Chapter 6: We're A Team, End of Story.

Sarna House

Alexandra locked her doors and searched her house to make sure that whoever had written on her wall wasn't hiding in any closets or rooms. While she was running around the house, Derek stood in the kitchen doorway, dunking a spoon into a cup of yogurt he found in Alexandra's fridge. When Alexandra reached her living room and saw Derek standing in the doorway, she stared at him with an incredulous look on her face.

"Oh thanks Derek. It isn't like someone broke into the house," she shouted. She couldn't believe that he was eating when someone was trying to clearly scare her

"You were doing fine!" he countered, letting out an exasperated sigh. "And you didn't want to listen to me!"

Alexandra rolled her eyes and wished she knew where her pack of cigarettes was.

"I had to make sure the house wasn't bugged," she responded heading towards her purse.

She was in dire need to smoke a cigarette since she stormed out of the headquarters earlier. She couldn't handle being called a liar, because… well she hated being compared to him. The heartless man she was told was supposed to be her dad. She shook her head as she thought of how much hurt he had put upon her family because of his deception.

"What are you doing?" Derek asked, bringing her back to reality and coming near Alexandra as she found her cigarettes. "Cigarettes? No, I thought you quit!"

Alexandra struggled to keep the pack in her hands, but Derek was too strong for her. With one tug he snatched the cigarettes from her grip causing her to let out a small yelp when she realized she wouldn't be able to indulge in her idiosyncrasy.

"People who smoke cigarettes don't realize how lucky they are to be healthy, Blondie!" he scolded putting the pack in his back pocket.

She glared at him, but understood why he was like that. When they first began to work together, he told Alexandra that she reminded him of his best friend… who in their freshmen year of college died because of lung cancer. She was exposed to smoke since she was very young and ever since Alexandra found out, she has tried to avoid smoking near Derek.

"Sorry, I'm just so-"

"Upset?"

"Yeah, and –"

"Nervous?"

"Yeah and I just want to-"

"Know what this is all about?"

"Would you let me talk!"

"Sorry," Derek apologized with a sheepish look on his face. "Sit down."

Alexandra glanced at her couch, which was still the only piece of furnishing in the living room, aside from a small table. She plopped herself down on the old couch and focused on Derek. The truth was, she was running around her house to keep herself occupied, to not think of her argument with Steve and how upset she had been. She hated thinking badly about him; even when she was a teenager she ran away to avoid dealing with it, to avoid dealing with the anger she felt towards him… so she ran away, just like she did earlier in the day. Telling the people she cared about that they infuriated her was hard, almost as hard as trying to tell them how she felt; sharing her feelings wasn't her strong point. She never had really cried in front of anyone besides her brothers and her mom.

Mom, Alexandra thought wistfully of her mom, about all the secrets she shared with her, all the lessons she was taught. It's been a more than a decade and people said that the pain was supposed to go away, but the deaths of her brother and aunt just made everything ten times worse. It made Alexandra feel like everyone she cared about would be placed upon a curse, set to die after receiving her love. Of course the idea was improbable; her priest helped her realize she was ridiculous to think that.

"Remember all those legends about David Vlotkovsky we heard in training?" her friend began, dragging her mind from her preoccupations.

"Yeah, I know that he's here and he was tailing me," Alexandra said. "I even grabbed his wallet when he made contact."

"No way," Derek said distractedly, and then shook his head. "Don't distract me."

Alexandra rolled her eyes and felt like beating Derek, "Just go on."

"I've learned that Vlotkovsky isn't after you…personally," he informed as Alexandra sighed.

"Because that fact makes it so much better."

"Would you just listen?" Derek requested in a tone that would suggest he was annoyed. "I've had Demetrio take a look at his financial record-"

"Whoa, Derek, the guy's been off the map since the eighties. How did Demetrio find any type of financial record?" Alexandra inquired.

It did seem a little off that David Vlotkovsky, a rogue agent that was supposedly dead up until now, would have stepped foot in a bank. The first measure any government took if an agent was rogue was to ensure that their ex-spy had no access to money, which meant freezing any sort of financial accounts.

"He's from Russia, as you know, so I got to thinking the man has to do something for money and I doubted that he would waste any talent he had," Derek explained as Alexandra nodded her head to show that she was following.

"Then Demetrio found files about homicides in Moscow that neither Interpol nor local police were able to solve and that's how I knew I had him," Derek smiled. "The business competition in Moscow is high, we're talking one guy killing the next to get more clients."

Alexandra felt as if she were enlightened. Of course! Vlotkovsky would take anyone up on an offer like that; he was a mercenary, hired to kill off any competition one of the rich business men in Moscow had to deal with. He was, according to the legends Alexandra overheard, extremely skilled in handling guns and leaving a crime scene without a lick of evidence. She still didn't understand what any of that had to do with her. Sure, she spoke Russian, but she never set foot in the massive country. Fear was, undoubtedly, a horrid emotion that she could no longer pretend to not feel.

"How does that have anything to do with me?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Three of Moscow's richest and most powerful have been found dead, one of them was Mikhail Cechnik," Derek ventured. "There was a check deposited to him on December 16, 2009."

"Why's that unusual?"

"Because Cechnik was dead December 13th, 2009. He had his hands on the gas and crude oil business, and his rival, Nicolai Drago, wrote out a check for one hundred fifty thousand Euros to Cechnik's accounts. Then when Interpol started looking into it, all the money was gone," Derek revealed. "Vlotkovsky was paid whatever Drago sent to Mikhail's account and whatever Mikhail ever earned in his career. He took Cechnik's money and ran."

"And Interpol lost him," Alexandra concluded.

"Yes, fortunately, though, Demetrio and I didn't. Yesterday, Demetrio found a relatively new account in the Cayman's and, as usual, with these types of things we had to look at the amount of money coming in, whether the bank received the amount Vlotkovsky would have run off with and other paper trails," Derek continued.

"Interpol didn't catch on to that?" she questioned, speculating that there could have been a leak in Interpol.

"That's another matter of investigation that Captain Olsen's handling."

She nodded her head, but her previous question remained unanswered.

"So, why the sudden interest in me?" Alexandra solicited.

"Someone paid him to do it, Blondie," Derek unveiled.

Alexandra tried to think of all the people she's encountered as an agent if the CIA, however none of them seemed like they would go to these lengths just to kill her. Except… she couldn't bear to think it…

"Who?"

"Remember, Jacques Francois?"

Jacques Francois was the name she didn't want to hear, it was a name she would spend forever trying to forget. The man was a French national who was apart of a cult in Estonia. That wouldn't have bothered the United States government, but there was sufficient evidence against him that proved he was supplying weapons to Al-Qaeda leaders who were attacking American barracks. Alexandra was sent in to infiltrate the cult in the tiny, farming village which had trouble catching up to the times (few houses had electricity and even fewer had running water, she was shocked to see how many guns ran through the place), but when she came close, Francois turned other members of the cult against her… she didn't care that they hated her, she was there for the job, but she almost died.

She was stranded in this village and the psychotic state of mind Francois was in, it caused him to search nonstop until he captured Alexandra and was going to have his personal team of guards execute her in a rather gruesome way. Alexandra remembered that if it wasn't for a little boy who couldn't stand what he was brought into, the cult, that is, she wouldn't be alive; her team wouldn't have been contacted (they were in the Estonia's capital, waiting for her- it had been quite a surprise for them when the little boy showed up) and they wouldn't have rescued her along with the boy. The way the story ended was her having to deal with a dislocated shoulder and 'Francois the Lunatic' in a British MI6 holding cell.

"Yeah, I dislocated my shoulder trying to stop him," Alexandra responded.

"He was released from MI6 supervision, but when I contacted Sir John Sawers he informed me there was a breach-"

"You contact the M16 exec and he tells you there's a breach? A breach? Derek, Francois was locked in a box with a door that weighed more than the Mustang. Someone let him out!" Alexandra shouted, feeling herself fall into an untamable frenzy.

"That's why I came, Blondie! I came here to tell you he's out, he has Russia's most wanted on his side too-"

"I can't deal with this-"

"Would you just listen!" Derek yelled causing her to freeze as she was standing up. "Look, I blew your cover at McGarrett's task force because he's good at what he does. I've been here a few days and watched him with you, he's protective of you and that's why you're not going anywhere."

"What? Derek , I have to, I'll get civilians killed if I don't take this to some isolated place," Alexandra argued.

How could her partner not understand? Not only did she not want to deal with the whole situation with Steve, but she could not let any one get killed because of her… not again, at least.

"Alexandra, you have two options. Either stay here with Commander McGarrett or come back to D.C with me and have Captain Olsen shove you on a naval ship where you'll be safe and sound, but reminded of Steve everyday," Derek presented her.

Why was he doing this to her? Couldn't he understand she wanted to figure this out on her own? If her assassin didn't kill her, she would slowly start to feel herself go insane and this time she wouldn't have her best friends, her team, to back her up. She wouldn't have Odette McCullough, the brilliant agent who knew her way around any type of weapon, to help her through the guilt that would eat away at her emotion, turning her into a soulless shell.

"Derek-"

"Blondie," Derek said in a questioning manner.

"Yeah?"

"You made a promise to that man. Now whether you keep that, that's between you and him, but seeing that you would be safe with him if you stayed here while I went back to DC to find our team, I would suggest that you choose this option. It isn't going to kill you if you stay here," Derek suggested in a caring tone. "Figuratively speaking, or whatever the word is to describe any irony in that sentence. What I'm trying to say is you're apart of that team, as far as I can tell and you were the one who always said 'We're a team, end of story'."

Alexandra looked at her feet; it was true, she always said that when her team was afraid someone would chicken out and run. What had she done? She made a promise to Steve that she would help him find Victor Hesse and she broke it. She was the one who chickened out and ran. That's all she was ever good at, running away when something hurt.

Finally Alexandra stood up and looked Derek straight in the eye and said, "Take me to Kapahoni Warehouse on Pekeleilei road. There's going to be a white truck not too far from the warehouse, that's where McGarrett is with the team."

She ran to her room so that she could change from her white, floral dress into clothing that would allow her to move a little more freely. Her choice of clothing was a pair of light blue jeans and a light purple halter top, she kept her sneakers on in case one of the suspects decided to flee.

"Whoa!" Derek exclaimed when she came out of her room. "Now, personally, I prefer a woman in heels, but that is how spies dress Blondie!"

Alexandra rolled her eyes as she tossed him her keys to the Mustang. She saw him give her an encouraging smile and it gave her hope. Hope that Francois and Vlotkvosky would be found and locked up in the CIA's prison, hope that she would stop running from whatever scared her and hope that Steve wouldn't be furious with her.

"Oh hey, you're missing something," Derek spun around before opening the front door and running towards Alexandra's kitchen.

He came back, seconds later, with Alexandra's handgun, a Makarov, and her holster which she strapped around her thigh.

"You brought these from D.C?" she asked in blissful disbelief.

"I knew you'd be happy," Derek smiled opening the door.

Before stepping out of the house, Alexandra took a deep breath. She came into the house filled with fury and anger and now she was stepping out, ready to accept change as well as help and try to make amends with Steve. With those final thoughts she walked out and slammed the door.

Pekeleilei Road, White Truck

At ten in the morning, Steve found himself next to Chin in a white truck, setting up the computers that the team would be using to back up Kono in case anything went wrong while she was undercover. It was only a few hours after his arguments with Alexandra, but he still regretted questioning her the way he did. He knew he touched a sensitive matter when he accused her of lying and not trusting him. They were supposed to be working together today, then after they found Victor Hesse, they should have been going out on a date.

"Let me ask you something. How is it that you get into an argument with our nurse before the workday?" Danny asked coming inside the truck.

"I didn't get into an argument before the workday!" Steve snapped back as Chin began to turn on one of the computers.

"Then why isn't the keiki here?" Chin inquired as Danny's lip curled into a smug smile.

"Alexandra, isn't here because something came up," Steve lied, fully knowing that his two colleagues were able to see right through him.

"Look, Fred Flintstone," Danny suddenly quipped. "What could have come up for her? I mean she barely talks and she's a nurse. Do you know that I found her reading the other day?"

"Danny-"

"No, Steven. Do you know what I found her reading?" Danny asked disdainfully as Steve noticed a slight smirk on Chin's face.

"No, Danny, I don't know," Steve sighed. "A book? You're probably not familiar with them, but the letters on the pages make up words which make up sentences which sometimes make up a story-"

"Hey, you were the one born in a cave with baby pterodactyl bones all tied up together to make a weather vane," Danny shot back as Chin began to laugh. "For your information, she was reading Rip Van Winkle."

"What's wrong with Rip?" Steve questioned.

"What's wrong with Rip? What's wrong with him?" Danny asked, and if Steve hadn't gotten used to his partner's personality, he would have thought he struck a nerve.

"I-"

"Rip… Van Winkle, is a fairytale. It is a fairytale told to children who have not yet reached the age of reason. It was written for children because children don't understand how senseless the story is!" Danny shouted angrily, trying to bring his point across.

"Actually," a familiar and gentle, but attention demanding voice interrupted the three men. "It's a story written by Washington Irving to prove that time is valuable and one shouldn't waste their time being lazy."

Steve looked up to see Alexandra had come back, but now she appeared more, more confident. She wore a purple shirt, one of those that tied around the neck, but didn't cover the wearer's back, and her jeans really emphasized her … he stopped himself from looking her over when he noticed a gun strapped to her thigh.

"You're back," Steve said with surprise in his voice as Danny and Chin exchanged confused glances.

"You hired me to do a job, right?" she asked with a smile on her face.

"I guess I did," Steve replied lightheartedly. "Get in the truck, then."

Once she sat down on the floor of the truck, Steve saw Danny look her over, "Hi, I don't who you are, but I'm Danny Williams."

Alexandra did one of her signature eye rolls, "I'll explain later… Where's Kono?"

"Kono's prepping herself at headquarters," Chin informed standing up. "Which reminds me guys, I have to go check up on her. She's really nervous about this."

"Tell her good luck for me," Alexandra remarked as Chin gave her a thumbs up to let her know he'd pass on the message.

The native Hawaiian tiptoed around Danny, Alexandra and Steve, hopped off the truck and headed towards his motorcycle that was parked near the truck. The roar of the motorcycle let the trio know that Chin was on his way and they continued to work on the computers.

"Aren't there people that do this?" Alexandra asked after a short silence.

"Yeah, but the HPD didn't want to share those guys with us," Steve informed as Alexandra played with one of the computers.

Her hair fell over shoulders as she worked on setting the system up and her face looked determined to finish the job she was tasked with.

"So why did you decide to come back?" Steve finally inquired.

He saw her look at him and sigh, "Because we're a team now, end of story."