Chapter 24

Steve had spent the morning at work before an agent from the FBI had come and told them the death was related to a case they were already working and after speaking to the Governor had to hand over the case to the FBI. He had then met Cath, Chelsea, Jay and Evie at the mall to join them in back to school clothes shopping. Steve and Jay had many times tried to sneak away from the girls shopping for school clothes although failed every time. The furthest they got was about 3 shelves along before Cath spotted them. They had spent a long time searching for outfits that matched in different stores, which included a lot of revisiting shops they had already been in. Steve was sure Evie was trying to give him a heart attack, for a 10 year old girl she was trying on clothes that Steve was sure he would be telling her she was not wearing when she was 16 let alone 10. But after a lot of shopping they had managed to get clothes for Evie that were definitely appropriate, although looking at some of the clothes Chelsea had brought, Steve really did hope that Evie would not take Chelsea's idea of clothes and shopping because he didn't think he could deal with the amount of time spent shopping but also wearing the same outfits.

When they got home Cath, Jay and Chelsea started to make dinner, which gave him the chance to speak to Evie, as he had not had chance to do so since Chelsea had told him about giving Evie time. Chelsea did tell him that she would be ready to speak later, and he hoped that she would be ready now and it wouldn't end up in an emotional shut down on Evie's part.

Steve went upstairs and knocked on Chelsea's door where Evie was. He waited for a couple of seconds before opening the door and walking in.

"Evie, put your shoes back on, and meet me downstairs in 5 minutes." Steve said.

"Where are we going?" Evie asked.

"I will tell you when we get in the car."

Steve walked out of the room and headed downstairs to the kitchen. When he got there he saw, Cath, Chelsea and Jay making dinner, all happy together.

"Me and Evie are going out for an hour we will be back in time for dinner." Steve said.

"Okay, see you soon." Cath said walking over to him and giving him a kiss.

When Evie came downstairs Steve ushered towards the car. He had two motives to taking her out. Firstly, he wanted to talk to her without any interruptions from anyone at the house and Evie walking away. He was sure that if he took her out she couldn't just walk off if she didn't want to answer anything. The second reason was if they were out in public it would make sure that the conversation would remain as a conversation and not any arguments or shouting.

"Where are we going?" Evie asked again once they got in the car.

"I thought we could go and get an iced tea and talk." Steve replied not taking his eyes off the road.

"We could have talked at home." Evie said, she didn't understand why her dad was driving to a cafe to talk.

"I know, but we can talk without getting interrupted out here." Steve replied.

"Okay."

They drove the next 5 minutes in silence before they got to the cafe. When they got out, Evie went and got a table while Steve ordered and collected the drinks. When he sat back down he waited a couple of minutes, to see if Evie would offer anything without him asking.

"I am sorry for pushing you this morning." Steve said, he had finally given up waiting for Evie to say something and knew that he would have to start the conversation.

"It's okay." Was all Evie said.

"I know that your mom, sent you to live with me, and I know that it is hard for you, but you need to tell me why you are upset and how you are feeling."

"You want to know how I feel?" Evie repeated. When Steve nodded his head she continued. "She left me, she didn't want me anymore, I feel rejected, I feel like she never loved me and she just tolerated my for 10 years of my life. I feel like she never really wanted me and that all of my life I was an inconvenience for her. If she doesn't want me know, why would she have wanted me for the last 10 years. I was never good enough for her, and she must never have loved me because she would have still wanted me if she loved me." Evie said, looking down, she couldn't meet her dad's eyes. "How do I know that you don't feel the same. You haven't been in my life for a couple of years and even when you were you weren't there for long how do I know you won't do the same."

When Steve was sure Evie had finished he put his hand under her chin to lift her head up to look at him. When she finally looked at him he started to speak. "I love you and I am sorry that I wasn't around, but I am not going to leave you again now. I promise. I can't explain what your mom did, but I can tell you that I will never do that to you, I can tell you that you are not an inconvenience to anyone and you have to remember that."

"I understand that dad, I just can't help but feel that way." Evie said. "I don't feel that way all the time, but I still feel it a lot of the time. Last night when me, Cath and Chelsea watched a film I didn't feel it at first but then I saw Cath and Chelsea together and thought my mom doesn't want that with me."

"You might not have that with your mother what Catherine and Chelsea do, but you don't need it with your mom, because you have me, you have Cath, Jordon and Chelsea, we want you in our lives and if you mother doesn't then it is her loss. I want you to remember and tell yourself every time you feel that way I love you and am not going to leave you and you have people who love you."

"Okay. Can we go home now I am hungry?" Evie asked.

"Yeah come on." Steve said stepping out of the booth and walking behind his daughter to the truck.

After dinner all the kids had gone and done there thing leaving Cath and Steve doing the washing up.

"How did it go with Evie?" Cath asked.

"It went better, she finally told me about her mother and how she feels about it. She tells me about how seeing you and Chelsea makes her feel like she is going to miss something with her mother, but she is feeling better now. Although I do think I made a mistake." Steve said.

Cath just looked at him. "I think we need to call the press, Steve McGarrett has admitted for the first time ever that he made a mistake." Cath said with a smile on her face.

"Yes okay the first time for everything, but I should never have hung up on Sarah. If she was trying to sort things out for Evie then I should have at least listened to what she had to say and not hung up on her." Steve said seriously.

"Well phone her back, listen to what she has to say. It's not too late, but Evie doesn't need to miss anything with her mother because I love your daughter and I am sure that Chelsea does as well and she won't miss out on anything." Cath said.

"Thank you. Now how about a quite night. And I do mean quite, while the kids are in the house." Steve said.

Cath just smiled and took Steve's hand leading him upstairs.

The next day...

Steve got to work early the next day in the hope that if they didn't have any cases he would be able to leave early. He sat down and looked at his watch before deciding it was now or never to phone Sarah back.

"Hi this is Sarah, I can't get to the phone, but if you leave a message I will try to get back to you." Was all Steve got from Sarah's voice mail.

"Sarah its Steve, I shouldn't have cut you off the other day and want to hear what you had to say, please call me back, if not for me for Evie." Steve said before hanging up.

A couple of minutes later his phone rang again it was Sarah. He knew that Sarah had probably just blanked his call the first time and then after listening to the voice mail decided that she might get something from his.

"Steve McGarrett." Steve said answering the phone.

"Steve, its Sarah."

"Hi, listen I am sorry about the other day, I want to hear out what you have to say." Steve replied.

"What made you change your mind?"

"Our daughter, after speaking to her I knew that she doesn't deserve this and doesn't deserve you leaving her, I understand that I wasn't there for a lot of her life but never did I just leave her and tell her that you didn't want to be a father."

"I understand that it was selfish on me but please hear my justifications. Yes I missed out on my young, free life, but also I knew that Evie was missing something in her life that I couldn't give her. I couldn't give her help on her homework, I couldn't give her comfort when she needed it, I couldn't give her a better life than you could. But part of my life has been better, I can do what I want all the time, but I miss her. I miss seeing her."

"You want her back?" Steve really didn't want to ask this question. At the moment if Sarah asked for Evie he would have to agree because of parental control but he really hoped to change that soon, he had planned to change the parental control but since Sarah had just given her up it wasn't top of his priorities.

"I don't know."

"You don't know? I called you back to see what you wanted, you miss her but you don't know if you want her back. Then what is this all about?" Steve was intrigued to know.

"I don't want to give her up fully, I don't think that after our time apart I want her back fully but I want to be a part of her life. I want to call her and I want to come and see her every so often, I want to be like you were, get to see her but then still live my life."

Steve couldn't believe what he was hearing. She wanted the best of both lives, this was not going to happen, it would only end up hurting Evie and he was not going to let that happen. Sarah had already hurt Evie and if she thought that Steve was going to let that happen she was very much mistaken. "You want both lives?"

"No, I just don't think I can be a full time mother."

"But the other time you want to live the single party lifestyle?" Steve asked.

"Well I would do some of that."

Steve couldn't believe she just admitted it. He knew it would happen but her admitting it was a big surprise. "Well no you can't have both because it will be Evie that will end up getting hurt."

"Steve please let me prove to you I want to be part of her life."

"How are you going to do that?"

"I want to come and visit."

"Is this a trip to see your daughter or a holiday to Hawaii?"

"To see my daughter."

"Well if that is going to happen it will be on my terms and not yours. I have to go I will email you my terms." Steve said when he saw Danny walking into his office.

After Steve had hung up he put his head in his hands, he knew that this was more than likely that Evie would end up getting hurt.

"Everything alright?" Danny asked.

"The mother of my child. If she didn't give me Evie I would seriously hate that women." Steve said looking up.

"I know the feeling. Do you want to go for a drink tonight?" Danny said.

"Yeah go on then." Steve said. His phone rang and it was the governor. "We might need to put them drinks on hold." Steve said as he answered his phone. "On our way." Steve said as he hung up the phone.

"Body found I will brief you in the car, I'm going to call Chin and Kono and get them to meet us there." Steve said getting up from his death.

"Lets go." Danny said as they both walked out of Steve's office, there went Steve's early finish.

Once Steve and Danny had got to the crime scene they had spent time getting briefed by Duke. A body found linked to Wo Fat. Steve hadn't had any more dealings with Wo Fat since the day at the cafe. He had stepped down a little on catching Wo Fat deciding that he needed to put his family first. He was still looking for ways to try and get Wo Fat but he was doing it more quietly to make sure that not many people knew about it.

"You think this has got something to do with Wo Fat?" Kono asked.

"Yes either someone who Wo Fat has annoyed and is coming for revenge, or he was another lose end for Wo Fat, I don't think that this was random, it was done quickly, 3 bullet shots and the body dumped." Steve said. He had been given the case because of it's attachment to Wo Fat. He hoped that it would be a simple case as he wanted to go home see his family and then go for a drink with Danny.

"Right, Chin and Kono I want you to find out all information you can on this guy, find any family and make a death notification and if you find family find out if they know anything about Wo Fat. Me and Danny are going to go and see Max and see if we can find any other murders like this to see if we can find anyone who could have done this." Steve said walking off from the scene.

"Are we going to visit Wo Fat?" Danny asked.

"Not yet, I want to be sure that it has something to do with him before we go and before we try and find answers." Steve said.

A couple of hours later...

"Everything we have found leads to Wo Fat. We need to go and talk to him. Kono and Chin I want you to track down his movements from the last 2 months. Me and Danny are going to go to business office and see if we find him." Steve said.

They had all tried every lead they could and Steve knew that going to find Wo Fat with no evidence would only anger him more and could lead to him carrying out one of his threats on his new family, but he had to find something on Wo Fat and doing nothing was now not an option for Steve.

As Steve and Danny were about to pull up to Wo Fats offices Steve's phone rang.

"Kono, what do you have?" Steve asked.

"You might want to turn around we had information that Wo Fat is no longer in Hawaii and we think he has gone back to Japan. However, we do have a lead. HPD have just shown us CCTV photos of a man we believe to be the murderer. He was seen following our victim for the last couple of days and again 5 minutes before time of death." Kono replied.

"Do you have a name and address?"

"Yeah, sending you the address now."

"Okay meet us there in 15 minutes, call for SWAT backup to meet us there."

15 minutes later Steve and Danny had met Chin, Kono and a SWAT team outside the house. They looked in and was filled with explosives and the man they were after.

"Right I want a swat team around both sides and the back, we will take the front. I want him taken out quickly avoiding killing him but do not let him get to any of the explosives." Steve said. "Kit up and be ready to go in five minutes. Be as quite as possible."

They all made the arrests quickly and without anyone getting hurt. Steve wanted his early finish but had to find out what Wo Fat was planning.

"You can't keep me in here." Thomas shouted.

"We can and we will." Danny replied as he was leaning up against the door.

"You do realised you are being charged with murder, we have every right to keep you here. Because it will be here or in prison, now right now you are looking at a life sentence, we can make you deal, you tell us everything you know about Wo Fat and what has happened and we can then make you deal to have a word with the judge and make the sentence more linnet." Steve said.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Thomas said.

"Well that is interesting we have evidence of you following the victim and there at the time of death. Why did you do it?" Steve asked again.

"You are just digging yourself into a deeper hole but not telling us anything." Danny added.

"Right well this is obviously not going anywhere. Enjoy federal prison it is very nice this time year." Danny said as he left the room.

Meanwhile...

Evie was preparing for School the next day. She had packed her bag of everything she was going need and got her outfit ready for the next day. She was excited to start finally after waiting for a long time in the summer since she had come to leave with her dad.

"The bag isn't going to change no matter how long you check it." Chelsea said. She had watched Evie in her room for the last 2 hours. She had packed her bag, looked at clothes, checked the bag, finally chose her outfit, then looked at the bag again. Chelsea was unsure how she could be so excited for school she was due back tomorrow and was definitely not looking forward to it.

"I just want to make sure I have everything." Evie said.

"Okay, are you sure you're ready?"

"I think so I have everything I need, my outfits ready I just have to wait tomorrow now."

Sorry this chapter is shorter than the last couple. Please review and I will hopefully have the next chapter up soon.