The Professional

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Well long time no see my wonderful readers! I'm sorry I've been this sporadic about updating. I've had a very bad case of writer's block, but I've got the story almost finished. Only 4 more chapters and then we're done! How cool is that? As always don't forget to review and I'll do my best to have an update for next week!

Chapter 20

Steve held Rowan all the way the hospital.

When the ambulance showed up, it was to Steve, rushing her to the EMTs. And yes, he put her down on that gurney and yes, he sort of stood back a bit to let them look her over but the second they were getting ready to ride off, Steve was moving to join them.

Trevor had tried to argue, he tried to take Steve's place, but Steve put his hand in the middle of his chest and shoved him back.

Danny caught the older Pierce sibling and kept him from trying again.

Steve held Rowan's hand the whole way to the hospital, and then she was taken away from him to get properly looked at and cared for.

When the rest of his team joined him, he found out that Malcolm was… miraculously alive. Trevor was slightly dehydrated and starved but once again he seemed to be fine.

Steve was getting really pissed with the fact that Rowan's older brother, who usually caused all this shit in the first place, was coming out uninjured while Rowan was in surgery for… you know, Steve didn't even know why she was in surgery.

God why hadn't a doctor come out to talk to him about it yet?

Probably because he wasn't a family member nor an official partner either. Which was bullshit, he really should have locked her down long before this.

Luckily for him, Danny kept him grounded. He also went straight to the nurse's station and demanded some kind of update. Any kind of update.

And he got one.

They were certain that Rowan had internal bleeding, either in her stomach around her badly bruised, mostly fractured except for one broken ribs or in her leg as her femur was broken.

She basically wouldn't be able to skate again, and if she could it wouldn't be at the Olympic level, so that was… heart wrenching as it was.

She had fractures around her eyes, which meant she would have a concussion. One of her arms was dislocated out of her shoulder. She had burns from some sort of electrical current, and water in her lungs.

She was just…. It was a mess. A complete and utter mess.

And Steve was a mess along with her. Like wow, it was bad. Like Steve actually teared up a bit because it was painful to think that his Ro was in that much pain.

That these injuries could kill her.

It sort of just highlighted how much he really seemed to care about her.

Cause it was a lot more than he originally thought it was.

Steve had to wait a whole ten hours before a Doctor came out to tell him that Rowan had survived her surgery and they were moving her to a private room to recover.

He hugged the man when he got the news, he was that happy.

Then he asked when he could sit with her.

The answer was, he could, but once they had her settled in her room, which was an hour later.

Steve went into that room thinking he was prepared only to find out that he was horribly, horribly wrong.

Seeing her dwarfed by those machines, practically more gauze and bruises than skin, it broke his heart all over again.

He should have protected her better.

He should have realized what was happening and done something to save her.

And no matter how many times Danny or Catherine tried to tell him that this wasn't his fault, Steve couldn't shake the guilt.

It was another three day before she was actually conscious again, not that she was really awake, but her eyes were open. Morphine did something wild to her, took her off of the planet basically.

She hadn't been coherent in the least.

By that point Trevor was wandering around, Malcolm had survived his injuries as well but Steve didn't really care about that.

Trevor had called his parents, in front of Steve and told them everything. He told them how Rowan was hurt again because she had given herself up to save him. He told them how he was the reason they were in that mess in the first place, because he had the gambling problem.

His father thanked him for the truth.

His mother seemingly glossed right over that and asked Trevor if he was okay, if he needed her to come down to him.

Trevor had ended the call quickly after that, sensing that Steve was angry, was dangerously close to snapping at Dr. Roselyn Pierce.

How the hell could she not care more that her daughter was an injured as she was? But then again, he didn't quite understand how deep that favouritism ran in her family before.

He understood now.

And just made him want to protect her more. His poor Ro. He wasn't going to let anyone hurt her again.

If she let him.

It took a whole week for Rowan to be coherent enough to talk to him, to realize where she was. She was still on morphine and she was still in pain but her dosages were getting lowered which meant he could carry some kind of conversation with her.

Rowan had opened her eyes, turned to find him sitting beside her, smiling down at her and a lazy smile lit up her face.

"You came."

It wasn't the first time she had said that to him. In fact she always seemed surprised to see him. Like she thought he wouldn't have been there.

"Of course I did."

"Did you… save me?"

"We both did a little bit of a saving, but yes, I came to save you."

"How did you figure it out?"

"Well… I'm not stupid, for starters. And I sort of tortured someone a bit to get information, but I don't care. I don't care because I couldn't just leave you, you know? I'm just sorry it took me so long…"

"It's okay," she half whispered half yawned. "I was at peace with what I did."

"What you did was stupid. You should have told me, I could have helped you."

"Malcolm already made the deal."

Oh had he? Well, Steve was going to make sure he paid for that. Seriously, why the hell had he been allowed back on their team? He was obviously compromised.

Steve wasn't going to stop until Malcolm was punished for this.

And no, the gunshot wound that almost killed him was not enough.

"Did he make you drug me too?"

"Yeah, had to get rid of you," she whispered. "I knew you wouldn't let me go through with it."

Damn fucking straight.

"Well… I'm just glad we got you out of there alive."

"Yeah but at what cost?"

She was going for a joke, but Steve stupidly rambled off all of her injuries, the projected time line for healing, and what the major changes were.

He just up and blurted out she'd probably never be able to skate again and Rowan basically shut down.

Yeah that was pretty stupid of him, but she still let him climb into the bed beside her and let him hold her close so that was something.

When she was eventually all cried out she asked him when he'd be leaving.

"To be honest, I wasn't planning on leaving any time soon."

"You weren't?"

"No, I was planning to stay for as long as you want me."

Rowan, who had been nestled into his side at that point, snuggled in a little closer. "Mmm… forever then."

Steve found himself smiling. Yes, he wanted that too, to stay with her forever. And for as long as she wanted that he would stay forever.

"I did say I'd be there for your trial, which they've pushed back due to… uh… certain circumstances, but uh… after that… you can have me for as long as you want."

"What about work?"

"Oh don't you worry about that. All you need to worry about is feeling better, okay?"

He pressed a kiss into her hair and Rowan yawned into him again. The poor girl was exhausted, she was on the edge of passing out again, but she had her good arm slung across his chest, keeping him where he was.

"I already feel better now that you're here."

Oh be still his painfully beating heart.

Though he sort of felt some kind of relief now that she was awake and he could see that she was starting to heal, he knew he'd feel much better when this was over.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Even though Victor Stepanov was dead, the trial went forward anyway only two weeks after Rowan started showing lucidity.

Trevor, who had the least amount of injuries, had to go in for his deposition. The plan was to have him go so they wouldn't have to call Rowan in.

But then they did it anyway.

Rowan shouldn't have been on the stand at all, Rowan who was still healing.

They said, due to her injuries, all she had to do was take the stand, read the deposition, answer the questions and then she'd get to leave.

Rowan had then asked him to come with her. She was nervous, he could tell, probably mostly to do with how the media seemed to be covering this whole incident extensively, and she looked horrible. Her face all red and purple in places, the plaster on her nose to keep it in place since it was broken, the two casts. She felt hideous, she would later tell him, and she hadn't wanted to go to the court house and have people stare at her when she looked as monstrous as she was on the inside.

Se also hadn't wanted him to hear what she had to say on trial, because she was worried his opinion of her was going to change.

But it wasn't going to.

At all.

And he told her so.

He could also tell that she didn't quite believe him.

The day of her part in the trial, Steve got dressed up, he had purposely brought his dress blues for this situation. When he was just going to be supporting her, the plan was to look shiny in the back, something for her to focus on while she spoke. But now it was an armour, to protect her from the media circus.

She could borrow a little bit of his credibility from his uniform.

He paid to borrow a wheelchair from the hospital and then he himself got her up and into the court house. He shooed away the press that tried to swarm them. He shouted no comment in his authoritative voice that got most of them to back away, but not for long.

They still tried to shove microphones in Rowan's face as Steve pushed her forward, and luckily the cops came to break them up and get them away from her.

In the actual court room, Rowan held him tightly.

The bailiff helped her into her seat and Steve was sure to sit directly across so her eyes could focus on him when she got nervous.

And he was certain to smile his encouragement at her while also not looking horrified by what she said.

Most of the story he knew.

Trevor owed them money, Trevor got her to drive to pay it off.

At first it was drag racing, and her winnings would go to him.

But Trevor still gambled while Rowan was working, and the amount she was pulling in from her races wasn't enough to cover the new losses so the amount they owed got higher and higher.

And that was how she ended up in the heist crew.

Spending all of that time with the heist crew got her closer to Roman.

Rowan and Roman started dating.

Rowan and Roman were engaged.

But then he started cheating on her.

And when she confronted him about it, he decided to hit her.

Rowan decided to leave him after that.

She had told him that they were breaking up. He told her: "We'll discuss that after the heist."

Trevor, wasn't really a part of the heist. He was their recon man. Then he'd sit back and wait for them to come back. That was because he was the insurance for Rowan to behave. If she messed up on the job, they'd kill Trevor.

The heist that caused it all, was no different. Trevor was held back with Irina, Roman had gone in, Rowan usually stayed in the car, but they no longer trusted her, so he took her in with him. Which was a mistake, because she was always sassy.

The problem was Roman was no longer in the mood to deal with Rowan's sass and back talk. He told her twice to stop, and when that didn't work he shot the guard to punish her for talking back.

Rowan been in shock, but she finished off the heist to get back to her brother.

Then the two male Stepanovs dropped a completely different bomb on the Pierce siblings.

They were not going to be allowing her to call off the engagement. The wedding would go on as planned, no matter what she thought or wanted.

Yeah. Like that had been fun to hear.

She realized that the two of them knew way too much for the Stepanovs to let them go and to keep her under their thumbs they were going to continue to threaten Trevor.

So she came up with the second plan.

The turn on them plan.

And that was exactly what she did.

She had the CSIS get them out before she handed over their evidence, and oh boy did Rowan have evidence.

She had everything to put them away and it was that evidence that brought them to this situation.

As soon as she was done telling the tale, the defense moved quickly. They began rapid fire asking her questions about her character and how it played into the rest of her decisions. They definitely started picking her apart, but Steve had prepared her for this.

Steve had made sure that she knew how to respond to those accusations of monstrosity.

I was one girl. One girl trying to save my brother with the cards I had dealt. You don't just play by the rules with a family as powerful and violent as that. You've gotta be smarter than them, and I clearly was.

And then they got into all the other incidents.

She had to explain how Malcolm was hard to be around, so she went to help other task forces with her driving skills.

She got put on one job in California and she bumped into the Stepanov siblings who were the ring leaders of the trafficking ring that Kono had been trying to shut down.

She had bolted. Run all the way back to Hawaii. But the Stepanovs had beat her there and they had once again grabbed Trevor.

She went to get him back, at Malcolm's insistence.

And she had, though she had gotten shot in the process.

And when they ran, Roman at the very least gave chase.

And she had run him off the road and into the water.

She had not been able to correct herself and she crashed her car too.

Malcolm had taken Trevor thinking Rowan was dead, which was a lie but the jury didn't need to know that.

And she had been left behind.

When she was recuperating in the hospital, Irina showed up to exact revenge, posing as the freshly missing Malcolm, and Rowan had to run again.

Steve would later get on the stand to admit that Irina had pulled one over on him, and he had thought she was Rowan's handler and he had figured out what was going on too late.

They both recounted how Rowan had been caught and arrested. How Irina had riven off with her and another officer, how she had killed the officer and then took Rowan away to get revenge.

Rowan had been forced to kill Irina, but only after Irina had stabbed her.

Steve hadn't originally meant to testify, they didn't think they'd need him, but with him there and Rowan being injured he had stepped up.

They wouldn't let him fill her place, but at least they let him confirm her story.

Then she had to explain how she came to kill Victor.

Steve backed up that she only did it because Victor was about to shoot him. That Victor had been torturing her, and holding Trevor hostage to make her come to him.

And then the jury was left to decide what the fate would be.

When they came back, they had an answer for them.

Victor, Irina and Roman Stepanov were all posthumously declared guilty and the Pierces were cleared of all charges.

They were officially free to go home.