One Thing

AvalonReeseFanFic

A/N: Hello my wonderful readers! It's been so long! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get this chapter up, I had another touch of writer's block and I was up north visiting family. Was too busy babysitting my niece to write! But I hope you guys enjoy the chapter! Let me know what you think!

Chapter 30

"Why hasn't she untied us?" John asked, clearly done with this whole situation.

All of the family secrets were out, they were all angry, and sore, and pissed off that they were still tied to these damn chairs.

That question, however, was directed at Wo Fat.

Only because, whenever John or Steve asked, how Doris could have done this to them, she just kept repeating that she thought she was doing what was best to protect them from Wo Fat.

"She's not going to let us out, until she's certain there will be no fighting, bloodshed, or yelling in her general direction."

Everyone nodded. They all knew that there was no way they were getting out any time soon because Rowan knew very well that they would probably still get in some sort of physical altercation, and if they didn't do that they were going to yell at her.

"This is all your fault," John growled and Wo Fat turned an incredulous glare onto him.

"My fault? How did you figure?"

"If you had just let it alone…"

"Let it alone? You mean my father's murder?!" Wo Fat cried. "Would you have let it go? I'm thinking not because you spent twenty fucking years trying to figure out hers. So don't you fucking preach to me about letting things lie when you were incapable!"

John held his gaze, but said nothing else because Wo Fat very much had a point.

"AND! If we're going to the route of the problem, maybe Doris shouldn't have killed my father, or mother, or whatever she did. And she shouldn't have raised me. And then she probably shouldn't' have married you if she was that incapable of living a normal life. And it wasn't my idea to blow her up, fake or otherwise, so you can look at her for that one."

Doris wasn't going to take that lying down though. "Oh, and you're saying you wouldn't have gone after my family if you had found them?" she asked. "You were killing everyone who stood in your way. I had to do what I thought would keep them safe…"

"Or, you know what, you could have just told me the truth. You could have told me about my dad, about my mom, and everything would have been fine…"

"Fine?" she echoed. "Fine? You would have killed me on the spot, the only reason you didn't tonight it because you're tied up!"

Wo Fat's eyes narrowed but just like when he called out John, he didn't say anything. Probably because she had a point.

"Can we stop?" Steve found himself growling. They all turned to him. "Rowan not going to let us go until she thinks we're not going to fight each other, so can we just… stop? Please?"

The truth was Steve was tired.

He was tired of being surrounded by liars. He was tired of loving someone who did things like this to him. He was tired of always being second best to Wo Fat.

He then turned a dark glare onto Wo Fat. "And apparently not until she thinks you're not going to yell at her. So could you ham up the forgiveness."

Wo Fat opened his mouth, no doubt to tell him that it wouldn't work but Steve ignored him. He simply called for Rowan again.

That time when she came out of the kitchen she wasn't alone. The man in the rabbit mask had come out with her, and he had finally taken off his mask.

That man was nondescript. He was taller than Rowan, taller than Wo Fat too. He was still in that white tee-shirt with the leather jacket and black jeans out fit. His hair was black, his eyes were a honeyed brown, and he was clearly of some kind of Latin descent.

He was wiry, but Steve knew from all he had heard about this man that he was a scrappy fighter.

"What's up Steve?" she asked as if she hadn't had everyone tied to a chair. As if she hadn't threatened to torture them all. As if she hadn't betrayed him again and broken his trust and heart. AGAIN.

"We're all good now, untie us now please."

Rowan looked at each and every one of them before saying: "Mmm… no. I could hear you guys arguing from the kitchen." And then she pointed to Wo Fat. "And he's going to throttle me the second I untie him. I can see it in his eyes."

They all groaned and Steve found himself scowling at Wo Fat. "I told you to act forgiving! God, why did I even bother asking, you clearly couldn't ever be capable of something so innocent…"

"I tried to tell you, but she's the only one who can read my facial expressions. Or my eyes. I never thought I had expressionate eyes, but apparently I do."

Rowan nodded animatedly. "It's true. He does. Like right now, his eyes are on fire. So I know, if I let him go he's going to shake me… and I'd like to not get shaken any time soon."

"So you're telling me that this man shakes you… and you… you still love him? Really?" Steve asked.

Rowan seemed to falter. "I mean… yeah. I know he hates that I do, but I do…"

Wo Fat was just sitting there, shaking his head as she talked to him. Steve just couldn't believe what he was hearing.

He had literally given Rowan everything. His heart, his home, a place in his life and she still loved Wo Fat? Really?

"Oh for the love of god," Doris cried. "Why does my son think you two are in a romantic relationship?"

Steve stared at her for a moment. "What do you mean? Have you seen the two of them together?"

"Yes, Steven, I have," Doris said. "But I also happen to know that they're not romantic. He's never been sexually or romantically interested her. I'm really confused as to why he told you he was."

Wo Fat rolled his eyes. "He misunderstood a few things I said, we ran with it."

"What the hell is happening right now?!" Steve cried. "Will someone just tell me please!"

"You still haven't figured it out?" Wo Fat asked him and Steve turned his eyes from his mother, to Rowan and then back to Wo Fat. "She's my sister. I'm the scary older brother. And that one—" he then gestured to the rabbit mask man with a nod of the head. "He's scary older brother number two. Okay. I'm the Master, she's my sister. How in the hell did you not put that together before now?"

Steve blinked his eyes. She… she was his sister. All this time he thought they were together but she his sister. How had he not figured it out before that moment? How had he not… wow she was right, he really was stupid.

"You're… his… his sister?" Steve asked her and Rowan nodded.

"Why the hell did you tell me you two were dating?" Steve thundered, his question pointed at Wo Fat who was the reason why he had been confused in the first place. "Or Married for that matter?"

"I didn't tell you anything, you assumed, I just didn't correct you."

Con on the other hand said: "It's a weird thing he does, because he thinks it's protecting her, but it's not. And it's gross."

"I'm not actually dating her!" Wo Fat snapped.

"Yes, but a lot of your associates think you are, and that's weird," Con repeated and Wo just rolled his eyes.

"As opposed to you, who calls her mami which is full of sexual connotation?"

"You call her baby girl!"

"I didn't know that was sexual I just thought it was cute nickname!"

"Yeah for a girlfriend!"

"BOYS!" Rowan shouted and both turned to her. "Is this really the time?"

"No I suppose it's not," Wo Fat muttered.

She then turned back to Steve. "Do you have any questions you want to ask me? Now that you know that is?"

Steve had a lot of questions. There were so many questions he wanted to asked, but what he really wanted was for her to untie him.

"Yes," he answered truthfully. "But I want to be untied first."

"See, I want to do that, but I don't know if I can trust you guys yet…"

Steve tried to stifle that groan and failed miserably. "Rowan…" he started and then stopped. He took a very deep breath before saying: "This has been a really hard day… on all of us, and I really, really need you to be the normal Ro, not the sociopath he turns you into."

"No, she's just a sociopath," Wo Fat said but Steve ignored him.

"Can you just untie me so we can talk?"

"Talk about what?" Wo Fat cried. "What could you possibly want to talk to my sister about?"

"I don't know. How she met you? How you became the master. How it's really weird that you're her brother but you kept abandoning her, or how you're clearly not related at all. Or how she knew about any of the things she said today when she fucking shouldn't have?"

"Easy. Five years ago she fell out of the sky. The Master is my code name in an app I had programmed to take care of her. I did not abandon her, she got kidnapped… and then she kept deciding to stay with you, and yes, fine. She might not be related to me, but I'm all the family she has and I mean… you've lived with her. She needs someone on top of her at all time."

Steve took that all in. "Okay… we're going to talk about the app later. What about the last one? How does she have all this knowledge? Hmm?"

"Oh, she's psychic."

Steve found himself staring at Wo Fat.

She… she was what now?

"I'm sorry… what?"

"Psychic, she's psychic," he repeated, and judging by the look on his face, he believed it too. "I've told you this before, McGarrett."

"Yea but… I thought you were just lying to me."

"Well I wasn't," Wo Fat said and Steve rolled his eyes. Not fair, All Wo Fat ever did was lie to him. How the hell was he supposed to be able tot tell when the man wasn't lying to him?

Steve turned back to Rowan. "Can you please, please, baby, please, just untie me."

She was faltering, finally. Her eyes kept glancing to Wo Fat who was scowling at her and then to him.

"Do you promise not to hurt him?"

All Steve wanted to do was take a hold of her and drag her upstairs.

He wanted to shake her over and over.

But he also wanted to hold her to his chest and never let her go.

Too bad he was just too fucking angry with her. Honestly, what was she thinking? Doing this to him.

Well if he managed to get her a lone before she left this house, he'd get to ask her.

"Yes, I promise. Now let me go."

Wo Fat watched as she moved towards him, clearly not impressed with her. "Really Ro? You're gonna untie him… really? First? Over me? Oh my god, so grounded. When I get out of this duct tape you are grounded, young lady, do you hear me?"

She did hear him, because Steve had to watch her wince at each and every word. She really had gone against Wo Fat for this.

He was starting to see that Wo Fat let her get away with a lot. He wasn't going to let her get away with this though.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve was freed first, but only for a few minutes.

He pulled Rowan away right away, but no sooner did they get into the kitchen did he hear the sound of the others being freed.

Con must have been letting them out.

So he figured the kitchen would not be the most private, the backyard would have to do. Taking her hand he led her out onto the lanai and then he turned back to her.

She wasn't smiling and neither was he.

She was the first to crack. "Okay… so… probably not the best way to go about it but…"

"You're his fucking sister?!"

Rowan winced.

"Uh… yeah… kinda…"

"Kinda?! The man… the man calls you his sister… willingly!"

Rowan winced again. "Uh… yeah… that took a while…"

"Jesus Christ, Rowan."

"Okay, look I'm sorry. I just… I don't tell people I'm his sister. They use me against him and that's never good and I really didn't want him to do his usual thing with you."

"Usual thing?"

"Everyone who's ransomed me to him has died, Steven. In unimaginably painful ways."

Oh my god.

"Rowan… how… how did this happen?" he asked and when she opened her mouth he added: "And don't lie to me this time."

Rowan sighed and rolled her eyes. "Ugh fine. Fine, but you're not allowed to get mad at me."

He was already mad at her.

Whatever she said next was either going to calm him down a bit or make it worse.

He gestured for her to continue and she did just that.

"I'm not from here."

"Yes, Rowan I know. But the thing is that no one can tell me where you came from. You showed up five years ago, out of the blue, attached to him."

Rowan nodded. "I fell three years before that," she whispered and his heart stopped.

"Fell? Wo had mentioned you fell out of the sky… but I thought… I thought he was… What were you in? A plane obviously?"

"Nope fell out of an alternate reality and into this one."

Steve's face fell. She what?

"I landed right beside Wo Fat, in the water I mean. He didn't want to take me in, he actually planned to kill me, but I grew on him and he kept me… then you know the powers started to come in and he helped with that too."

"Powers? Rowan…"

"Yep, I can teleport, and uhm… I can pull object and… well I could show you if you want…"

Steve glared at her. Wow, so… she just thought he'd believe it then? Magic powers and all that.

"Okay, I get it. You're not going to tell me. The lie is not appreciated or necessary…"

"Steven, I'm not lying."

"Alternate realities? Powers? Do you think I'm stupid?"

"But… I'm not… I'm not lying… honestly. I can show you… well… maybe not, they don't really work all that well around you."

Steve sighed. "Right. Rowan. This… this isn't working. I think… I think we need to end things here."

"You mean the conversation or….?"

"I mean you and me," he said. "After this… after what I just found out… I can't… I just can't keep doing this, you know? I can't keep making excuses for your morally grey behaviour and all your lies."

Rowan's eyebrows shot up her forehead. "You're breaking up with me? After I solved all your cold cases? After finding your mother and proving she was Shelburne?"

"Yes!" Steve cried. "You think tying your boyfriend to a chair is something a girlfriend should do?"

"Well… if it's your kink…"

"It is not my kink!" He cried. "Rowan, you had your bodyguard knock me out and then you threatened to torture us…"

"I wouldn't have actually tortured you," she whispered.

"I obviously can't trust you, Rowan. And if I can't trust you we can't be together. So… I'll… I'll let you leave with him. I won't arrest you, or your brother… brothers? Maybe, is the second one a brother?" "—Yes." "Fine, well you guys can leave. But I swear Rowan, if I catch you on this island again, I will arrest you guys so fucking fast…"

Rowan nodded. "Well, so much for loving me, huh?"

Steve couldn't handle it anymore. His heart couldn't take all this jerking around. But he also couldn't look at her when she looked so sad. So she left her there. Alone in his back yard.

Wishing to God that he didn't love her.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

When Steve got back into the house, everyone was free, just like he thought they'd be. And it was clear everyone was surprised that he had come in alone.

Wo Fat was standing with the other man, the man that usually wore the rabbit mask, and whom Rowan always called Con. Both of them were staring at him with narrowed eyes of distrust.

Wo Fat eyed him up and down before carefully crossing through the circle of chairs they had all just been liberated from. He stood in front of him, and then mirrored Steve's position. Arms crossed over his chest, and glaring.

Rowan came in at that point, her eyes rimmed red. She glanced to Wo and then to Steve and whispered: "I want to go home, please."

If Steve hadn't study Wo Fat the way he did, he wouldn't have noticed the concern that swept his features. But he had, so he did.

"Yes, we can go home," he said to her. He reached out to pinch her chin, but she shied away from his touch. The gesture made him frown but he didn't comment on it. "Why don't you go stand with Con, I'll be there shortly."

She walked away, crossing to the door where Con was waiting. The man didn't reach out for her, but his eyes followed her every move. He seemed to start whispering to her, which probably wasn't good.

He had just broken up with her after all.

The two men probably weren't going to like that at all.

Once she was safely over with Con, Wo Fat turned back to him.

"Look… uhm…" Steve really stared at him. For the first time Wo Fat looked… uncomfortable. Nervous even. "Don't… don't… I mean she's not me. You know that right?"

He knew.

He knew what Steve had done and his first thought wasn't to harm him. Interesting.

Steve's eyes narrowed at him. He had never heard Wo Fat sound so… unsure. He had never been at a loss for words ever, in any of the times he had ever had to interact with him. And if he was, he just didn't talk.

"Well, I don't know… she put together a pretty nice set up today… just like you would…"

"What this?" Wo Fat asked indicating to the chairs they had all just been freed from. "You think this would have been something I'd've done? Come on now, we both know if I had been in charge of this there would have been so much more violence."

That was true.

He glanced over to where Rowan was standing with Con, purposely not looking in their direction. Con was though, and oh boy did he not look pleased.

"I just want you to know that never, at any point at all, did I want her here in this house with you," Wo Fat said. "She always came her of her own free will… and no matter how much I asked, or begged, she always wanted to stay here."

Okay, and so what?

Steve cocked an eyebrow at him and Wo Fat continued. "If I had to guess, I'd say that she probably had real feelings for you and… I know you have them for her."

"Those are gone now."

Wo Fat took that in with a nod. "I had a feeling. I had told her that would happen," he whispered. "I would just hate to see you throw that all away simply because she's my sister."

Except that wasn't the whole problem, now was it? No it was everything else that had happened too. But the sister part was a big part of the reasoning, just below all the lies.

"No, it's just cause I'll never be able to trust her."

Wo Fat nodded. "That's fair."

"I mean, let's be honest here, it'll be hard for you, but let's try," Steve snapped and while Wo Fat rolled his eyes, he did nod. "She's never going to cut you out of her life, and it wouldn't be fair of me to ask her to do that. Especially since it wouldn't fix the fact that all she's done since I met her was lie to me."

"Well, to be fair, when people find out who she is, either to the Master or just to me, they use her to get to me. And then, of course, we didn't want you to find out I was the Master, and telling you that she was my sister would prove that I was the Master so… well… I get why you're angry, but you also have to see why she did it…"

"No, I don't."

"Alright fine, you don't, I just wish you would."

"Oh, do you?" Steve asked, because he didn't believe it for a second.

"No, I don't. But I want her to be happy. Even if that means seeing her with you."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that, I won't be changing my mind."

Wo Fat sighed. "Alright, if you're sure."

"The girl was talking about alternate realities and magic powers, of course I'm not changing my mind!"

Now that meant something to Wo Fat. His eyes widened in surprise. Steve narrowed his eyes at him, why was he surprised by that.

"She… she told you about that?"

Steve scoffed. "Oh fuck off! That is not true!"

Wo Fat's eyes narrowed in a challenging matter. "McGarrett… you had me pinned at several times, and I still got away. Every wondered how?"

"I… I mean…"

"She can open a door to anywhere she's been, or to anyone she cares about. She can also just yank me across space so there's that," he snapped. "Also, I told you she was psychic. It's cause she watched our TV show back in her reality. Like a lot. Mentioned a celebrity crush on the guy who played you. Which is probably why she keeps coming back for you. She says that it isn't it, but I don't believe her. Oh maybe I just don't want her feelings for you to be true. Doesn't really matter now though, does it? OH! And the plane! You asked how she downed it? Well her powers fuck with electronics."

Steve just stared at him.

Really?

Wo Fat really thought he'd believe that?

Like he was stupid or something?

Alternate realities and magic powers.

Both Rowan and Wo Fat really thought he'd fall for that? Really.

Steve always knew that Wo Fat thought very little of him, but this was ridiculous.

It was also a little ridiculous that the two of them were trying to sell that pack of garbage.

"Get the fuck out of my house. If you really think I'm that damn stupid, just get out."

Wo Fat stared at him for a moment and then nodded. "Well, I tried," he said and then turned back to he two siblings waiting for him. "Alright, let's go."

"Let's go?" Con echoed.

"Yes, we're leaving, let's go."

"What do you mean we're leaving? He just told her he doesn't love her anymore…" "—Yes, I know…" "…Well, it's a lie." "—Yes, I know…"

"Feelings change," Steve cried and Con turned on him.

"Dude, I watched you, almost a year a go, in a dark hospital room, as you told her you loved her. You were so willing to keep her away from Wo Fat, so desperate to have her to yourself that you were willing to break her out of custody to do it!"

Steve found himself flushing. He had seen that? He… he had been there when Steve had had that conversation?

And he had still taken Rowan away from him?

Rowan turned to Con and then turned hopeful eyes to Steve. Oh boy, he really didn't want her getting the wrong idea after all that had happened.

"I only wanted to get at him," Steve said gesturing to Wo Fat. "I thought I'd stick it to him but stealing his wife or girlfriend or whatever."

At that Rowan actually recoiled, like he had hit her. Her eyes began to water, and Steve began to falter. If she started crying, he'd crack, he knew.

But instead she just whirled around and fled through the front door, slamming it behind her. Everyone sort of stood there watching the closed door, and then everyone slowly turned back to him.

Both Doris and John looked horrified. But both Con and Wo Fat were glaring at him. Wo in his usual way, but Con with nostrils flared and his eyes were burning in his direction.

"Next time I see you, don't be surprised if you wind up shot," Con growled before storming out after Rowan.

As soon as they were gone, Wo Fat turned back to Steve. "Seems I'm not the only one if the family who inherited Doris' cruelty."

Now that.

That hurt.

It hurt him a lot.

But he stood there and let the man leave knowing that Rowan was going with him and taking his heart with her.

He'd have to get over her. Maybe this would give him the chance.