EPISODE 4 "Lanakila" (Victory)

Part 1

"Steve, hey." He heard the grin in her voice as he answered his phone. "Howzit?" she asked, sounding a little like Kamekona for a second.

"Did you just-"

"I'm adopting the local lingo," she said, "I kinda dig it."

He could tell she was smiling on the other end of the phone. Truthfully, he was glad she was adapting so well. She moved her for him, for his task force, for Five-O. Sometimes he felt like he was tearing her away from her life. Then she'd say something like that, or about the beach or the sky, and he'd see the relaxed lay of her shoulders, the way she tilted her face into the sun— She was more at ease on this island than he'd ever seen her on the mainland or any army base.

"Your sister show yet?"

He grit his teeth and checked his watch. It had been over an hour since the flight from LA had landed. There were maybe four luggage bags left and although Mary's was one of them, she was nowhere in sight. "No," he said tightly, picking up the blue suitcase.

She didn't answer right away. "Maybe she missed the flight or something… she didn't call you?"

"Mitch, no."

"Well, it's been, what? An hour?"

"Over," he said, looking around. "Mitch, there's no one in this terminal anymore. She-"

He was interrupted by airport security. "Commander McGarrett?"

He looked at the officer, a bad feeling washing over him. What did she do now? He thought. "Mitch, I gotta call you back."

"Steve?"

"Don't worry about it," he said before hanging up. He put his phone in his pocket and said, "This is about my sister, isn't it?"

She disabled a smoke detector on board in the bathroom," the security guard explained, escorting Steve to the holding area where his sister was being held, "which is a federal offense. So we arrested her soon as she landed."

"Great," Steve said, his lips pressing into a thin line as the guard opened the door and he was allowed in.

"Jail?" Mary questioned incredulously, leaning forward, "Are you serious? It was just a cigarette."

"Okay officer," Steve said, looking at his sister and then back to the security guard who walked him in. "I think we're good now." He held a hand up to the officer talking to his sister and laid her luggage on the ground.

"Steve McGarrett, from the governor's task force," the man introduced him to the other officer on duty.

"You can release her into my custody," Steve said.

The other man nodded, "Let me check with my supervisor."

"Thank you."

There was a heavy silence as the officers exited the room and he was left alone with his sister. She didn't look too much different from the last time he'd seen her. Maybe a bit jet lagged, but still the same. She was still dying her hair blonde, cutting her bangs at the eyebrows. She wore a brown bomber jacket with a flowy white tee shirt underneath, jeans, and a pair of black boots that clung to her calves.

"I'm sorry, I messed up," she told him.

He responded, "I missed you at dad's funeral, Mary," and leaned against the table, crossing his arms in front of him.

Her shoulders tightened as she leaned back in the chair. "Yeah, well, something came up." She shook her head. "Do you know the last time I saw you was at mom's funeral?"

Steve looked away from her for a moment.

She scoffed. "I guess that's the way we do our family reunions," she said bitterly with a small shake of her head. "Because I was thinking it could have been cool to have a picnic in between or something, you know?"

"Picnic?" Steve looked at her.

"Yeah, a picnic. Something that, I don't know, normal families do," she said, shrugging. Sadly, the McGarrett's were anything but normal.

"I'll be back," Steve told his sister, parking the car in front of the prison door and getting out. "Hey, stay," he told her, sticking his head back through the open window as she opened her door to follow him.

"I'm not a dog," she protested.

"Stay," he repeated.

He shook his head as she imitated a dog, barking at him from inside the car as he walked away. His eyes narrowed when he saw his partner, "What happened to you?"

Danny was sporting his usual 'professional' attire, along with a small limp and a wooden cane. "Oh, uh, I blame you," he said. "I tore my ACL somewhere in the last few weeks. All the fun we've been having together."

"Heh," Steve sounded, "well, once you're done bitching about your boo-boo, I'd love to know what's going on here."

"We got an escaped prisoner, three dead guards. Department of Public Safety is trying to figure out what happened."

"Where's Chin and Kono?" Steve asked.

"Inside getting a background," Danny answered, "Mitch is there too. That your sister in the car?"

"Yeah, I just came from the airport." Steve didn't look at him.

"You realize if she were a dog, you could get a ticket for leaving her in the car like that."

Steve narrowed his eyes and shook his head holding a hand out to his partner, "Can we just focus, please?"

"Yeah. Why do you have aneurism-face?" Danny's eyes narrowed as he looked at Steve's slightly pinched, narrow-eyed look.

"I don't have aneurism-face," Steve said hotly.

"She gave you aneurism-face?" Danny gestured to the car.

"How many times can you ask me the same question?"

"'You gotta seek first to understand then to be understood'," Danny quoted, raising one hand to gesture with his words. "One of seven principles of successful people."

"I will literally pay you cash to stop talking, okay?" he said, turning to stop an H.P.D officer passing by. "Excuse me, officer?" He laid a hand on the passing man's shoulder, "My pickup is around the corner, there's a woman in it," he pointed. "It's my sister, I'm putting her in your custody, okay? Get her some food, take her back to my office. "Don't take your eyes off her till I get there, you got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you. You happy?" he asked Danny.

"Hey," Mitch greeted, Chin and Kono flanking her as they approached, "How'd the airport go?" Steve didn't have time to answer, she took one look at his face and then furrowed her eyebrows while scrunching up her nose, sucking in a breath. "Ouch, you're making the face."

Danny gestured to Steve harshly, as if saying 'see?', but the SEAL ignored him, glaring lightly at Mitch who didn't seem bothered in the least.

"All right, I'll bug you 'bout it later," she said, waving a hand as if to push the issue off to the side. "Our fugitive's name is Walton Dawkins," she said and let Chin brief them from there.

"He's originally from the mainland but he did ten years at the Allen Correctional Facility in Cleveland for multiple home invasions," he said, looking up from his pad of notes at them. "Apparently, our guy likes hitting families with big money. Then he violated his parole by coming to Hawaii six years ago. My guess, it wasn't for the surf."
"Dawkins killed a couple during his burglaries," Kono added.

"But get this," Mitch added gesturing briefly with her hands, "according to the warden, he's been a model prisoner until now."

"So, what changed?" Danny asked.

A/N: HEY! Thanks for the favs and follows! This story is up and running again, sorry about the hiatus. It'll probably happen again- that's just life, but I promise I'm always coming back! :)

Special thanks to Melfris, Bprice and Alex Lover for commenting on the last chapter! You're all amazing!