One Thing

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Well hello there, long time no see. This chapter has been in the works for a while, I'm sorry it took me so long. I had it finished and then lost all the progress when my computer restarted. Not an excuse but I just didn't have the time write it all again at once. So here it is. Sorry I made you guys wait so long. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 22

Steve hung there, like a slab of meat, dejected, and defeated.

He had no idea how to escape.

Rowan had taken the only thing he had that could get him out of there. He wasn't sure if it was malicious or not, she didn't taunt him with it or anything so it was hard to tell. If she was to be believed then se simply thought he was standing on something that was uncomfortable.

She was a master of lying though, so it was entirely possibly that she had done it maliciously and he just had no idea and he didn't quite believe her.

This whole plan, using Kaye to trick him into coming down here, torturing him for information, it was hers.

Why the hell would she help Wo Fat plan his torture?

Clearly what he had felt for her was not mutual in anyway and for some reason, despite having other things to worry about, that's all Steve could think about.

That Rowan didn't like him back.

Because it hurt.

It cleaved his heart in two.

And that was stupid, because he was about to die. There was no way Wo Fat was going to keep him alive, once he realized Steve knew nothing, couldn't help him, the man was going to kill him.

He should have listened to Danny. He shouldn't have trusted Kaye.

God what was he going to do? How as he going to get out of this?

He must have been there for an hour before the door opened again, but as quickly as it opened it closed and then, instead of Wo Fat coming to get him, it was Rowan rushing towards him.

Part of him was happy to see her again, but most of him was just pissed. What the hell did she want now?

She said absolutely nothing to him, she just rushed to him, invaded his personal space… AGAIN… and jumped up onto her tippy toes.

She was trying to reach his hands for some reason, but being the small thing that she was she couldn't. She hopped a few times trying to reach… whatever it was she was trying to reach… and then eventually stopped.

"Ugh! Why are you so fucking tall?" she growled and then tried jumping up again.

She had that look on her face, that concentrated look of hers, where her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth and her nose was all scrunched up.

He loved that look on her face.

And she was still to close to him, practically pressed up against him, her face in kissing distance. She was so distracted he knew he could just swoop in and kiss her. And she'd kiss him back, she always kissed him back. It wouldn't be that hard to…

No, he needed to be strong.

He needed to stay mad at her.

"What are you doing?" he hissed. "Why are you here?"

Rowan stopped practically trying to climb him and blinked her eyes up to him. "What… what do…"

"You planned my torture," he growled as Rowan went back to hopping.

"I did not…"

"What are you talking about?!" Steve cried. "You said it yourself, Wo Fat is doing your plan wrong!"

"Okay, yes, but it was only supposed to look bad," Rowan said. "You know, for the video. To lure Shelbourne out of hiding."

"Why would Shelburne care?"

"You know, I've already answered that question, Steven…"

"My mother is dead," he repeated. As Rowan went back to hopping once again, trying to get more height. "I'd really appreciate you not bringing that up every chance you… ARGH!" he cried as she used his sore shoulder as a boost. "Rowan!"

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "It's just… you're so tall I can't reach…"

"Reach what? What are you trying to do?"

Rowan produced a small silver key, she held it up to his face and let him take it in. "I'm trying to get you out, you idiot!"

A little sliver of Steve's heart fluttered with hope. Maybe she did feel the same for him after all! But he tamped that down quickly.

"Where did you get that?"

"I'm a pick pocket Steven," she reminded him and that basically answered that for him. She was staring up at that lock with a determined look on that face of hers. Too bad there was nothing in here she could stand on.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you helping me?"

Rowan lounged back a glare on her face. "You know absolutely nothing about this Steven. When he figures that out, he's going to shoot you. I tried to get you as like… a personal concubine or something but he said you'd be too hard to control and it would be easier to put you down."

The put you down was in air quotes.

She didn't need to do that, he knew what that meant.

"Now, am I getting you out or would you rather do it by yourself?"

Well he obviously needed help.

"Get it into my hand, I'll do the rest," he said. Rowan nodded and once against she was back in his personal space.

Up on her tippy toes, her lips altogether too close to his. He wanted to kiss her, god he wanted to kiss her so bad! Why couldn't he turn this attraction off? Why was he so weak where she was involved?

She had to do another hop to get the key into his fingers and once he had a hold of it, she backed away.

The separation cooled his body which had been shamelessly over heating. He forced himself to focus on the task.

His fingers were clumsy only because the chains were sort of cutting the circulation off, but he managed to the get the lock undone and then he was free.

He sort of teetered, he hadn't expected his body to be that unsteady, but Rowan was there to catch him. Or at least help him right himself. She wouldn't have been able to catch him. If he had fallen, he would have flattened her to the ground.

But because she had reached out to stead him, her hands were at his sides, and she was staring up at him, this sort of wide-eyed wonder in those blue eyes of her. And the desire to kiss her returned to him all over again.

One kiss wouldn't hurt right?

Rowan let him go before he could try. "Come on, we gotta get you out of here."

Steve nodded and then walked in the complete opposite direction of where he was supposed to go. Rowan stopped by the door and turned o watch him as he crouched down beside Kaye's body.

She didn't deserve to die like that.

He had sort of hoped that he could have saved them both, but Kaye had done this to them. She had sealed her fate.

He closed her eyes, whispered an apology and a good-bye and then he was heading for Rowan.

"What's the plan?"

"Uh… there's a truck in the garage," she whispered. "I figure I get you to the truck and you drive away."

He noted right away that she wasn't offering to come with him. He wasn't sure why he expected that if she was helping him escape, she'd come with him, but clearly he had.

His eyes found her again.

He wondered again why she was helping him. She obviously didn't feel the same way, seeing as she had helped plan his torture and kidnapping and she… she had… married…

He looked at her again, more carefully, focusing in on her hands. There was no wedding band, and no engagement ring… maybe… actually it looked like she was wearing two diamond rings on either middle finger, but he knew from living with her that she liked to wear her rings on her middle fingers and she liked diamond like rings. Though instead of diamonds she bought cheap knock offs.

Either way, the usual rings that should have been on a married woman's ring finger was not there.

"You didn't actually marry him, did you?" he asked.

He had asked her before but she had been with him and hadn't answered.

Rowan, who had been looking out the door to see if the coast was clear, shut the door and turned back to him. "Excuse me?"

"You didn't, right? I mean… come on…"

"Steven…"

"It's just that… you were with me for what? Two months and we were… I unno… you made it seem like…"

My god. Why did this girl make him so fucking pathetic?

"Do you think we could talk about this after we get you out of here?"

He nodded because she had a point and she opened up that door again and went back to looking out it.

"Okay, come on," she whispered.

She took him down the hallways, clearly knowing where she was going.

The probably was they must have realized that Steve had gotten out because there were shouts in Korean he didn't quite understand and then there were men running around in a search sort of pattern.

They were in trouble.

He pulled them into the shadows of one corridor just as he saw the muzzle of a rifle poke through the doorway. Rowan shrugged his grip off of her and stepped into the way.

She made a big show of gasping. "Geeze! You scared me!" she said and the man began to hurriedly apologize.

Starting with lowering the gun. Steve shoved her aside and decked the man. The two wrestled, Steve got him into a choke hold and then held him there until he lost consciousness. He dropped the man and then he took the gun from him.

"Okay, shoving me was uncalled for," she snapped and stepped over the now unconscious man. "Come on, ladder's this way."

The rest of the way was uneventful. They got to that ladder without a single hiccup. They climbed up and out, she got them to a door that she opened without a care in the world.

They were clearly in different scenarios, and it showed, because if they had run into Steve it wouldn't have ended the same. The one man they had run into had been horrified to find himself pointing a gun at her.

So, they too knew how much Wo Fat valued her.

She took a step out into the open, despite Steve trying to hold her back and the rest of the men that had been with Wo Fat all appeared. Semi-circling the two of them, guns drawn and pointed in their directions.

"Whoa!" Rowan cried, her hands going up. He saw the fear on their faces. The worry. But for some reason, unlike the other man, they didn't lower their guns. And even Rowan noticed that. "Uhm… rude… you're not supposed to be pointing your guns at me."

They were shifting, they were clearly uncomfortable but still they didn't lower their weapons.

"Okay, look, Wo said I could take him for a walk, so I am," she said. "Can you get out of my way?"

Except they didn't move.

"Well, isn't this interesting?"

Both Steve and Rowan turned to find Wo Fat standing off to the side. He was still in all black, he had ditched the holsters somewhere, and he was glaring at them, clearly not impressed by this turn of events.

"Uh… hi Wo… uhm… I can… uh… it's not…"

"It seems to me that you've shown me where your loyalty really lies," he growled. Rowan winced.

"Stop… I made her…" he started but he was ignored. Wo Fat nodded to someone behind him, and a gun was brought down on the back of his head again.

The last he saw of Rowan was Wo Fat dragging her away. And for the first time he was actually worried the man might hurt her.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

The world came to him in flashes.

HE was vaguely aware when they put him in the back of the truck. When his hands were tied up again. He was vaguely aware of them packing things around him, though he wasn't sure what they were.

He was fully aware when they dropped another body beside him, one that was immobile, that he assumed was Jenna Kaye's body. Though why Wo Fat didn't just leave her made no sense to him.

"You can have her… since you seem to what her so bad," Wo Fat had said and then left.

He became a little more conscious when the truck started moving and the body beside him started to groan.

That wasn't Jenna.

It took all his will power to force his eyes open, to really focus on who was in front of him and to begin with he didn't quite recognize her.

But it was Rowan.

She had been badly beaten, her face was all puffy, blood was leaking out of her mouth and she was tied up just like him.

He reached out for her, tried to pull her close to him. He wasn't strong enough to tug her to him, but he gripped the fabric of her shirt, just above her shoulder and help onto her tight.

"What happened, Ro?" he whispered, but the girl couldn't answer him. He wasn't even certain if she was awake.

He struggled to move closer to her, to try and nestle her into his side so she could feel some kind of safe even though both of them were horrible screwed.

It was clear what happened.

She had betrayed Wo Fat and he had showed her exactly what he really was. He had beaten her for helping him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry he hurt you because of me."

Rowan's head lolled from side to side with the movement of the truck, eventually coming to rest against his chin.

"Please…" he heard her whisper. "Please don't leave me…"

"No, no I won't, I won't…"

The pain came to take him again, it made the world dark and his mind foggy. But the world still came at him in flashes of light and sound.

Like the light that would flash against his face, the whimpers that escaped Rowan's lips, the roll of the truck that would jolt him awake.

Like when he'd lose his grip on Rowan and grope to find her again.

Like the explosion, and the truck stopped so quickly that Rowan's head knocked into his. There was a long stretch of silence where Steve managed to doze before the gunshots peppered the air and all of a sudden, he was awake again.

The man that had been in the back with them was no longer there, and Steve spent a great deal of time forcing himself into a sitting position, then dragging Rowan onto his lap.

Now that he was a little more aware he could see the true damage done to her. And the long road of healing she'd have ahead.

He wanted to be mad at her, he wanted to say that she deserved it for giving Wo Fat the plan that brought him into this situation, for thinking that man loved her enough to marry her and that it meant something to him. But she had literally put her life on the line to save him and she didn't have to do that.

The gunshots eventually died down and Steve was left with the oppressive silence. He didn't know what was happening, he didn't know if this was the end, but he knew if Wo Fat came back in, he was going to barter, not for his life, but for Rowans.

The man clearly cared about her in some capacity, before this happened. Yes, she had betrayed him, but he was going to kill Steve anyway. That would nullify the problem, right? Rowan would go back to being loyal to him when Steve was no longer there to tempt her away.

The canvas flap at the back of the truck fluttered up and then there was a shout of: "Hey, it's Steve," and then Steve was looking up in surprise.

Cause that sounded like Danny.

"I got Steve! He's alive!"

Steve watched as Danny clamoured up into that truck, sure he was hallucinating, but then Danny cut his hands loose and he knew that he wasn't.

"Where's Wo Fat?" Steve asked, cause now that he had his friends here, and they had the upper hand, he wanted to beat the ever-living shit out of that smug asshole.

But Danny shot him a glare. "Just shut up, would you?" he snapped, and then his eyes fell on who was in Steve's lap. "Holy shit is that… what happened to her?"

"She tried to help me," Steve said because that part was true. "And he punished her for it."

Danny stared at her and then back to Steve, Steve knew right away what Danny was going to suggest.

"She's coming with us," he said before Danny could tell him to leave her. "Please, I owe her… and I promised… please… help me…"

Danny sighed. "Guys, I'm going to need some help in here."

The flap opened up again and this time it was Joe White and Chin in the blinding light at the end of the truck. Chin hopped up next to join them, taking Rowan from Steve.

He needed help walking, cause he was so sore, he wouldn't have been able to carry her, even if he wanted to. So he was forced to let Danny hand Rowan off to Chin.

Steve let his friends lead him through the jungle, he let Chin carry Rowan the whole way back to the helicopter, he let Joe White and Danny support him as he walked. He kept throwing glances over his shoulder, not because he was expecting Wo Fat to be following him but because he wanted to keep his eyes on Rowan.

And unbeknownst to them someone else wanted to keep eyes on her too. Hidden in the jungle two men watched as the Seals and Five-0 team helped Steve back into the chopper, had watched them load up, had watched Steve put Rowan back in his lap where she belonged, letting her nestle into him. Then they watched as that Chopper took to the sky, taking them both away.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

They were to be checked out by doctors before they were allowed back on the plane that would take them back to Hawaii.

Steve had gotten the green light an hour ago, but it was Rowan he was waiting on.

They hadn't cleared her yet.

Too many hits the head. She had a few hairline fractures under her left eye, and a terrible concussion.

Poor girl. Wo Fat had said she was prone to them.

He had relayed the story, rather stupidly, to those who had wanted it and now they were advocating leaving her there.

Well Danny was mostly advocating. Everyone else said it was up to him, only Danny had been brave enough to basically shout: "Are all of you crazy? This was her plan! Tell him to leave her traitorous ass at here! Wo Fat or her stupid brothers can come get her."

But Steve didn't want to leave her.

He didn't want to because he had promised he wouldn't leave her.

And he wanted to know what happened to her. How she had ended up in that back of the truck with him as badly beaten as he had been. He just needed her to be coherent enough to talk to him.

So he was sitting by her bedside waiting for her to wake up.

It took another 24 hours.

Everyone was getting antsy at this point, everyone wanted to be heading home to Oahu, but Steve wasn't going to leave without Rowan.

He just wasn't.

So when she woke up he was on her.

Not on her, on her, but hovering over her, a hand to her shoulder trying to guide her into the land of the living.

Her foggy blue eyes focused in on him and a sort of smile donned her lips.

"Did you escape?" he nodded to her and a relieved sort of sigh escaped her lips. "Good, good."

"I got you out too," he whispered and her eyes opened again, confusion shining brightly in them.

"You did? But… I don't deserve it…"

"You tried to save my life, Ro," he reminded her and she pouted up at him.

"I had to. It was my fault you were in that situation."

"He punished you, didn't he? He punished you for trying to help me."

Rowan's chin began to wobble as tears welled up in her eyes. He let go of her shoulder and began to pet her hair the same way Wo Fat used to, to try and comfort her.

"It's okay, I've got you now," he whispered and a single solitary tear trailed down her red and swollen cheek. He lightly used his thumb to brush away the tear. He didn't want to hurt her, but he was afraid he might no matter how soft the gesture was.

She flinched but showed no other sign of pain.

"He… he got mad. He said… he called me no better than a bitch in heat and… and… he… he said I was no good to him anymore and that… I need to be punished… and… he said since I liked you so much I could die with you too… and he's… he's never been that mad at me before… he's never… he's never going to forgive me… and… and…"

"No, Ro, no… it's okay…"

"It's not!" she cried, her tears freely streaming down her face. He tried to help her wipe them away but she swatted his hands away from her. "I don't have my brothers, I don't have him, I don't have anyone! I don't have anyone or anywhere to go and… I just… I don't know what I'm going to do…"

"You do, you do have someone, you have me," he said right away because it was true, why deny it? He couldn't resist, and she was once again a damsel in distress who needed him to rescue her. "You have me, and you're coming home, with me, okay? Okay?"

Ro sniffed heavily and blinked her eyes at him. "No, I'm not. That's stupid. You can't possibly trust me after everything that happened…"

"He was manipulating you, Ro. I know that. And now you know it too."

"But everyone's going to hate me."

Steve gently framed her face with his hands so she'd look at him. "I don't hate you," he told her. "I don't hate you, and I'm going to take care of you. So… if you have no where to go, and no one else, you can stay with me, okay?"

Rowan sniffed again. "You sure?"

"Positive," he whispered.

"Okay," she whispered breathily, lounging back into her pillows, her eyelids getting heavy again. "Thank you."

Steve watched her drift off back to sleep, taking a step back from her.

His friends weren't going to like this, but he couldn't help but smile.

Steve had gotten what he wanted.

He had gotten Rowan back.