Grace's arm as it flailed weakly. She let out a quiet moan, signaling that while she may be unconscious, she was, in fact, feeling some pain.

He placed a soft kiss to her forehead before whispering to her. "Hang in there, sweetheart. We'll be at the hospital in a little bit, and they'll take good care of you. You're going to be fine, Gracie – you're going to be just fine."

Just then, the alarms screamed a terrifying warning. Looking up to see where the problem was, Steve pounded a fist on the floor of the helicopter. "Shit, Grace. You can't do this, you hear me? You need to fight, damn it!" Her heart rate was dropping, and Steve felt his own heart sink as Ensign Beckett readied the defibrillator for use.

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