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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Alright guys, we're going to get some small backstory from Rowan today! And we have Steve's first move on Rowan. Tell me if you think it counts! ALSO, any guesses on what those "red strings" are? We're almost to where we start getting issues. I think it literally starts next chapter! GUYS! I've officially written 500 pages, and I'm not even half way done this story. I'm currently sitting at 43 chapters. So I'm pretty far ahead but for the first time since I started writing this in April I've hit some major writer's block. So I'm going to hold off on posting two chapters a week. HOWEVER for the month of November (Which is National Novel Writing Month) I will be working on this story and many others so I plan to be more active with my posting. That means for November you will 100% be getting two chapters a week. We just need to decide on when you'd like me to post. Would you like me to post every Monday and Friday? Or maybe every Monday and Thursday? Tell me what you think! And as always, see you guys next Friday!

Chapter 18

Snow swirled around her. Her body was on fire. She wanted Steve. She needed Steve. She called for Steve and he had answered.

The second his body made contact with her she was whole again. She was no longer being pulled in two directions. The call of the white beyond vanished and with it came a shattering clarity.

She knew what had been calling her. What had been trying to pull her through.

Trevor.

Rowan came to almost violently. Sitting upright in her bed, which she didn't remember getting into, yelping because something had a death grip on her hair.

"Ow, ow, JEZUS!" she shouted trying to pull herself free.

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry," Doris said, transferring her hold from Rowan's head to her arm. "Steve said you might vanish I didn't know if that was one of those episodes."

Rowan turned to her. She wanted ask what she was talking about but she had a feeling she knew what was going on. While this was all so sweet, Rowan needed to move. She was being swallowed by a terrible guilt, a terrible sinking feel that she had made a mistake that she should have chosen to go back.

"Can we go to the Palace?" she asked Doris. "I mean… can you take me there?"

"Steve's not there Honey, he's on Niihau" Doris told her as if that made any sense to her what so ever.

"No, I don't want to see Steve," Rowan said quickly. "I need to use their computer."

"Oh… sweetie… I don't think…" Doris start, her grip on Rowan still not loosening despite the fact that Rowan was sitting and trying to get up.

"No!" she interrupted before Doris could try and shoot her down a second time. "I NEED to go to Iolani Palace. I need to use their computers. PLEASE?!"

That was it, the second she turned to Doris she saw that she had won, the woman had caved. She must have sounded the most panicked and desperate she had ever been, and to be fair she was pretty desperate. Doris sighed and got up.

"Fine but you have to hold my hand the whole time," Doris said as she got up. She offered Rowan her hand and though Rowan was confused she took it. She must have noticed Rowan's perplexed stare for she shot her a strange smile and said: "Steve was quite frantic at the thought of you disappearing again so he made me promise to have a firm grip on you at all times in case the blinking thing started up again."

Rowan tried not to smile. She tried not to let the butterflies creep back into her stomach. She tried to remind herself that she was supposed to feel guilty, not happy that Steve had wanted her to stay too.

But it was a good sign, right? That Steve wanted to keep her from jumping realities? Right? God… she was pathetic. She had bigger things to worry about right now. Rowan Pierce was on a quest.

H5O-H5O-H5O- H5O

Steve was having a very, very hard time concentrating on the task at hand. Yes, he was on a private island that only allowed outsiders on for exclusive hunting trips, but he couldn't even be excited about that. He kept thinking about Rowan and what had just happened to her.

There had to be an explanation for what he had just witnessed, what he had just saved her from. But what? Who the hell was he supposed to ask?

He had briefly looked up alternate realities and got nothing helpful about his situation. He clearly needed an expert but how did one even go about finding an expert?

Well he had one expert. Sort of.

Dr. Brian Stevens, who had been living on Niihau to try and find a cure for his son's super rare disease, was an expert in botany. It wasn't a stretch to think he might know someone who knew about alternate realities at an academic level.

The problem was Chin didn't know about Rowan's episode and he didn't want him to know. Not that he didn't trust Chin, he just wasn't comfortable with everyone knowing that Rowan almost left. Why did everyone he cared about leave him? Granted they didn't all leave because they wanted to, but in the end they all went away.

He sent Chin toward the truck before turning back to Dr. Stevens.

"I have an off-topic question," he said. Getting the older man to turn around. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone who specializes in alternative universes, would you?"

"The Multiverse theory?" Dr. Stevens asked. Okay, sure, whatever that was. "What kind of theory are you interested in? Tegmark's four levels? Or one of Greene's Nine? Quilted, Inflationary, Cyclic, Quantum, Simulated…"

Geezus how many types were there? Steve cut him off. "I don't know. Who would know how to move say… someone… from one universe to another?"

Dr. Stevens stared at him for a moment. He looked confused and Steve had to use all his willpower to hold the man's gaze instead of looking away. After a while he said: "You'd want Dr. Trenton Pierce. He's been working on a Quantum-verse theory that involves the moving of objects from one place to another."

Did he say Pierce? Now Steve was staring at him surprised. Steve shook his head a bit and then asked: "Does he have a daughter?"

"Pierce?" he asked, even more confused than before. "No. He has a son I believe. He's been a little eccentric since his wife left him though. Might be hard to get a hold of him. I can give you the line to his office up in UofT."

"UofT?" Steve echoed.

"Yeah, Pierce is based in Toronto," he said flipping through his book for the number. "He and I have mutual friends but as I mentioned, since his wife left him he's been a bit illusive. I don't know if he'll even pick up the phone."

Rowan hadn't told him she was from Canada. In fact, she hadn't told him where she was from at all. She hadn't told him about her family, or her past. What was she hiding?

Steve took the number that was offered to him. "Thanks," he said, meaning it. He wasn't sure what he was going to say to this man but it wouldn't hurt to try.

"Steve, you coming?" Chin called from the foliage and Steve nodded good-bye to Dr. Stevens. He needed to remember that he was on a case. That he had a man's murder to solve. He couldn't keep getting distracted by Rowan. He couldn't keep getting wrapped up in her but no matter how hard he tried—not that he was trying all that hard in the first place—he couldn't seem to untangle himself.

Regardless. Rowan wasn't going to flicker out of his life. He couldn't let it. And once he caught the murderer he'd get to the bottom of whatever this was and they'd move on to being happy and trying new things again.

H5O-H5O-H5O- H5O

Rowan had wanted to do this in secrecy, which meant that Doris was primed to send whoever was at the office on a wild goose chase. Luckily there was no one in the office to distract. But Doris still did a sweep of the area to make sure they were properly alone. By the time she came back Rowan had the DMV database up and was typing a name into the search bar.

Doris put a hand on her arm, to keep that promised contact, and then looked at what Rowan was searching.

"Trevor Pierce?"

Not a second after she said did the face appear. The Canadian Driver's license featured a handsome chestnut haired boy with a giant loping grin and the same piercing blue eyes as Rowan. The Piercing Pierce Eyes they had always joked. He was 26 when he took that photo, Rowan remembered, she was there. The girl at the counter had been flirting with him and that grin was for her.

What was Trevor doing now? Was he still a figure skater? A simple Google search could answer that question. But who was he skating with, if not her? Would he have a different sister to skate with? Or just a different girl altogether? He wasn't skating alone, was he? Because he was a great choreographer but he wasn't the best skater, they always did the best together, he on technical and she on flow. Who did he talk to about his girls? Or boys? Who played referee between him and their parents, especially their dad? Was this version of Trevor all alone?

She was acutely aware that Doris was staring at her but she couldn't look back at the woman. She was too afraid that she would break out into tears.

"Honey… are you… are you related to him?" she asked.

Rowan blinked her eyes she couldn't even bring herself to tell her that in a different reality that was her older brother, her best friend, the guy she told everything, who stood up for her and took care of her in the most sarcastic and aggravated way possible. Instead she typed in another name.

Roselyn Pierce.

But that wasn't all that came up. There was the marriage certificate and a bunch of other documents and then it branched off into another section. One on Roselyn Carter her mother's maiden name. Rowan blinked her eyes. Her parents got divorced? WHAT THE HELL? But they had always been madly in love!

She looked up to the woman with honey blonde hair that no longer shared her last name. Her eyes were a warm brown but she had Rowan's nose and thin smile. She looked older than Rowan remembered but it was still her mom. Doris was asking her if she was related to her too but Rowan was already tying the last name.

Trenton Pierce.

Now he looked completely different. His black hair was peppered with so much grey. He wasn't smiling like he usual was, he had a patchy beard and he was wearing smudged glasses with those trademark Pierce eyes staring back at her. Wow, without mom her dad was a complete and utter wreck.

"Whoa, he looks like a mad scientist," Doris said and Rowan frowned.

Her father had been a mad scientist, kind of, but in the Tony Stark kind of way, not the Dr. Frankenstein way. He looked positively mental here, though. Her father worked with the Multiverse Theory and trying to prove the existence of other realities. He had been working on trying to pull an object from another universe the last she had seen him… before she landed here.

Obviously, she was worried about her father and his clearly deteriorated image. Yes, she wanted to know what happened to him to make him like this. But she had something bigger to worry about. She had been operating under the assumption that her family line just didn't exist in the Hawaii Five-0 universe, but they clearly did. If her father's theories were correct, and she was starting to think that they might be, if she came to a different reality she would have taken over the body of the version of her that was in this reality, or she shunted that version of her out and into her own universe. But, from her understanding, she hadn't. She had come through and fallen out of the sky.

So, where was she?

"Doris, do you know about these computer databases?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"And… if they did a cursory search for me, with my DNA and name would I have come up if I were… dead?" she asked.

It took a lot to get that last word out and she pointedly avoided Doris' stare as she asked it. "It would depend on when you died. If you died before having a driver's license or a school record then it's possible that you wouldn't have," Doris answered.

"How… how do I check that?" she asked.

Doris let her go and she immediately gripped Doris' arm. They had a promise to keep to Steve after all. She watched Doris bring up a different database and typed her name and birthday in. She forced herself to look down to her own hands while it did its search. She had a feeling she knew what they were going to find and she didn't want it confirmed.

"Alright. We have one match," Doris told her. "Rowan Pierce, born to Trenton and Roselyn Pierce on January 21st, 1986. Died January 21st, 1986."

Rowan looked up immediately. She only lived a day? She read the death certificate. Cause of death was listed as Stillborn. She hadn't even fucking lived?

"Honey! You didn't tell us your birthday was two weeks ago!" Doris cried. Rowan turned to the older woman. That was what she was upset about? A missed birthday? Rowan had just found out that this reality's version of her was fucking dead!

"That's not the hot issue here," Rowan snapped.

"I don't see why it matters, sweetheart," Doris said. "We don't know how you got here, we don't know why you're here, we just know that you are here. Now would any of this explain why you started flickering this morning?"

Rowan shook her head. No, this didn't explain it because it wasn't these people trying to pull her back home. She was pretty sure that it was her version of Trevor had been standing over her, he had been the one trying to rip her back into her own time… and she had chosen to stay with Steve.

There was no way in hell she was going to tell Doris, who kept trying to throw she and Steve together at every chance she got, that she had chosen to stay in an alternate reality where she was dead instead of going home to her family who were probably all very worried about her.

"Please don't tell Steve," Rowan whispered. "He'll want to talk about this and I… I don't think I can."

Doris nodded to her. "Alright, honey, how about we go home and start dinner?"

Rowan watched as Doris cleared the searches, both from the computer screen and then the history, which Rowan would not have thought to do. She was silent as the woman took her hand and held it, softly leading her out of the office.

Tears were welling up in Rowan's eyes. She couldn't help it. She had a chance to go home and she didn't take it. She could be curled up by the fireplace with Trevor right now. She could be hugging her mother and kissing her dad's cheek. She could be helping him prove his theories right, right now. She could be getting ready to go to a skate practice. But she had chosen to stay here. For a man who didn't think of her in any romantic way. For a man who was dating someone else. For a man who'd never love her.

God.

She was totally fucking pathetic.

H5O-H5O-H5O- H5O

Steve had left a message with Dr. Trenton Pierce with a few details, hoping he'd call him back. All he had said was that he was curious to know what would happen if you moved an organic item between universes. Would it mess with a phone? Would it possibly kill the item being moved? Would the act of moving an object that didn't want to move make it look like it was flickering? Maybe that was too much but he wanted to be sure that he called back.

After catching the murderer, back on Niihau actually as he was angling to kill Dr. Stevens next, Steve headed home. He hadn't heard from his mother which meant Rowan was okay or she hadn't found the words to tell him that Rowan had vanished.

He opened the door to Rowan's music and the sound of them in the kitchen laughing and all the tension and dread that had built up in his chest deflated. He let out the breath he was holding in one long sigh and felt the smile creep up onto his face, blossoming into a full grin as he walked towards the kitchen. His eyes found Rowan cutting up vegetables to put into a pot and that strange feeling whelmed up into his chest again.

This warm constriction that cut off his air whenever he was particularly in awe of her had come so fast he was breathless again. She looked so at home, wearing one of his button-down shirts and a pair of short shorts. Her hair was up in a messy pony tail and she had haphazardly rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. She looked adorable, she looked like she had just rolled out of bed, she looked like she was his.

And he liked it.

It dawned on him, as his lower body tightened and coiled, that he wanted her. He wanted her to be his. He wanted to come home to her in his kitchen, making him dinner, wearing his clothes. He wanted her to turn around, smile at him, throw her arms around his neck and kiss him.

He wanted Rowan Pierce to be the one who stayed.

Rowan did turn and she did smile when she saw him. A big loping grin. She said something to him, but he didn't hear it over the sound of all the blood rushing away from his brain and the wild thumping of his heart.

His eyes fell to her hands. No one was holding on to Rowan. She could blink away right at that moment and there would be nothing to tether her to his universe.

"Mom, I said contact at all times," he snapped coming over to Rowan.

"She hasn't had a single episode since you dropped her off," Doris shot back.

Rowan was staring at him funny, a strange sort of smile on her face. "If you're so worried, here, hold my hand."

She held her hand out to him and Steve stared at it. He wanted to. Oh, he wanted to. But he was also afraid. Afraid of letting this one get any closer than she had already seem to have gotten. The girl who didn't belong in this universe. The girl who could blink away at any time. He couldn't fall for a girl who was gonna leave him like all the others.

Still he didn't want her to blink away right at that moment so he grabbed her hand. He tried not to let the butterflies run wild in his stomach when their fingers intertwined, yet another reminder of how deeply this girl could hurt him if he gave her the chance.

"Just because she hasn't had another incident doesn't mean it won't happen again," Steve reminded them. Rowan rested her head on his shoulder and for a moment Steve thought his heart might beat out of his chest.

He closed his eyes and repeated a mantra: You love Catherine. You love Catherine. You love Catherine.

It wasn't helping.

"I don't think it'll happen again," she said.

Oh, yeah like she knew that for certain. Wait… did she know that for sure? How would she even know that? What did she know that he didn't? Either way that didn't make him feel better. Not if he didn't know for certain that the flickering was finished.

Still he held her hand. He held her hand while she prepared dinner, while they ate dinner, and while they watched TV. His mother was long gone at that point, back at her own place, which meant Steve could sit and pretend that they were on a date. And with Rowan's head leaning on his shoulder it sort of felt like it too. But it wasn't, he kept reminding himself. And he wouldn't do something like that to Catherine, even though he and Catherine weren't really official...

The real problem came when it was time to go to bed. She couldn't stay in his room and he couldn't stay in hers, though he wanted to. Rowan must have realized that he was dithering, that he was on the precipice of demanding that she stayed with him so he could hold onto her even while she was sleeping.

"I'll be fine, Steve," she whispered to him. "It won't happen again."

"Can you promise me that?" he asked. Knowing full well the answer was no.

"Look," she said turning to him fully. She was still wearing his blue button down, he was trying really hard not to focus on that. "Before it happened I felt it. If I feel anything even remotely like that again I will go straight to you, okay?"

Steve was going to have to let that be enough. He didn't want to let go, he wanted that excuse to keep holding but, but he needed this to stop. He wanted to tell her that this was the last time he'd be holding her hand. He wanted to tell her that he didn't want her wearing his clothing. He wanted to tell her that this meant nothing except that he was worried her crossing back would hurt her. He didn't want to feel this way for her, all mushy and weak, terrified at the thought of losing her.

He let go of her hand and took a step away from her. Cool air assaulted him, like the sexual tension from being close to her had set the air around them on fire.

"Good night, Steve," she said and then launched herself at him. Her arms around his neck, holding him tightly. She pressed a kiss to his cheek quickly before dropping back to the balls of her toes and turning away.

It was all so quick that he had no time to react. That kind of hug, the one with the kiss, wasn't a good night ritual of theirs. It was a good-bye ritual. Why the hell would she be giving him a good-bye hug at the end of the night?

Steve forced himself to ignore it. If she expected to wink out while he was sleeping then he'd let her do it. He'd let her leave him if she really wanted to, and he wouldn't be crushed in the morning when he woke up and found her gone. Steve was determined to be okay with whatever outcome he found in the morning. No matter how much his heart protested.

H5O-H5O-H5O- H5O

She was burning again.

The sensation started in her shoulder blades and then travelled the rest of her body. Her breathing slowed, like she was submerged until she was forced to sit up just to be able to get air into her body. She fell out of her bed, collapsing to the ground painfully, already the world around her was swirling between shadows and crisp freezing white.

She wouldn't have time.

She wheezed out his name. A half hoarse cry. Ragged with fear. She didn't even know if he'd hear her. She tried to relax. Tried to let the pain radiating out from her shoulder blades take over but it hurt too much to just go with it. She fought against it, the fear caged in her chest scratching to get out.

She just didn't want to leave.

She didn't know when he appeared, she only knew when he touched her and for a minute that pain faded she was back in his world. And while the pain eased out of her limbs that pulling sensation still radiated in the spot between her shoulder blades.

Steve had heaved her up from the floor and clutched her to his chest. She held him back.

"Don't let go," she whispered for she knew if he let go, she'd go straight back to flickering. Something about him was tethering her here, and so long as he held onto her she'd be okay.

"I won't," she heard him whisper back and she tried to breathe.

Unfortunately the pain was returning, she could feel the weight of it suffocating her. It tugged and pulled at her, jerking her almost fully out of her arms. She dug her finger nails into Steve's back. She felt his do the same to her. She buried her face into his chest, she didn't want to leave here, she didn't want to leave the safety of his arms… not unless he came with her.

She didn't know how this happened either, maybe it was because she was too afraid to let go, maybe it was because she thought about taking him with her. Either way when the pain managed to jerk her back into that void Steve went tumbling with her.

H5O-H5O-H5O- H5O

Steve was blinded.

It felt like he was being dragged through water. It felt like he was being suffocated. Like his limbs were both on fire and cold at the same time. That crisp fresh smelling burn that had coated Rowan before was up in his nose now and he couldn't get it out. There was a pattern of swirling darkness dotted with white lights all leading towards a bright looking light, the source that was blinding him.

They were being dragged. Something glowing had a hold of Rowan, right between the shoulder blades and it seemed to be yanking her forward. A hook, made of metal coated in layers of jagged ice.

They slowed as they got closer to the light, like they were being pulled through mud or jelly. He struggled against it. It grew harder to breathe. He could have easily just have let go of Rowan and let this hook take her. But he couldn't.

She was his, goddamn it. And he was not letting her leave.

He forced himself to look into the light. It hurt his eyes to do so but he didn't care. He squinted until he could make out the silhouette of a person. The hook's tether led straight to that silhouette.

Steve forced himself to move. He forced his hands to move up her back until he found where the hook had lodged itself. Instinctively he knew, if he got this unhooked she'd be free. So he pulled. He pulled even though he heard her gasp of pain. He pulled even though he saw the first of a streaming red erupt from her like yarn spilling out of a teddy bear. He yanked and pulled even though the layers of ice burnt his skin and cut into his palm.

You can't have her!

He heard himself scream. He didn't know if it came from his mouth or from his heart. But with just that sentence the hook shattered in his grip and they finally stopped moving. For a brief moment they floated in the expanse. The darkness no longer shifting and swirling around them, the dots of lights come to a standstill. Rowan was shaking so hard he was afraid she might come apart in his arms.

The strings of red that had erupted from her tangled around him and tangled them together. He didn't care. He held his Rowan to him, his heart beat calming. It didn't matter if they floated here together for the rest of their lives. Here she was his. There was no Catherine. No Five-0. No Responsibilities. Here there was nothing but them and at that moment that was all he wanted.

He cradled her to him like she was the most precious thing to him. At that moment she was. He got lost in her perfect blue eyes, in the desire welling up in him.

Before he knew what he had done, his hands had caught her face and he had kissed her. He kissed her with all that new emotion and passion that had built up in him in the span of however long they had been in this void. He kissed her like she was his everything, clinging to her like she was his anchor. Her arms came around him again, around his neck, her fingers curled into his hair.

This was it. This was what he had been craving. He would never get enough of this.

And then they came crashing out of the void.

They landed on Rowan's bedroom floor with a terrible clatter and painful whumpf. The air knocked out of both of them, Rowan on the bottom and Steve on top of her. He rolled his weight off of her as the two caught their breaths.

They said nothing as they lay there. They stared at the ceiling shoulder to shoulder until Steve remembered why he had come into her room in the first place. His hand found hers and then gripped it tightly. He felt her eyes on him but he couldn't bring himself to look back.

"If you think I'm letting you go now, after all of that, you're crazy," he snapped.

Rowan answered him by rolling over and pressing herself into his side. He slid his hand out of hers and wrapped an arm around her shoulders so he could press her even farther into his side. After a moment's silence where he was acutely aware of the fact that her breasts were pressed into the side of his chest she asked: "Can we at least sleep in a bed?"

The answer was yes.

That night Steve slept in Rowan's bed. Her back to his chest, his arms tightly wrapped around her. Her hair still smelled of the void but he didn't care. He clung to her, he refused to let go, and he knew then, with an earth-shattering clarity that he would never survive the blow of losing Rowan.