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A/N: Here we are guys! Chapter 10. This one is a bit shorter, but I promise there is fluff, there is laughter, and even a bit of worry. For all of those who were wondering about Catherine and her take on Rowan, you start to see a little bit of her true opinion coming out. For those who are interested, I've now written all the way up to chapter 27, and let me tell you... there's a lot of drama coming our way. SORRY IN ADVANCE. Lastly, thanks for all your guesses last week. One one person got the song: it was Thief by Ansel Elgort (Yeah that guy, I didn't know he was a singer but he's got some good songs out there check em out) as for who said which comment, a lot of you were super close. 1 = Kamekona, 2 = Max, 3 = Kono, 4 = Chin, and 5= Danny. Thanks so much for reading and see you guys next week!
Chapter 10
Rowan had spent the night at Nurse Alex's place. They hadn't slept together yet, but they were definitely heading towards that. She figured sneaking in at ten in the morning, after Steve was most likely out at work, would make her safe.
She was not expecting Mommy McGarrett to pounce on her the second she opened the door. She had been decidedly motherly since Mary had returned to the mainland. Like Rowan was her surrogate daughter. Rowan tried not to show how much she liked that. Even when they were arguing.
"You are in a whole load of trouble, young lady!" she said crossing her arms over her chest.
Rowan blinked her eyes at her. "Uh… I'm a grown woman if I want to spend the night at my boyfriend's I will," she reminded her. Maybe if she believed in that it would become true.
"Yes, but someone was supposed to tell Steve if they were going to be out all night. And someone forgot to text him, which meant Steve spent all night up and pacing the floorboards and would still be if he hadn't been called out to a case," Doris taunted her.
Rowan winced. Yeah. She had forgotten to text Steve. Purposely. Because the last time she did he made up a fake emergency so she'd rush home. Being out of ice cream was not an emergency though he played off like he hadn't called it the end of his world as he knew it.
"You're doubly in trouble for turning your phone off," Doris said.
This time Rowan glared at her. "He tried to track me again, didn't he?" she cried.
"Girl, you'll be lucky if the man doesn't put a house arrest anklet on you," she said. "You better call him and tell him you're home."
Rowan rolled her eyes. "Yes mom," she groaned. She heard Doris laugh and she couldn't help but smile over it. To think she almost made that woman hate her. She was glad that they had learned to get a long, it was nice to have a motherly figure in her life seeing as she had no idea where her own was.
Rowan turned on her phone and groaned when she saw that she had 37 text messages and 18 voicemails—all from Steve. He was going to rip her a new one. Still she dialed his number and he picked up on the first ring.
"You better be calling me to tell me you're dead in a ditch and you need me to send Max over for an autopsy," he growled into the phone.
"Morning to you too, Steve," she said trying to be cheery.
"Don't you morning me, young lady, where the hell have you been?" he shouted.
"Okay, I am not that young. I am only nine years younger than you," she reminded him hoping that if she kept her voice level he may just calm down. "And I was at my boyfriend's."
"Yes, I figured that's where you were, but you said you'd text me if you weren't coming home," he said, and she knew a guilt trip was coming after that. "So, when you didn't come home I worried."
Whoomp, there it is.
So much for calming him down. Steve was right pissed over this and she couldn't figure out what the big deal was. Didn't he have a date with Catherine himself last night? Shouldn't he have been too busy with her? Or maybe it was Danny. If he was with Danny it would explain he was so out of sorts about this, with Danny egging him on with his pessimism and all that. It was time to go for a guilt trip of her own.
"You also tried to trace my phone," she snarled. He had promised to stop doing that. He had yet to keep that promise.
"You weren't answering text messages and your phone was going straight to voicemail. At that point I assumed you needed assistance," he argued.
"My phone was dead," she said.
"No, your phone was off," he growled. "You turned your phone off so I couldn't get a hold of you."
"Do you blame me?" she asked and a heavy silence fell over his end of the phone. "The last time I followed your rules you made up a fake emergency so I'd come home."
"Running out of Rocky Road, in a house filled with women who will eventually all PMS at the same time, is an emergency," Steve repeated and Rowan sighed.
"I don't even like Rocky Road, I like chocolate chip cookie dough and you know this," she growled. She bit back any other retort before it could tumble out of her mouth. She took two deep breaths before trying again. "Okay, okay. Look, I'm sorry I felt I had to go radio silent to enjoy a nice night with my boyfriend. Next time I will follow your strategic op to a tee, okay? But if you pull another stunt like the fake ice cream emergency I'll never listen to you again, you feel me?"
"Fine, I guess that's fair," Steve said to her. "You owe me dinner by the way."
"Yeah, yeah, I'll make you something Italian, bring Danny if you want to," Rowan said. "And take a nap, you big baby. You're probably driving your partner crazy!"
Steve laughed said something about needing to go and then he hung up the phone. Rowan tried not to smile, she always smiled once she was off the phone with Steve, even if they had just been arguing. She forcibly put aside the warm feelings that were fluttering around her chest and made her way back downstairs. She could go for some brunch, even though she had just had breakfast at Alex's.
And she walked in to Catherine and some weird man she didn't recognize talking to Doris. The second Catherine turned to her the world around her swayed and Rowan found herself sitting on the steps.
"Whoa, honey, are you alright?" Doris asked pushing past Catherine and the agent she was with to get to her.
Rowan waved away the concern and tried to put a smile on her face as bits and pieces of a murder played out in front of her eyes. "Yeah, just got a bit woozy there for a second," she said. "What's going on?"
"I'm really glad you're here, actually," Catherine said to her coming to stand beside Doris. Rowan blinked her eyes like she didn't understand what had just been said, like the words made no sense to her. And they probably didn't as she had never heard them in that order before coming out of Catherine's mouth.
"Whoa, that's the first time you've ever been happy to see me," she said and Catherine frowned at her.
"I take offence to that, I never said I didn't like you. And I have worked really hard at being as nice as I possibly could to you," Catherine told her.
"I didn't say that either, I said you're not usually happy to see me. Now I'm worried about the not liking me thing," Rowan whispered shooting a worried glance at Doris at the same time Catherine did the same.
"She has a point, sweetie, you seemed to jump straight to the not liking part," Doris said shrugging her shoulders at Catherine. The wry chuckles that erupted from the younger woman were not a good sign.
"And you're on Rowan's side, of course you are," she growled. Rowan didn't like where this was going. She was certain that if Catherine complained Steve would kick her out, Catherine being his girlfriend and all and much more important than Rowan. Then where would Rowan go? She would have nowhere and no one left.
"Okay, topic change cause this is getting awkward. What do you need?" she asked, hoping that if she played nice Catherine might start to like her.
"I need you to stay with Doris," she said. "Make sure she doesn't do anything rash."
Rowan thought about this for a bit and then turned her head to the side like a confused puppy. The scowl on Catherine's face said it didn't work on Catherine the way it worked on Steve and Danny, so she straightened her head.
"Did Steve not tell you about the incident with the bomb?" she asked. "Cause me and Doris are not good at being rational when together. Steve calls us enablers."
Catherine sighed and looked up to the ceiling as if praying to the lord above for strength. "I am asking you to, just for once, keep her from doing something bad okay?" she pleaded.
"I mean, I can try," Rowan said. "But if this all goes to shit, I told you so."
Catherine shook her head and eventually left. As soon as she did Rowan looked up to Doris who already had her thinking face on which did not bode well for Rowan.
"I should have just stayed at Alex's."
H5O-H5O-H5O- H5O
Steve went to Catherine's place that afternoon because he needed a favour, but also because he needed a relaxing presence. He couldn't go home because Rowan was there and that was not a relaxing presence, at least not while he was mad at her. And he still didn't know what was really making him mad.
Was it the fact that she had never messaged him as promised or the fact that she had spent all night at Nurse Alex's.
Neither were good reasons to be angry at her. She was a grown woman who could make her own decisions. And when he traced her phone he confirmed that she had last been in the vicinity of Nurse Alex's apartment so logically that was where she was. As a grown woman she didn't have to check in with him, but he had asked her to and she had agreed and then immediately gone rogue on their agreement.
Tie in his frustrations with the woman in this new case of his and he was a veritable live wire.
He knocked on Catherine's door and didn't notice that she seemed a bit squirrely when she opened it up to him. He just knew that he was glad to see her and he already felt a little better now that he was in her presence.
"I didn't expect to see you today," she said as she let him in.
"Cath, uh, I need…"
"A favor? Or course," she said quickly. "What a courtesy, an indulgence, a dispensation."
He missed her eye roll but just barely. He knew she was getting a little huffy over the constant favor asking, especially now that he had Rowan living with him but until she actually came out and said something he was prepared to just ignore that issue. Mainly because he didn't know what he'd do if Catherine asked him to choose. So he went with shameless flattery.
"You're so beautiful when you're sarcastic," he said but for some reason it didn't seem to ring true to him at that moment, like he was lying but he couldn't be. He actually thought that… didn't he?
"Would you just ask me, already," she said breaking out into a giant grin.
Ah, now that smile he did love. It warmed him up just seeing it. "Alright, I need you to put a Dr. Olivia Victor on the no-fly list," he said.
"Uh, you could do that," she reminded him and suddenly Steve needed to pace.
"Uh, no, I can't," he said. "She has a restraining order against me."
When he turned back again she was standing half a step closer to the table and her hand seemed to be shaking. Strange but he let it go.
"A restraining order?" she echoed.
"Yeah," he admitted.
"What did you do?"
"I did my job," he shot back which was true.
Catherine nodded as if she understood but her eyes narrowed at him. "How close can you get?"
"Five hundred yards," he listed immediately.
He smiled when she started laughing. At least someone other than Danny was enjoying his suffering. He still couldn't believe that Danny could say that the problem with Dr. Olivia came from him and his control issues. He did not have control issues, damn it!
"Oh God, you've never been good at first impressions," she said and Steve tried to not let that sting.
"But seriously, Cath, if I put her on the no-fly list, it'll look like I'm harassing her," he told her.
Catherine nodded again. "Yes, because you would be harassing her."
Steve frowned. Damn, maybe he should have gone home. Rowan might not have been able to put someone on the no-fly list but he bet she knew all about this episode they were in and she could tell him how to catch her or at least commiserate with him over the horribleness of this psychiatrist.
"I get that," he said instead, trying to make himself look like the bigger person. It must not have worked because suddenly Catherine was staring at him oddly and he found the need to apologise.
"You okay? What's going on?" she asked.
Steve blanched. What could he really tell her? That he got literally no sleep last night thinking about what Rowan could be doing with Alex. Wondering if that's really what she was doing or if Nurse Alex was currently cutting her up into little pieces to drop all over Hawaii like a puzzle for Steve to put back together. That this psychiatrist's defiance reminded him of Rowan so it made him extra prickly with her. He couldn't say any of that, he had no choice but to lie.
"I'm good. I'm fine," he said trying to avoid her eyes. "I just… I need this done."
"Sure, okay. Are you sure you're okay?" she asked again. He stared at her, he could trust her right? Okay, maybe not with the Rowan stuff but he could tell her about how bad Dr. Olivia was without her judging him.
"This woman has murdered two people, all right? Now she's playing me," he told her. "I hate being played. I really need you, Cath. I need your help"
"You got it," she said and that was all he needed to hear.
He kissed her cheek and then rushed out of the house before any other lies could fall out of his mouth.
H5O-H5O-H5O- H5O
Rowan was half asleep on the couch when the phone rang. She let Doris pick it up and she only half listened to the conversation. But it didn't sound good. When the phone was hung up Doris began moving around rather erratically.
Rowan forced herself to get up. "What's going on?" she asked.
"Catherine and Channing are on their way to pick me up," she said. "Mangosta is here on the island, and he is looking for me."
"Okay. Cool," Rowan said starting to lower herself back to the couch. She then blinked her eyes and sat up straighter. "Wait? What?"
"Come on now Rowan, I explained this to you," Doris said.
"Yeah, no, I know that, but they're early," Rowan said jumping up from the couch and going to Doris's side. She wanted to know why the woman was going through her phone, what could her phone possibly have to help them at this moment? Why hadn't she gotten all dizzy about this? Was it because this episode didn't focus on Doris, was it because this was only a secondary plot line? How was that going to help her in any way?
Doris stopped what she was doing and turned to look at Rowan. "What?"
"They're not supposed to get to you in time," she said. "By the time they get here you're gone…"
There was a creak behind her and before Rowan even got a chance to turn something with great force collided with the back of her head. All she saw before the darkness took her was a bunch of white stars dancing before her eyes.
H5O-H5O-H5O- H5O
When Catherine got to the McGarrett house and saw the damage she knew she was in trouble. The table was knocked over, the couch and sitting chair were spun out of place and a lamp lay on the carpet with spatters of blood beside it. She had no idea how the hell she could tell Steve that his mother AND Rowan had been taken by Mangosta and Catherine hadn't even told him that Doris was in danger.
She and Channing had gotten back into her car and taken off. She had called Chin and demanded a favour. He luckily didn't ask many questions but ran the GPS like she asked and got a trace on the car that Mangosta was driving.
They were led to a warehouse somewhere around the Kewalo Basin. The car was left down an alley and they did not find what they thought they would.
Catherine didn't know how she managed it but Doris had managed to turn tables on Mangosta.
"Give me a name!" she was shouting as she held the jumper cables to his bare chest and the man strapped to the chair writhed and bucked in agony.
Catherine watched in horror. This was not the Doris she knew. This was Shelbourne, the cold and deadly spy.
"Look at me. Look at me Mangosta!" she ordered. "Give me a name. Who else knows I'm alive? Huh?"
Catherine had to shout her name over and over until Doris finally stopped. And then they faced a second problem. Rowan was not with her.
They were walking back to the car when she finally got the nerve to ask. "Where's Rowan, Doris? She wasn't at the house."
Part of her hoped that something had happened to Rowan. It would solve a lot of her problems and end her constantly worrying about Steve and what the two of them got up to when she wasn't there. But a larger part of her knew that if she had to tell Steve Rowan died in direct relation to something Catherine hadn't told him about he'd never forgive her. It might even end their relationship.
Doris looked to the car and for the first time Catherine heard the sound of light pounding and muffled shouting. Catherine scrambled to unlock the trunk and when she did Rowan sat up gasping for air like she hadn't be able to breathe. It might have been hot in the trunk but it still had air. She had blood plastering her hair to the back of neck, meaning that the blood they found at McGarrett's had been hers.
Her eyes were glossy and her pupils were unevenly dilated. Catherine wanted to get her out of the trunk but Rowan was wobbling and unstable. She turned, scanning over her shoulder until she spotted Doris who was grimacing. She pointed a finger into Doris' face.
"You locked me in the trunk!" she snarled. Catherine turned to Doris surprised. She had?
"You were freaking out. Honestly you were a liability," Doris said.
"So, handcuff me to something immovable like Steve does," Rowan shouted. "You don't lock me in a goddamn trunk!"
Catherine purposely ignored the Steve comment because she didn't want to think of her boyfriend—or whatever he was—hand cuffing Rowan to anything. "How did this happen?" Catherine asked trying to get a look at Rowan's head.
Rowan hissed in pain as Catherine's finger found the base of the laceration to the back of her skull. She slapped her hands away and glowered at her.
"He knocked me one over the head, she fought him off. When I woke up she was already in Shelbourne mode and there was no talking her out of it. We got him in the car, took him here—argued the whole way here by the way—and then when we got here, she locked me in the trunk. Cause I wasn't down for some mild torture."
Channing scoffed at her. "You're half her age. How were you that easy to incapacitate?" he asked.
"Of course I was easy to incapacitate, my head is killing me!" Rowan shouted.
"Okay," Catherine said. "Let's get you two home."
She got Rowan into the back of her convertible and put Doris in the front. They drove in silence other than Rowan's groaning. She would need a doctor. Catherine really didn't want to be the one to tell Steve that she had to take Rowan to the hospital again. He hated it when she was in the hospital, mainly because he hated her spending any alone time with Nurse Alex. But how was she to explain this to him?
When they pulled up to the McGarrett house Doris finally spoke.
"Steve can't know about this," she said. When Catherine didn't answer Doris continued. "He thought he lost me once. I don't want him thinking it could happen again. Promise me?"
"It does happen again," Rowan grumbled from the back seat. "I've told you this. He asks too many questions and you run like the coward you are."
Catherine shot a glance at her but noticed that Doris did nothing to correct her, in fact she looked quite guilty about it. Catherine didn't want to think about this right now.
For starters she didn't believe that Rowan was psychic. She didn't buy Steve's story of trauma from falling out of an airplane and not remembering anything. She knew that Rowan thought she was from a different reality where Steve's life was a TV show and because of that she knew all these things she shouldn't have. But Steve didn't believe that and neither did Catherine. Steve thought if anything she was psychic but Catherine didn't believe that either and quite frankly she was surprised Steve did. Yeah, she got some things right but that could have been a lucky guess at best.
Besides if Rowan was right about Doris it would end Steve. She also didn't want to keep this promise. She could lie to Steve, or omit the truth, but she didn't think that would fix things. And with Rowan in the state she was Catherine wasn't even certain Rowan could even if she tried. And that was just by judging what was coming out of her mouth right now.
When she glanced back to Rowan again Doris followed her gaze. "I'll take care of Rowan."
"You are not allowed to kill me, Steve said," Rowan said. Catherine blinked her eyes surprised that that was even a conversation Steve had to have with his mother. What the hell was going on in the McGarrett household when she wasn't sleeping over? Maybe Doris didn't like Rowan as much as Catherine thought.
"I meant your head, stupid, and the cover story for your injury," Doris snapped.
Rowan used the headrest to pull herself up into a seated position. "You locked me in a trunk today," she reminded her pointing a finger into Doris' face, she was so out of balance that the finger moved back and forth. "I will never trust you again."
Catherine shook her head. This was not good. "She needs a doctor," she told Doris. Rowan was so out of it she was petting Catherine's head and saying how pretty her hair was. It was the first compliment the woman living in her boyfriend's—or whatever—house had paid her.
"She's dating a nurse," Doris said. "I'll just invite him over."
Catherine thought about Steve. How badly losing his mother had hurt him and how over protective he was of Rowan. If she could do something to help prevent him from getting hurt she should try.
"Fine I'll keep this a secret," Catherine said forcing Rowan to let go of her hair. "But you better do something about her."
H5O-H5O-H5O- H5O
Steve returned home and found Nurse Alex walking out the front door. The happy feeling from catching that woman who had been playing with him ebbed away from him as if Nurse Alex was syphoning it out of Steve's body himself.
"Why are you here?" he asked instead of greeting him politely like a normal person. For some reason, no matter how hard he tried, Steve just could not make himself be polite to Alex.
"Rowan fell," he said. "Your mother asked me to take a look at her."
Steve went completely still. Rowan had fallen? Rowan was hurt enough that Doris sought medical help? Yeah, that happy feeling was gone entirely. "How bad is it?"
"Contusion to the back of her head. Doris said she fell down the stairs but it looks to me like she was hit with something. She'll need to be woken up on the hour every hour tonight, and if her symptoms continue she'll have to go back to the hospital for a Cat-Scan," Alex explained.
Before Alex could offer his services Steve waved him off. "Okay, I'll stay up with her," he said. "Thanks for coming down."
He took two steps into his house, slammed the door behind him and then waited for his mother to appear. When she did he was angry. Angry because he didn't believe Rowan fell. Something happened here, and he could see that his mother knew something.
"Okay, so I know you probably didn't want to see him after last night's stunt, but Rowan needed help and didn't want to go to the hospital," Doris told him.
"Why didn't you call me?" Steve asked. When he had started leaving Doris and Rowan together he had made both of them promise to call him if anything happened. Why was everyone ignoring their promises to him these days?
"She asked me not to, said she didn't want to bother you," Doris explained. Steve had to give her that one. That was something Rowan most certainly would say.
"How did she fall?" Steve asked heading up the stairs to her room.
"She was coming down the stairs and slipped," Doris told him. "Cracked the back of her head on one of the stairs."
When Steve turned to go into Rowan's room Doris said: "Oh, she's not in her room honey, she's in the bathroom."
Steve turned immediately and went into the bathroom. Sure enough Rowan was lying on the floor with a blanket on her and pillow under her head. Steve turned to Doris and she shrugged. "She was hell bent on sleeping there, so Alex and I decided to make her as comfortable as possible."
Yes… Rowan did feel better when she was lying on the floor.
"Kay, mom, can you give us a minute?" he asked. He knew that if he wanted the truth he'd have to talk to her without his mother there, and he had a feeling that Doris knew that too. But she shut the bathroom door and walked away.
He counted to ten, listening to the silence before settling down beside Rowan and putting his hand to her back. He rubbed her back up and down in smooth strokes until she stirred beside him.
"Ro?" he whispered into her hair and caught the smell of her shampoo. Lilac. That was new, not her usual roses, but he didn't mind the change.
"Mmm?"
"Ro? Can you wake up please?" he asked. Rowan half turned so she was partially facing him.
"Steve?"
"Yeah."
"When did you get back?"
"A couple of minutes ago," he said. Their voices were low, the whispers, he realized, weren't because they thought Doris was listening but because she was half asleep and hurt. And a lot because Steve didn't want her to think that he was mad at her. "How do you feel?"
"Crappy."
"What happened, Ro?" he asked, this time his voice was stern so she knew that this was serious.
"What did your mother tell you?" she asked.
Steve didn't like that answer. Mainly because she didn't answer his question but asked another. She was deflecting. Why?
"She said you fell," Steve replied.
"Then I fell," she said rolling back over so she wasn't facing him. Despite his better judgement he moved closer to her until his chest was against her back. Everything in his body tightened at the contact and he struggled to keep his lips in her hair and not to move them anywhere else. He moved the strands of hair not stuck under layers of gauze out of the way so her could see her face and saw that her eyes were closed again.
"Stop lying to me Ro," he whispered.
Her eyes opened again and this time she rolled over fully. Her eyes were cloudy, and he knew then she was on her pain meds and was, in all likelihood, very, very high. She was also too close to him again, her nose was millimetres away from his lips and when she tilted her head to look at him her nose brushed against his. All he had to do was move and they would be kissing. And he knew, he didn't know how but he just knew, that she would let him and probably even kiss him back.
"Did you catch the evil lady who was playing you?" she asked. "Madame-Doctor-Victor?"
Steve knew Rowan hadn't been told any of this and he didn't care. He tried not to smile. "Yes, I did."
"Good. Dat bitch deserved it! Killing three people. Making you look stupid," she grumbled thankfully lowering her mouth away from his. Her hands came up to grip his shirt locking him in place. He couldn't move now even if he wanted to. "Did you stay 500 yards away the whole arrest?"
"Yep, you'd have been proud of me," he said smiling into her hair. It wasn't true but he liked feeling her lips twitch up into a smile against his shirt. Already his arms were finding their way around her, even without him asking them to do so.
"For the record you made a great first impression with me," she said.
That conversation had been with Catherine. Sometimes it made him uncomfortable with the amount of knowledge running around in her head. But at that moment he decided to let it go to let her rest.
"I had you in a choke hold the first time I met you," he reminded her.
"Mmm, I like it rough," she whispered and then her breathing evened out.
For a moment Steve just lay there listening to her exhales and feeling her heart beat under the hand he had pressed to her back. It didn't matter that she was lying to him, probably to cover up something his mother had done. It didn't matter that she knew about the case and could commiserate with him over how horrible Olivia was after all. It didn't matter that she quoted word for word a conversation she couldn't possibly know about. All that mattered was the warmth settling in his chest as he held her and how badly he wanted to make sure that she was okay.
He had another very long night ahead of him. That night he slept in the washroom too. With an arm wrapped tightly around her waist and his nose pressed into her lilac scented hair. And every hour, on the hour, Steve was certain to wake her up. And despite being exhausted in the morning and having to explain to Catherine what was going on after she walked in on them on the bathroom floor, he regarded it as one of the best nights he had had with her to date, maybe ever.
P.S. Surprise guys, I bet you weren't expecting this. But I have a feeling that some of you would want to read Catherine's reaction to finding Steve and Rowan all cuddled and a sleep on the bathroom floor. If you are interested just mention that in your review. If I get enough people interested I'll write it up as another bonus chapter.