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You guys are amazing! There are now 30 favorites for this story, so here is the promised reward: a new chapter! I've decided that I'll always keep two goals up, so my next two goals are: 40 followers and 82 reviews.

I'll be totally honest with you guys… this chapter was so hard to write. I had an outline for it and everything, but the words just wouldn't come out. I had to take no less than twenty breaks throughout the process when I normally only take one or two. So… I hope that you don't think that it's horrible. I did my very best, I promise.

As always, I want to say thank you for the reads, reviews, favorites, and follows from each of you. And also for the private messages. I really appreciate you all.

Happy Reading!

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Chapter Fourteen: A Tense Eruption

Steve

"Hey, how's Allie?" Chin asked as soon as I came in the next morning.

Immediately, an image of her sitting on the bed, staring up at me, filled my mind. Aggravated, I pushed it away and answered him. "She's doing okay. She was released last night and the doctor said that there was no brain bleed. She has to take it easy for a few days, though."

"Of course," Kono agreed. "That hit was hard. I was amazed that it didn't bash in a part of her skull."

That was an image that I didn't like, so I didn't think about it. "Any cases come in yet?"

"Not yet," she said. "We were just reviewing some of the active HPD cases to see if we thought we could be of any help. Nothing big, though."

"Keep me posted." I moved for my office and sat behind my desk, letting out a long breath. Images from the night before kept running through my head, making it difficult to concentrate on anything but the way her body had felt when she'd been leaning into me and how bright her eyes had been as they stared into mine.

"Goddamn it all," I groaned and roughly ran a hand through my hair. It was getting just a tad long – time for a trim. But that would have to wait until after work because I needed to shower as soon as I could afterwards. Otherwise, those tiny hairs would be poking me all day.

"Hey, we got a case." Danny froze in the doorway and raised an eyebrow at me. "You uh… you okay? You look kind of zoned out there."

Determined to focus only on the case, I stood and headed for the door. "Absolutely. Let's go. Fill me in."

He looked like he wanted to press it, but he was a professional to the core and knew that the case took precedence. "There was an attempted rape."

I almost froze on the spot but forced myself to keep walking. "An attempted rape?"

Danny waved a hand dismissively. "I couldn't get all of the details out of the cop that I talked to. Anyway, they have the guy in cuffs and while they were patting him down, they found a gun linked to a murder from a couple of days ago. Guy swears he just bought it off of some guy yesterday. They wanted us to come check it out."

"I'm curious as to how this is classified as an attempted rape." Of course I was glad that someone hadn't actually been raped, but attempted rapes were rare – it typically either happened or there wasn't a chance of it happening in the first place.

"That's the part where the officer was losing me," he said and then looked at me hopefully. "Can I drive?"

Technically, it was his Camaro, but… "I don't ride shotgun," I reminded him and slipped into the driver's side. He muttered something about fairness and got into the passenger side, passing along the address.

It was a back alley between a row of shops, and there were already quite a few people milling about behind the police tape. What confused me the most was the animal control vehicle.

"Did they mention an escape from the zoo?" I asked Danny as we ducked beneath the line of yellow tape.

He followed my gaze and shrugged when he recognized the truck. "Not that I know of. I don't know. Maybe a monkey stopped the guy."

An officer met us and pointed to an ambulance, where a man was receiving treatment while two officers stood on, watching closely. I pointed at him and asked if that was our guy.

"Yes, Commander," the officer said and his demeaner as well as his formal way of addressing me told me that he was likely fresh out of the academy. "A woman called 9-1-1 and told dispatch that she'd been taking out the trash at work when a man grabbed her and began to try to drag her behind the dumpsters. She said that she tried to call for help, but didn't think that anyone heard her until the dog showed up."

Danny held up a hand to stop the man, confusion all over his face. "I'm sorry… did you say 'until the dog showed up'?"

I was equally confused.

The officer, however, didn't seem to find anything weird about the situation at all. "That's right. A dog had escaped from animal control and was wandering around when he heard the woman scream. He got the gun away from him and the lady grabbed it and held the man at gunpoint while she dialed 9-1-1."

"And of course, you took a witness statement from the dog?" Danny said.

The officer laughed, even though Danny had been making fun of him. "Of course not, but I talked to the animal control officers that showed up."

"How does a random dog that escapes from the pound know how to get a gun away from someone?" I asked him and then it hit me like a sack of bricks to the face. "Wait, was this dog a German Shepherd?"

Danny looked at me like I'd lost my mind, but the officer nodded rapidly. "Yes! Animal control officers said that they picked him up this morning and were holding him until his owner could come get him."

"Where's the dog now?"

The officer pointed to the animal control truck. "In there. The animal control officers are still talking to HPD."

"Thanks," I said and took off, even though he looked like he wanted to say more.

Danny trotted up behind me. "How in the world could you have possibly known that it was a German Shepherd?"

I continued my quick walk. "There's only one dog on the island I know of that's trained well enough to respond to someone in danger and wrestle a gun away."

He was still confused, but we had reached the animal control officers and I made the introductions quickly.

"The dog," I finally said. "I think he might belong to a member of our task force. Is he here?"

"Yeah," the oldest man said, "you can see him, but you might want to be careful. He's not vicious, but he is obviously wary of strangers."

"I don't think we're strangers," I told him and motioned for him to open up the back of the truck.

He did so and I stepped into view, Danny right behind me. In the back of the truck was a German Shepherd, calmly laying down as if there was nothing going on outside. When he looked at me, I knew that he recognized me.

"Gideon," I said.

He stood and jumped down from the truck, sniffing at my legs before his tail slowly began to wag. He was still wearing his leather collar, so I asked the officers if they had checked his chip. Allie had mentioned once that she was going to take a longer lunch break so that she could go and register his chip with animal services.

"We haven't had the chance," one of the officers answered me, seeming surprised that Gideon was responding so positively to me. "We were called by HPD this morning to pick him up because his owner was being taken to the hospital and we couldn't ID her."

My blood ran cold and Danny asked, "Hospital? Why? What happened?"

The officer seemed to realize that we really did know this dog's owner, and his expression turned to one of sympathy. "I'm sorry, I don't know much. She was found unconscious on the beach and the dog stood over her until help got there. He was reluctant to let us take him, but the woman regained consciousness long enough to tell him something. I'm not sure she spoke English, but after that, he let us take him."

"Allie's back in the hospital?" Danny asked.

"It appears that way," I said and asked the officers if they had a leash that I could use.

"There was one already attached to his collar when we picked him up," he said and moved to the front of the truck. "Let me grab it for you. He didn't seem to want me to put it back on him, but maybe he'll let you since he knows you."

Gideon did, indeed, let me clip the leash onto his collar.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Danny asked me. "Why would Allie be back in the hospital?"

"Probably because she was at the beach." At his questioning look, I said, "She normally goes for a run on the beach every morning. My guess is that even though she was supposed to take it easy, she went for her run like she always does. She probably got dizzy and passed out. And, since I'm betting she doesn't take her ID or cell phone running with her, they had no way to identify her before they took her to the hospital."

"Makes sense," Danny agreed. "Should we take Gideon back to her house?"

"Maybe the back door will be unlocked," I agreed. "Or, at least, Gideon can get us in. Allie told me that he had a chip built into his collar that can turn off the alarm system so that he can let himself in and out while she's gone during the day."

We walked towards the car and Danny said, "See, if I could get a dog that was that smart, then I'd keep one around."

"It takes a lot of training, Danny."

We paused at the back of the ambulance, but the perp immediately began to freak out when he saw Gideon, even though Gideon made no move towards him. Finally, the paramedics asked us to take the dog away so that they could get their patient calmed down. I agreed and told Chin and Kono to keep an eye on him and question him further about the gun.

Gideon eagerly hopped into the backseat, likely happy to be away from animal control. As we drove to Allie's house, Danny asked me what my plan was.

"Get Gideon back into Allie's house, for one," I said. "And then I'll probably have you drop me off at my truck and I'll go to the hospital and make sure that they have everything sorted out on that end. You'll be in charge of the investigation of this guy."

"Man, did you see his arm?" Danny asked me and grimaced. "I'd hate to be him. It was torn up."

"Dogs can be dangerous." I looked at Gideon through the rearview mirror. "But this time, it was to the right person. You did good, Gideon."

He didn't even acknowledge my words.

"How did Allie even train him to do that?" Danny asked, impressed.

I shrugged. "I'm not sure. I just know that she's spent a lot of time training him and he can do more than any dog I've ever seen."

At Allie's house, we circled around to the back and used Gideon's collar to get in. Nothing was out of order, so I fed him and then we left him there so that Danny could take me back to my truck. After extracting a promise from him to keep me updated on the case, I headed for the hospital to see if I could find Allie.

"Allie Rhodes," I told the nurse at the desk, an elderly lady that smelled like that old lady perfume my grandma had always used. I resisted the urge to wrinkle my nose.

After looking something up on the computer, she smiled up at me. "Oh, that's nice. We asked her if she wanted us to call anyone, but she said no. I take it she called you herself?"

I forced a polite smile. "Something like that."

She stood and beckoned for me to follow her down the hall. "The computer says that she was in just last night. Poor girl has had such a tough week."

"She has," I agreed.

Once we'd reached the room, the nurse waved for me to go on in and then she headed back for the nurse's station. After a deep breath to steel myself, I walked in and closed the sliding door behind me.

Allie had the bed angled so that she was sitting up, and a tray of food was on the small stand hovering over her bed. Her hair was in a ponytail and she was dressed in one of those horrendous hospital gowns that she somehow made work for her.

When she saw me, her eyes widened. "Steve. What are you doing here?"

I laughed, but there was no humor in it, only anger. When I spoke, I made sure to keep my voice down, but the anger still came through loud and clear. "What am I doing here?" I asked her, and knew that she saw how angry I was. "I'm here to check on you. I didn't think that I would have to do that today, because you just got hurt yesterday and you were given very strict orders from the doctor and even more strict orders from me to rest." The last word came out as a hiss.

She set down the Jell-O cup she'd been holding and smiled sheepishly. "Gideon is used to going for a morning run."

"Gideon won't die if he goes a few days without a run!" I took a moment to check my temper and then continued. "If you still wanted to get him some exercise, you could have thrown the ball with him in the backyard. Or even asked me to take him for a run. Instead, you went for a run, passed out, and left him to animal control."

Panic set in. "Oh my God, I forgot about that."

I was disbelieving. "You forgot that you took your dog with you on your run this morning?"

She shook her head. "No, not that. I just… I figured that he would go back home. I thought I told him to go back home."

I still couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Of course he wasn't going to just go home! His owner was injured and he knew that! He's trained to help people. Which is why – after he so cleverly escaped from the animal control officers – he saved a woman from being raped."

The variety of emotions on her face would have been humorous, had I not been so furious. "What are you talking about?"

I sighed and practically threw myself into the chair next to her bed. "After the officers picked him up, he escaped them. I don't really know how. And I guess he was wandering around when he heard a woman scream and went to investigate. She said a man had dragged her behind some dumpsters and was trying to rape her when Gideon bit his arm and wrestled the gun away from him. She held him at gunpoint until the police came."

She was silent for so long that I was afraid something was wrong, but then she smiled. "Are they okay?"

"Who? The girl and the rapist?"

She made a face of disgust. "No, I don't care about the rapist. I was asking about Gideon and the girl."

"The girl had already been transferred to the hospital when we got to the scene, but it was only for minor injuries and shock. Gideon didn't even have a scratch. He was just hanging out in the back of the truck."

"I guess that's how you knew that I was here," she realized. "You figured out that it was Gideon and then asked the animal control officers what had happened and why they had him."

I nodded. "I could only think of one dog on the island that could do that kind of damage but also show that kind of restraint. Normally when a dog attacks, they won't let go and end up seriously hurting someone. Not that the guy got off too easy – they think he's going to need some stitches, but he should be okay to stand trial soon."

"Where is Gideon now?" she asked me. "Still with animal control?"

"No, he's home," I assured her. "Danny and I took him home and we used his collar to get him in. I fed him, too, so don't worry about that. He seemed fine but also kind of anxious, like he was still worried about you."

"I'm glad it turned out okay and that Gideon was there," she said.

I stared at her for a few moments before I said, "It was pretty lucky that he was there, but I would prefer that you not be in the hospital, either. What were you even thinking? Why would you not rest like the doctor told you to do? Like I told you to do?"

I could see the exact moment that she became defensive, and I knew that I was in for a fight. "For the record, I'm fine. They did another scan and I still don't have a bleed in my brain. I just got a little dizzy on my run. Nothing abnormal."

"Did they check for a tumor in your frontal lobe?"

Confusion etched itself into her expression. "What? You think I have a tumor?"

"Well, the frontal lobe is the part of the brain that is primarily responsible for making choices, right?" I asked her. "Clearly, there's something wrong with the way that you make choices. I just thought there might be a tumor or something there."

Her blue eyes lit with an angry fire. "That's not funny. One bad decision does not mean that something is wrong with me."

"It's not just this decision," I told her, my own anger rising with hers. "It's the fact that you made this bad decision less than twelve hours after you had two people – one of them being a medical professional – tell you not to make that very decision. So, you just decided to ignore us and do your own thing, and I must say, well done. How are you feeling about your stubbornness now? Because all it's gotten you is another trip to the hospital."

"I'm fine!" she yelled and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing in a voice full of forced calm. "I don't need other people telling me what I can and cannot handle."

"Well, clearly we were right this time."

She glared at me. "Look, if all that you came here to do is lecture me, then I think I would prefer it if you left."

Her words hurt, even though I knew that she'd only said them in anger. "You want me to leave?"

"Yes."

"I'm the guy that drove your brother to the airport because you couldn't. And then I came back here and drove you home. But not only did I do that – I also had to help you inside, feed your dog, wash your clothes, and help you get to bed. And now you want me to leave because you're mad that I was right?"

"You don't know everything," she shot at me.

I nodded. "Fine. But what I do know is that I'm still the leader of Five-O. As such, I get to make the big decisions. Such as suspending members that don't follow my instructions."

Shock took over the anger on her face. "You're suspending me? You said that I could come back when I had my medical papers."

"That was before you decided to disobey a direct order that I gave you upon the recommendation of a medical professional."

"You have no control over what I do in my free time!" The anger was back in full force.

"You're right; I don't." I headed for the door. "You're still suspended until further notice." At the door, I turned back to look at her and was saddened by all of the anger that was directed at me. Still, I kept my expression stern and unyielding. "Am I clear?"

I saw her grind her teeth for a moment and then she ground out, "Yes, Commander."

"Good," I said. "If you need anything during your stay, please don't hesitate to let anyone from Five-O know. Get well soon." And then I exited her room and headed down the hall, fighting to swallow the lump in my throat.