One Thing

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Well hello there my wonderful readers! So we have another late and very long chapter. 15 pages, guys! This particular story is going to have 40+ chapters, but not over 50 hopefully, but it's going to have a long of pages! This chapter has a lot of cute moments in it, and a lot of Rory being obnoxious and it ends kind of sadly. But don't you worry, it's going to all be explained next chapter! As always don't forget to leave a review, or drop a fav or a follow and I'll see you guys next week!

Chapter 9

Steve had left work in a huff.

His dad had called.

Rory was gone.

Again.

That was the hard part of dealing with Rory. Though he adored having her around, though she gave him butterflies and made him happy, most of the time she was scaring him.

Like… she could just up and vanish. Literally. Once second she'd be in her room the next she'd be across town and he wouldn't know how she had done it.

She kept stealing cars. Whether it be his Silverado, his dad's Marquis or Danny's Camaro, hell she stole Chin's Harley at one point. And she never went anywhere interesting.

He found her in the weirdest places.

Like Honolulu harbour. A residential home in North Shore. In the Four Season lobby up in Ko Olina. At one point he found her wandering around the North Bay Conservation area.

And she could never tell him why she was at those places, or what she was looking for.

The times she went missing and it was easy to find her was because he knew where she was going. She'd ask him to go somewhere, say to get food or to buy herself things, he'd say no, and then she'd vanish.

She was always where she said she wanted to be. Either getting food or shopping. Which you know, was annoying because she always did it with his wallet. Or his dad's. Or one time with Kono's.

Steve still couldn't figure out how that damn girl was so good at pickpocketing, it was like he couldn't feel her hands on him at all.

That wasn't normal.

But though she annoyed him, though he couldn't keep her still there were still those moments where those things ceased to bother him.

Like in the mornings.

The two of them were still sharing his room and his bed. Granted she was usually asleep when he came home, as his cases kept him out all hours of the day and night, but there was something about slumping into his bed knowing she was beside him that seemed to soothe him of the stressors of the day. Even if there was that pillow wall between them.

But waking up to her in his bed, her little face across from him, had quickly become the best part of his day.

He still couldn't wake her up without her lashing out and hitting him so he had gotten into the habit of lobbing small pillows at her from a distance until she did wake up.

He had broken two frames and an alarm clock before he decided to clear that side table off entirely.

Then there was the baking. She baked for them all the time. That was her speciality. Breakfast and desserts.

Steve had put on weight with all the pancakes and cupcakes and cookies she had made for him.

He also hadn't taken Catherine out since Rory had moved into his place. And she had noticed. He just didn't care. Rory had become his focus, and he didn't feel comfortable bringing Catherine around her. Not that he didn't trust her, but that, somehow, it felt wrong. Like he was hurting them by having them around each other.

And that was mostly because he had conflicting feelings about Rory and he didn't think it was fair to lead Catherine on until he sorted those feelings out. So he had been distant.

And those feelings he had for her were ridiculous conflicting.

Half the time he wanted to strangle her, the other half he wanted to kiss her. He often day dreamed about throwing her up against a wall, and depending on what was going on, he either wanted to throttle her or kiss her. Though the kissing daydreams was more frequent than the throttling one.

Even when he was mad at her he wanted to kiss her. That he had managed to refrain from doing so the two and a half weeks she had been living with him and his dad, was a miracle.

But she had this way of smiling at him that would just light him up like the fourth of July. Or so Danny was keen on telling him. He wasn't sure if it lit him up, but he did get this warm and fuzzy feeling whenever he was directly responsible for that happy grin of hers.

Today however.

He was fucking livid.

He slammed the front door shut and his dad came out of the kitchen drying his hands, looking almost surprised that he was there.

"Right, what did she say before she disappeared?" Steve asked.

"Uh… Steve…"

"No, she always talks about going somewhere before she vanishes. Unless she's doing that searching thing again," Steve continued ignoring his dad. "Did she steal your car?"

"Steve…"

"No?" he asked. "One of our neighbours?"

"No."

"No? What she just took the bus? We both know she's not on foot, because she doesn't run unless she's being chased," he said.

He was quoting her word for word. He thought it might be good for her to exercise with him. But according to her the ocean hated her so she did all her swimming in pools where it was safe, and she didn't run because, well, apparently she didn't think it was necessary unless her life was in danger.

God forbid her life actually be in danger.

"She's upstairs," his father finally told him and Steve frowned.

"I'm sorry… she's upstairs?"

"Yep."

"You literally called me 15 minutes ago to tell me she was missing."

"Yes, she was. But she came back. Maybe two minutes after you hung up," he told him. "And she took the Marquis."

Steve shook his head. "How long was she gone before you noticed?"

"I don't know."

"How… how did you not notice? You didn't hear the Marquis start up?"

"No."

"How?"

"Because she slipped something in my coffee," his dad said plainly and calmly. "By the time I came to she was gone. She very kindly put a pillow under my head and covered me in a blanket before heading out."

She had drugged his dad. What the… what the hell was wrong with this girl?

Without saying anything else he stormed up the stairs taking them two at a time. He stormed into the room he had been sharing with Rory and bore down on her.

He stopped just at the foot of the bed, that she was sitting in the middle of surrounded by bags. She looked up when he came in and even though he was glaring at her she was smiling widely at him.

"Oh hello! Are you done with your case early?" she asked. "Can we go to Rainbows for breakfast food?"

Rory had an obsession with breakfast food. It was her favourite meal and she could eat it at any point of time in the day.

"No!" he snapped. "You wanna tell me what you did today?"

Rory looked around at all the different paper bags and then turned those innocent blue eyes up to him and said: "Well me and your dad went shopping."

"Oh you and my dad?" he echoed. "You sure? You sure it was you and my dad? You sure you didn't go by yourself because my dad was passed out in the fucking living room?"

The innocence look melted off of her, in fact she basically deflated. But she showed not a single shred of guilt over what she had done.

"Aw, John snitched? I thought he liked me more than that."

Snitched? Snitched? Seriously? That… that was her response to what she had done?

"You drugged my father!" he thundered and she just stared at him.

"Well yeah… how else was I going to sneak out?"

Steve was floored. Absolutely floored. No, she had not just said that to him. Did she really just attempt to justify drugging his father?

"I put a pillow under his head and put a blanket on him before I left."

Oh yeah. Like that made it better.

Steve glared at her and then really focused on all the bags that surrounded her and realized that she had gone shopping at very expensive brand name stores.

"What… what did you…"

"Oh, my stuff?" she asked. "Well, it's mostly skin care essentials and make up from Sephora." See that was a problem because she had taken both Steve and John in there at the beginning and it was too expensive to warrant them spending that on her. "And I bought some comfy clothes for me and one really, really, nice dress that I think you might like on me…"

"I told you Sephora was too expensive," he said. "How did you… did you steal all of this?"

"I've got bags Steven I obviously didn't steal," she started but when he glared at her she wince and said: "Most of this stuff… right, maybe about fifty, fifty." Steve continued to glare. "Fine sixty, forty."

"How did you pay for the forty percent you did pay for?" he asked because he knew better than to assume it was sixty percent paid for and forty percent stolen. It was very clearly the other way around.

She put a hand into her bra and came out with a card. One he recognized immediately.

"I used your credit card."

He hadn't even noticed it missing. God fucking damn it.

"Are you kidding me? Seriously? My credit card?" he asked. She offered it out to him and he snatched it away from her.

But as he did, he noticed a bill on the bed. A bill for over two thousand dollars.

"Two thousand dollars… at one shop?!" he thundered and when he turned his glare up to Rory again, she was wincing.

She understood right away what was going to happen because she launched herself out of the bed. Not that she really had far to go because he was blocking the door. She tried to duck him, but he got a hold of her and somehow in the scuffle she ended up in his arms.

She tried to twist out of his grip but he ended up pinning her against the wall.

Now he had a problem.

He had a problem because this was a position of temptation. He was living out his daydreams and he still wasn't sure which version he was going to go for.

On the one hand he wanted to throttle her. On the other he really wanted to kiss her. He hadn't made up his mind on which one he was going to do yet.

Aw, that was a lie. He wanted to kiss her.

He could feel every inch of her against him. She had her hands against his chest which meant she could feel every beat of his quickened heart. She could probably feel every hardened inch of him too. He had his hands on her waist, holding her to him as he leaned in purposely so he could keep her against him.

He was looking into those dazzling blue eyes of hers, sparkling the ocean surf in the morning light. Those beautiful pink lips were turned up to him. It would take nothing to kiss her. Literally nothing at all.

And by god did he want to kiss her.

He really, really, wanted to kiss her.

"You can kiss me if you want Steven," she whispered. Her soft voice breaking the absolute concertation he had been lost in.

He found himself letting out a nervous chuckle. How… how could she read him that well? Was he that transparent?

"You're uh… you're the one who does all the kissing…"

"That's before I found out you had a girlfriend," she said and his heart flexed in his chest, this painful stuttering stretching. The urge to remind her that he did not have a girlfriend was heavy on his tongue. "I make it a habit of not making the first move on men who are taken. But if you want to be that person, best believe I won't stop you."

That was some fucked up shit. She won't willingly make a move but she'll willingly participate? Her morals were all sorts of skewed. Then again she was the sister of major criminals, her morals had to be questionable to have them in her life with no problem.

But still he found himself whispering: "I don't have a girlfriend. We're not official."

Rory just smiled, that soft seductive smile of hers that always managed to jerk at his heart strings, would spark up that hot and heady desire he was barely containing under his skin.

"Well… then what's stopping you?"

Yes, what was stopping him?

The fact that he didn't want to get attached to a girl whose brothers were top of the line dangerous criminals. A girl who was probably going to end up going to jail even if he got her to turn state on her brothers, wasn't sure how that was going to work seeing as she didn't want to do it to Wo Fat who had already tried to kill her.

OR maybe it was because she reckless, and wild, and hard to control. Maybe it was because he knew he'd never be able to manage her, to keep her from doing illegal things.

But did he care? His heart sure as hell didn't but his head had always had a strong lead on his heart. It very rarely won out against his common sense and rationality.

And then he kissed her.

Right away, just having her lips on his, relief flooded his system. That burn that had taken over washed away with a simple groan from him.

Her arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers combed through his hair, while his arms wrapped around her waist so he could press the length of her against his chest.

He was reminded again that this girl just fit to him. Perfectly. Like she was made for him.

And it was just like she knew how he liked to be kissed. Her mouth opened, their tongues dueled and she liked to nibble, just like he did.

With in seconds, he was a hot panting mess for her. He wanted more from her. All of her actually. But he couldn't, he couldn't go that far yet. He was still too afraid to get that attached to her.

So, he pushed away from her, his forehead bowing to hers while those all-together too blue eyes of hers watched him carefully.

He wasn't mad at her anymore. He wasn't angry about the drugging, or the illegal shopping spree, he wasn't even going to make her return a thing she had bought.

Was it bad that making out with her did that to him? Probably, but he'd worry about that later.

He pressed one last kiss to her lips, a soft claiming kiss and the separated from her entirely.

"I have to go back to work," he said. "Could you… please… just not drug my dad or run off?"

"Sure," she said. "Probably not a good idea to drug him twice in one day, Steve. And we both know I don't run off more than once a day either."

"Okay… let try for don't do it ever again."

"Oh I can't promise that."

"Yes you can, and you should, so promise me. Right now."

"Okay, how I promise not to drug your dad anymore, I can do that. I won't drug your dad anymore," she said and he shook his head. She better fucking not. Ever again.

He left her there to go back to work, but when he hit another dead end, instead of burning the midnight oil with his team he returned home to sleep over everything to try and figure out what was going on.

That night the pillow wall between them came down. He kissed her, until she was putty in his arms and his body was in a fever pitch to have her.

They didn't go as far as he wanted that night, but that was okay. The consolation was that he got to hold her, and hold her he did. The whole night through.

When he woke up the next morning, her back to her chest, his arms around her and his nose in her hair, he found that he liked that even more than waking up to her face on the pillow next to his.

And he had figured out his case.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Tonight was supposed to be the night.

It was terrible that he was such a high school boy about this, but after two weeks of panting for this girl, for getting blue balls every night fooling around with her, he was pretty fucking excited to finally be able to have sex with her.

His dad was going to be staying out with his cop buddies all night, which meant that they would be getting the house to themselves. Rory had been pretty adamant that they couldn't have sex with his dad in the house cause they were no doubt going to be loud.

Steve had never been that loud in sex, but she was adamant that he would be with her. And she was usually pretty loud, especially if the guy was good at what he was doing. And now, Steve had never been one to brag about his abilities in bed, but he was confident that he was good and what he was doing when it came to sex.

He hadn't gotten any complaints yet.

So yeah, they were probably gonna be loud. His dad definitely needed to not be in the house.

Rory had asked for spa time. So, he had dropped her off a salon, that would be doing her hair and make up, and whatever else she needed.

He was in charge of dinner, mainly cause he didn't have to do much to get himself ready. Rory had a dress for him, one that his credit card had purchased and he couldn't wait to see how it looked both on her and off of her. He knew what it looked like on the hanger, he was specifically thinking of how it would look pooled at her feet or discarded at the foot of his bed.

But then he caught a case.

He had never been so pissed off to have a case slide across his desk. But he didn't have a choice. The Governor called him and he had to go.

So that meant that Duke had to pick up a very disappointed Rory from her beauty appointments. She had called him when she was done, asking about the night. The plan was to be there, he told her, but he might be… you know late?

Rory had said that was fine, she didn't mind eating late, if he didn't mind. And he didn't, he just couldn't give her a time that he could be home.

And then his case went from bad to worse.

For starters the David Atwater's death was connected to the Aid Summit and General Pak, who was a mass-murdering military general from Sandimar. At first everything was going good, Nick Taylor had shown up and he had been excited to see a SEAL buddy again.

Nick had been on his SEAL team, had been trained by Steven. They were close. He thought they were close. They had sort of drifted but that was only cause they had gone in separate directions. When he had retired from the Navy he started up a security firm, they had been hired to take care of General Pak and his family.

But the girl, the ex-CIA assassin, who had killed Atwater had been hired by Nick. To stop General Pak from testifying at the UN and his family from being relocated.

This left Steve scrambling to save the man and he had no idea what else to do other than to bring the whole team and the people he was trying to save to the one place he felt he could protect them.

His home.

The problem was when he got home it was done up for a date.

And that was exactly when he remembered that he had promised Rory they would have their date that night. Tonight was supposed to be the night, and now it wasn't going to happen at all. Or if it did it wasn't going to be as romantic as he had wanted it to be, as romantic as Rowan had made it for them.

The lights were on dim, there were candles lit. Dinner was set on the table and Rowan was coming down the stairs in a high-low navy blue dress encrusted in sequins.

"Why hello Sailor," she said and then she froze on the steps with a cry of horror. "Oh my god your face! You're bleeding… and… why are you wearing mission gear?"

She then clocked the rest of the team and General Pak and his family and she frowned. No longer concerned about his injury clearly.

She stormed down the steps towards him in crystal studded matching heels, making her almost as tall as him. It just meant that it would be easier to kiss her and my god did he really want to kiss her.

"Why did you bring the team with you for date night?" she asked. "I didn't make enough food."

"Look…"

"And I don't know if I gave you the wrong impression but I'm not down for an orgy, no matter how hot Kono is," she said and Steve's mouth dropped.

"Oh thanks," Kono said with a smile. "I love that dress…"

"Yeah?" Rory said pulling the train out so she could see it better. "I got it off the sale rack at Muse. I got such a steal…"

"Rory that dress cost more than a thousand dollars," Steve reminded her.

"Really? Are those real Swarovski crystals?" Kono asked, Rory nodded. "Wow that is a steal!"

Wait, was it?

"Okay Rory, that's not the point," he said. "As great as this is, we're going to have to cancel for tonight."

"You brought work home with you, didn't you?" she asked her scowl officially on him again.

"I've got a bit of a situation," he told her. "We've got a security team gone rouge on the way to kill their mark, and I needed a defensible position."

Rory was staring at him in horror. "So, you brought the fight here? Are you fucking crazy?"

"Rory, it'll be fine…"

"It'll be fine?!" she echoed. "Oh my god, you are fucking crazy! Come on now, I don't know a lot about this, but if you have a security team coming wouldn't you want a position that was actually defensible? You know? With high positions so you can see them coming?"

Great, so her brothers had taught her some things. He didn't know if that was a good or bad, and right now he didn't have time for this.

"Look, I have somewhere safe to put them, if we do end up getting attacked, and I'll be putting you into that safe place as well," he was already going around blowing out candles. "Can you change into something… I unno… less iridescent? I'd rather you not be a walking target."

"You were supposed to be taking this dress off of me," she said with an unamused growl and Steve winced. It was true, he was. And my god was he regretting this whole situation right now. "I want you to remember that. That you chose G.I. Joe chaos over… all this…"

She indicated to her dress, those creamy flawless looking legs of hers. Her hair, though shorter had been styled perfectly, her make up was flawless. God damn, yeah he was really, really, regretting this right now.

But she didn't say anything else. She just walked away, before stopping to look at General Pak.

"Oh hey!" she said. "How's the snitching going?"

Oh you have got to be fucking kidding. She knew General Pak? Fucking of course she knew General Pak. Was there no one her and her brothers knew?

The man just stared at her and then turned back to him. "You work with the Master?"

"No I don't," Steve said putting his hands on his hips. "She's a material witness…"

"They got me snitching on Jackie," she said interrupting him. "So I totally feel you. You just sit tight, I'll be right back once I slip into something more comfortable."

And then she was moving up the stairs. Steve couldn't help but watch her go. The way that skirt swished back and forth on the stairs with each sashaying step she took.

Fuck. When he got a hold of Nick he was going to kill him for derailing this night.

"For a moment there I thought you to have an actual fighting chance," General Pak said. "It's not too late. If you call him and tell him she's in danger he will send men for her."

Steve just glared at him. Wow, really? Interesting how not a single fucking person except for Wo Fat knew that Rory no longer had her brother's backing. That was just shocking.

"You got a direct line to the Master?" Steve asked and the man shook his head.

"No one has a direct line to him except for her," he said. "If he wants to talk to you, he will get in touch. But she, she can pick up any phone and get a hold of him. There is no where she goes that he doesn't know about, that he hasn't moved to protect for her."

Steve didn't know what to say about that because that wasn't true. She had been there almost a month and the Master hadn't made a move to come and get her form him once, and Wo Fat had been oddly silent too.

Kono and Chin had gone around fortifying all the doors and windows. They had pulled the couch in front of the door. The General's Wife and son were sitting on an armchair together as the General was standing off against Steve.

And Danny. Well Danny was sitting at the dinner table, eating the fucking meal.

Steve stormed over to him right away and snatched the plate out of his hand. "What the hell is the matter with you?" he snapped. "Was that for you? No."

"Well someone's gotta eat it or it's gonna go to waste. And I can't say no to a good chicken parm, and the pasta… she's got wine in that sauce I can tell."

"Can you just… can you just go? Just fucking go!"

Eventually Rowan came down the stairs in a regular outfit. In a pair of black leggings and an off shoulder beige sweater. She liked to do that, match with him. Because he was in black tee-shirt and beige cargo pants under all that Kevlar and weapons. It was kind of a cute thing she did, so he didn't care wen she did it.

She helped clear away the last remanent of the date she had done, put the food back in the over with an ever hopeful sigh of: "Well maybe we can eat this when this is all done," she did not need to finish it with: "You know, if we live."

But she did.

The sun had just set, the darkness was starting to settle when the flashing blue lights broke them up. Cop cars. Wonderful, the back up he had called for had finally come, he could rest easy. Maybe have Rory put that dress back on, heat up what was left of his dinner…

"It's HPD," Danny said going for the door. Steve had the nigh spy glass out to watch the cops coming out of the cars, the problem was it wasn't cops, it was a tactical team.

Danny had already pushed the couch away from the door and was about to unlock it when Steve figured it out.

"Those aren't cops. Danny, get away from the door!"

Danny slammed that door shut and locked it for good measure as Chin pushed the couch back in front of it.

General Pak kept asking where the police were, where the help was, but Steve knew help wasn't coming.

He got the lights off so there would be not a single silhouette for this team to pin point their positions on. Steve was at the window, crouched down with his night vision spyglass trying to count these guys and figure out where they were.

Their position would help him figure out what their game plan was.

"How did they figure out we were here?" Steve asked, mostly himself. He felt stupid for letting this happen.

"My cell phone's dead," Danny said.

"Same," Kono chimed in. "Internet too."

Chin picked up the landline. "Everything's dead."

But Steve was looking at his phone. "I've got full bars." And then he realized what had happened. "He cloned my phone. He killed your signals and he cloned mine. Before, I wasn't talking to 911 operators, I was talking to his team."

"Are you sure? Cause I have full bars too," Rory said. Steve turned to her. She had a phone? Since when did she have a phone.

"Where did you get that?" Steve asked and then shook his head. "Forget it, call 911 please."

That way HPD would know where they were and would send back up.

He then went to General Pak as Rory made the call. "Go on, get in, and no matter what you hear do not come out of this room," he said ushering the General and his family into the little crawlspace.

He turned back to Rory to find that she was offering the phone to him. "I don't know your address," she said which was probably a lie but whatever. He talked to HPD call for real this time told them what was going down and to send someone to his house ASAP. He then turned to Rory who was standing in front of him, a worried look on that beautiful face of hers. "You too Rory."

But Rory shook her head. "Me too? Are you sure? Cause I don't like small dark cramped places Steven…"

"It'll be the safest place for you and besides it has a light," he said flicking the light on for her. Rory just stared at him with those beautiful blue eyes of hers. "Please, just go in."

She sighed but suddenly lurched up to press a kiss to the side of his lips, that he quickly turned into a stolen kiss.

"Be careful," she whispered. He then ushered her into the little crawl space and shut the door behind her.

"Danny, take the upstairs," he said.

"Sure," Danny said. "But we're going to talk about the burgeoning relationship between you and the little criminal when I come back."

Right, yeah, like he needed that right now. So he ignored him.

"Chin, get the gas can off the bench in the shed," he ordered. Chin ran off to do as was asked and he turned to Kono. "Find me some rags."

He then pulled the wine decanters from their glassware set out of the cabinet. He was in the process of getting them ready for a Molotov cocktail when his phone rang.

That bastard Nick was actually calling him. The fucking nerve of that guy.

The second he accepted the call Nick was talking. "Agent Atwater was working with us for months and he was fully prepared to kill the general for money, but he drew the line at his wife and child."

Steve shook his head. He handed the bottles to Kono as she went about ripping up the rags for the cocktail and Nick continued talking.

"I don't share that conflict. How about you, Steve?"

"You son of a bitch," Steve spat out, only because he was busy pouring gas into those bottles and he didn't want Nick to wonder what he was up to.

"Are you really prepared to sacrifice your entire team and a woman and child for a corrupt general who's killed thousands of innocent people?"

Oh, it was on the tip of his tongue to tell him that they had the Master's little sister in this building. See as Nick was no long on the right side of the law, he figured that he'd know all about her too. But then again, if he did, and might he know that her brothers had disowned her, he might try to take her out for Wo Fat. And he was not going to happen on his watch.

"I fought beside you, Nick, for years. We were friends."

"That's the only reason you're still alive." Oh wow, how nice of him. "Just give me the general and no one else has to get hurt."

"That's not gonna happen."

"Well, then everyone in that house is dead."

"What happened to you, Nick?"

"I killed for God and country for years. And I figured it was about time I got paid for it. Five million dollars to keep Pak from testifying and I'll cut you in, Steve, all you gotta do is put a bullet in him."

Except Steve didn't want money. He wanted to be on his date with Rowan, eating good food, sipping on the wine he bought that was still rolling around in the trunk bed of his Silverado, peeling that dress off of her in that bedroom they shared.

With the Molotov cocktails done he stood up. "You know what? I'll put a bullet in you first. How's that?"

"Well, I'm glad to see civilian life hasn't dulled your sense of humor. You trained me, remember? I know your moves."

And that was true, but he didn't know all of his moves. Steve kept his best moves for himself. That and he was always coming up with more. He hadn't been around Nick in a long time, guaranteed there were some moves that this so called friend didn't know.

Steve leant a little forward to glance out the window. "Why don't you down come here and I'll show you a couple of moves you missed."

"You should have taken the deal," he said but Steve still couldn't make him out in the shadows. The man could have been anywhere. "By the way, that's a nasty cut on your eye."

Steve didn't think twice, he knew Nick was a sniper, like he had been. The second Nick said that, confirmed that he knew something of Steve's appearance he threw himself out of the way, narrowly missing two rapid fire shots.

That son of a bitch!

"He's to the north, maybe 300 meters," Steve called to his team, like that could help him. "Stay down. He's not going to miss again."

Steve lit the three Molotov cocktails and then tossed them out the window, to blind their night vision gear and to make it easier for them to see them.

As soon as they did, the tactical team started to shoot but so did Kono and Steve. They shot until they were out of ammo.

The two of them had to have taken three people each. But they were in the house, Steve knew they were in the house. He got the first one with his knife, thought he spotted movement out in the backyard and figured he'd be proactive and go for it. He had Kono stay inside to deal with any other threats and he made his way out.

He found a body that Chin or Danny must have dropped. It had no pulse. It did have a gun with ammo for him to take and night vision goggles. Now that would be useful.

He eased himself forward goggles in one hand, knife in the other, because even if he did happen upon someone he didn't want to give away his position with a gun shot.

He had just spotted someone with the goggles where there was this massive burst of light. Steve was blinded both by the goggles then by the light as he reeled away.

He staggered back, hoping to get his eyesight back before Nick attacked him but he was not that lucky.

He fired at him, but that didn't stop him, so Steve went forward hoping that if he met him head on that he'd be able to get the drop on him.

But Nick just clothes lined him. Steve actually felt himself flip in the air before he hit the ground. And he hit the ground hard.

No only had Nick knocked the air out of him, the hit on the ground jarred his body and took the rest of the air out of his lungs.

But as he lay there, the world coming in and out of him, in flashes of sound and color and then long stretches of black, he heard a cry of what had to be Rory and just knew she was doing something he wouldn't have wanted her to do. Probably some kind of attack cause that cry had been a war cry.

When he was finally conscious again it was because he heard gunshots. Four. Rapid fire. A sense of urgency had a hold of him, adrenaline pumped through him, forcing his limbs to move, for his eyes to find her.

And when he did, he was horrified but what he saw.

Rory in a choke hold, an arm practically around her neck, a gun to her head. Wo Fat's glinting brown eyes glaring down at him from behind her.

Rory's eyes were wide, big, blue and watering. She was scared. Of course she was. Wo Fat had taken advantage of the chaos and come to get her.

"Steve… Steve…" she was whispering over and over. "Don't let him take me."

"No," he whispered. His own fear pumping ice through his veins. He had one job, to protect her. He had promised he'd protector. "Wait… don't…"

"You've had her long enough, don't you think?" Wo asked him a deadly smirk on his face.

"Wait… don't…" Steve said as he got to his feet and that gun left Rory's head and was now pointed at him. Right, he could deal with that better. "She's not… just don't hurt her, please."

"I'm not going to hurt her," he told him and Steve's eyes narrowed in surprise. "I'm going to hurt you."

And then he fired.

The bullet hit his arm, right where the Kevlar wasn't and took him down. By the time he got back up again, by the time he got his eyes on Rowan again Wo Fat had dragged her to the back door.

There was a sort of electric hum that slammed through him as they got to the door, but he was sure that was just the fear and determination in him. He got up, gave chase, but by the time he got to the door both Wo Fat and Rory were just gone.

He searched thinking that they couldn't have gotten far after all, but they were just gone. The tactical team had been taken out or the others had fled and on the kitchen counter was a small cardboard box. And in it was everything that had been in his dad's toolbox. As if it had all been left in return for Rory to honor the original trade Steve had offered.

But now. Now he didn't want it.

He wanted Rory back. He wanted her alive. He had promised her that Wo Fat wouldn't get her and now… now she was… she was back with him. And she didn't have her brother's protection.

In the hours after that skirmish he learned why exactly it was that they won.

It was Max who told him. Well commended them for the smart thinking of doubling back behind these people to cut them down.

But no one had left the house. No one had double back and surprised the enemy from behind. No, someone else with very deadly knife had shown up and taken out the rogue team. And since it was a knife that meant this person had snuck up behind them. Do you know how good someone has to be to take down a trained tactical team with a knife? Really fucking good.

And a single someone, Max would confirm later, as the stab wounds were all similar in depth and done by the same weapon.

But though he now knew that Wo Fat had come there with help, probably her Rabbit assassin, it didn't tell them where he had gone with Rory.

And despite the island wide search she had not been found.

Still he held out hope. He reminded himself that Wo Fat had acted as if he adored Rory. And he had said himself that he was dating her. Yes he was a sociopath, yes he was cold, and unfeeling and did whatever he had to do, but he had been different with Rory. Rory was sweet and kind, and… she had never really been able to give him anything other than, Jackie had her steal things and he had John's toolbox first.

She had talked her way out of Steve returning everything she had bought, she could talk her away out of this right.

But he worried. Because she didn't come back and he had hoped that… well… she would want to come back to him. She had thought he was cute after all.

He tried to not to show any emotion when a girl fitting Rory's description washed up on shore two weeks later.

But it broke something inside of him.

And if anyone asked, he would not admit that he shed a manly tear when Max hit him with a DNA match to Rory confirming that the body they had found really was her. He shed all his tears at home, in his room, where no one could see him.

He tried not to feel the guilt, instead it added fuel to the fire.

Steven McGarrett was going to take down Wo Fat. To avenge his mother, his father, and now poor Rory Wickerby.