A/N: Hello Everyone.

I'm back, I'm so sorry about the super long wait. I was re-evaluating why I do this to myself and at one point I almost quit all together, but there are so many of you that I have to thank for talking me through this and sending me all the good vibes (you know who you are) and thank you to all of you who gave so much love to Veronica and Patrick.

So, here's whats going on. I am taking a new approach to my writing. I've finished writing this story but I am going to pace myself because I want to have material to post while I'm working on other stuff. It seems simple enough, but it's not something I'm used to so I'm going to try it out.

Also, the computer that I usually use to post and formate all my stuff has died, so now I have to cut some corners to get this stuff posted. I have to use my ipad and uploading doesn't work from this so I have to cut and paste, and edit on site. It's all good, it should work out - crossing fingers.

Well, that's where we stand. So I hope you enjoy this new update! Thank you, again, for reading and supporting this art!

Chapter 21: A Heart To Heart

The night was long, with a lot of coffee, many dead ends, and developing webs of multiple lies.

It was hard to see the forest through the trees, but eventually a portrait of Niko Alapaso, and a sneaky and ingenious plan, began to take shape. Aliases were found and checked, and double checked. Surveillance on several locations were set up and security cameras all over the island were commandeered and patched through to the Five-O HQ.

Toast worked harder than anyone else. He linking into Alapaso's network, via the virus that his two lackeys had planted into the server, and posed for most of the night as if nothing had happened at the Governor's Mansion.

Danny, on the other hand, reverted back to his roots and tried to make out the series of events from the beach, the Governors Mansion, the brothel and the farthest points on the Oahu map - the north shore. He's tacked a map of the island up over the windows in his office so that he could see it from every possible vantage point, but also to block out the movement and chaos that was ongoing in the bullpen. He used the map to visualize the next attack and plot out points for whatever may come his way. Steve did much of the same, but with a military mind, while Danny was focused on covering everyone's back and making sure they could get in and out with all of their people. Safety First.

From there Danny would take the information that was streaming in to the bullpen, or that the team had found and he'd retreat to his office to stare at the map - after having added the new information - and he would plan for every possibly scenario that he could think of.

He was looking for connections, patterns, and escape routes when Toast walked into his office and sat down in one of the chairs before Danny's desk. The hacker was fidgety, anxious, and overly exhausted.

"Can I help you?" Danny asked as he looked at the fatigued hacker before him.

"You know, we could have avoided all that awkwardness with your mother earlier."

"Awkwardness with my mother is rarely avoidable."

"No, I mean with regards to me," Toast stated and looked truly distressed. "Kono has her Adam and you have Charlie Fong over at the forensics lab, so we could have just said that calling me Toast is to help differentiate between all the Adams and Charleses that you already know. We could have completely avoided the whole substance abuse issue."

"Are you abusing substances?" Danny asked skeptically.

"No, I have a condition - and occasionally it is recreational."

"Then why does it matter?"

"Because she's a mother and now I feel like I'm being judged."

"Yes, she is a mother, and yes, usually her job is to be judgemental - trust me, I know, I have lived with her and been loved by her for many years - but you shouldn't be worried about it."

"I'm worried about it because I am trying to clean up my act, and I can't do that if people are judging me."

"I never thought of it that way, and so that explanation would have never worked because it would have been all lies and my mother see through lies." Danny explained. "So, if you think she's judging you, it's not because she thinks of you as an addict because she would have seen through our first story as a lie and it wasn't. The reason you feel judged by my mother is because she feels sorry for you and her 'I'm judging you' face and her 'oh you poor dear' face both look very much the same - couple that with her fatigue and you get my mother being my mother."

"But what happens when she's not tired anymore?" Toast asked in exasperations.

"Toast, calm down, it's just a little weed. She's smoked it before, she's not judging you, and trust me, as soon as we go back to my place for breakfast, she'll baby you just as she babies the rest of us." Danny explained calmly. "Now, if she finds out that you are doing other drugs - you're not doing other illegal drugs are you?"

"God no, that stuff messes with your mind on a permanent level!" Toast stated and shook his head vigorously. "My mind is my bread and butter."

"Then trust me, my mom isn't going to care about something as trivial as medical marijuana."

"But it's not entirely medical." Toast said as if he were in confession. "But it does help with my migraines."

"Don't worry about my mother."

"Okay, but should I stay away from her or am I still invited for breakfast - because I'm starving."

"If you don't show up for breakfast she might get suspicious and show up here again, and the last thing I need is my mother back in the office. It will also mean that she is absolutely judging you because, by staying away from her, in her mind, that means you are judging her and she will have to get to the bottom of that, and you don't need that."

"Okay, good, because I really am looking forward to breakfast. This working all night has made me very hungry."

"Are you sure that's not the weed talking?" Danny mocked.

"That's not funny."

"What happened to all your snacks? You came in with bags of stuff."

"That was all gone hours ago."

"Here, have this." Danny stated and tossed a granola bar at the hacker across the desk.

"You've been holding out on us?"

"No, I just stash snacks in my office for when Grace shows up after school." Danny explained.

"That makes sense," Toast stated and stood from his place. "Well, I'd better get back to work. Thanks for the snack."

"That's all you need?" Danny asked skeptically.

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, because we're kind of in the middle of a big case and I figured you might have some new information..."

"No, nothing that you don't already know about." Toast shook his head and left the room
Danny sighed and stared at his map some more. "Where on this island are they hiding you, Governor?" he asked himself and desperately tried to find the pattern he was looking for.

5-0

The sun rose faster than Veronica Williams had anticipated. She was used to being up with the drawn but it had been a long night. She rose, all the same, silently leaving her husband where she'd found him and headed down into Danny's kitchen to get to the work she'd promised to accomplish.

Veronica wasn't in the kitchen long when she heard a soft rap an the window and looked up to see Doris McGarrett waving at her.

"You're up early." Doris said as Veronica met her at the door and hushed her slightly.

"I promised a breakfast fit for Five-O but everyone else is still sleeping. You're up early yourself."

"I always am," Doris confessed, "and I figured that because I kept you out late last night, the least I could do was help with your huge breakfast plans."

"I've never been one to throw a helper out of the kitchen." Veronica smiled.

"I brought some fresh produce."

"Perfect. I'm sure that between the two of us we'll have this situation under control in no time. At least we can do that for the boys."

"You got a taste of what they do and you didn't like it?" Doris asked and pulled a knife out of a butcher block to get started.

"Where has the respect gone?" Veronica asked with a shake of her head, and by way of an answer as she put a carton of eggs down on the counter and looked honestly distraught by her thoughts. "I was brought up to believe that there was nothing higher than God and no one more respected than a person who enforced the law. What happened? When did the world change for the worst?"

Doris laid the knife down on the cutting board and looked across the counter at Veronica.

"I don't know," Doris answered honestly. "I've worked for the CIA for a long time and I've seen my fair share of disrespect - hell I've dished it out in some cases - but my world is so much different from yours, and yet, those young men last night..." Doris trailed off and shook her head.

"No respect for the law or their elders - or women for that matter. I get that we were harsh with the boys when they were young but we did something right. I have to believe that."

Doris nodded.

"But even with my best efforts, I end up with one really good son and one son who showed all the signs of goodness right up until he didn't anymore." Veronica sighed and hit and egg against the counter a little harder than she'd anticipated.

"Have you spoken to your second son?"

Veronica shook her head and looked at the egg shell in her hands trying to hide the emotion that had arisen in her face. "I promised Daniel that I wouldn't and I don't think Matthew would ever put me or his father in that situation - though I never thought he could ever do something like what he did, or that he would make his brother choose between what he believed in and his baby brother's freedom. I was wrong there."

"We all make mistakes, Veronica, but you can't blame yourself for what your adult son has chosen to do."

"No, I can't, but I can ask myself where I went wrong in his up bringing to have him even fathom something like what he did. Money is the biggest monster out there. It is our test and our fall from grace. Greed. We never had a lot of money when the kids were young but we were never uncomfortable. I just don't understand where the greed came from with respect to Matthew and his career choices and missteps. Daniel always wanted to be a police officer - to do good - and even as a child he tried to instil in his siblings the tools they needed to make the right choices - to choose between right and wrong. Matthew never really knew what he wanted to do until he got into it, but when he was little he idolized his brother. I was sure that Daniel's goodness and brotherly love was all that it would take to put Matthew on the right path as well."

"That sounds very familiar." Doris stated.

"Really?"

"Steve idolized his father. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing greater than being a police officer, but Jack wanted a different life for his son. He was proud, to be sure, but law enforcement would not do for a son of Jack McGarrett. Mary had different ideas and they changed every other week. When she was very small she idolized her brother - and he adored her - but her path was never a steady as Steve's even with all the turmoil I through into it."

"Steve turned out more like you."

Doris smiled, "Jack had no idea what I was, not that I knew of anyway, but yes, after my cover was compromised and I had to do what I did, I never through Jack would push the kids away like he did. I don't blame him, especially with how everything happened. It was his job to protect people, and his children were the most important things in his life. If someone was after me, then they would come for the children as well. So Steve anchored himself with the navy and Mary, well, she never really found her barring and has been drifting ever since. Maybe now that she had a child she'll put down her own roots."

"And you?" Veronica asked seriously.

"I was a fool to think that I could be anything other than a spy. They tell you that there is a life after your service, once you retire, but depending on how deep you're willing to go, the harder it is to get out. I had sixteen years with my husband and my children - always looking over my should. It just caught up to me and my maternal instinct kicked in. I could not risk my enemies getting any closer to my children and stay with them at the same time, and I couldn't uproot them just to keep them on the run all their lives, and I never, ever, wanted to see Steve doing what I did, but he became a SEAL, and a cop. He's not as deep but he's not safe either and if the world keeps changing as we saw, the more dangerous his job - and Danny's - is going to get."

"I'm terrified all the time for my boys, for Daniel's desire to do right and Matthew's choice to do wrong, but I've always been afraid because my husband ran into burning buildings for a living."

"I know your fear." Doris said and stared at the cubed pineapple before her - she'd started with a whole fruit and during the conversation her hands worked of their own accord. "I know you had ideas about me before you came here. I had ideas about you as well, but I hope we can put those behind us and be friends. I don't have a lot of them. We are just two moms leading two very different lives and worrying about our children and the destruction of our society. We shouldn't be enemies."

"I don't pretend to know how you managed to leave your children, but then again I've never had to fear for their lives in the same way that you have."

"I couldn't drag them into it just as I couldn't get myself out. I was stuck between a rock and a very hard place, and I couldn't think about me at the time. I had to think about them, and their future. Being a mother means so many different things, but being a spy and a mother, do not work well together."

"I understand." Veronica said with a nod and a smile. "And we are not enemies, we are mothers."