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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Oh it's a good thing I chose to do a marathon of chapters. Could you imaging if you had to wait until Friday or even next week to find out what happens? You guys only had to wait A DAY! Okay, don't forget to tell me all about those one shots you want if you get the 300th review. Only 38 more to go! I hope you enjoy this chapter, it's not gonna be exactly what you want, but I hope you guys still enjoy it. See you guys tomorrow!

Chapter 38

Rowan was in surgery for 16 hours. 16 hours of Steve sitting in the waiting room letting tears slip out of his eyes because he was too tired to function and too tired to hold them back. 16 hours of Danny sitting beside him until he needed to go get Grace and then it was Danny and Grace. 16 hours of Kono and Chin hovering, wandering, but staying nearby in case there was news. 16 hours of nerve wracking worry, praying to any God who would listen to him that Rowan made it through.

As the night turned into morning, and then back into night again more people trickled in to check on Rowan. Max showed up and sat himself down, stoically waiting for the new. He very kindly declined talking about her injury and the statistics of her survival rate. Kamekona showed up with Flipper and a giant meal for everyone in the waiting room. Doris showed up as well all tearful and worried just like everyone else, though something was odd about the way she went about it. Had Steve actually been mentally present enough to notice, he would have said something. But out of everyone in the waiting room, Steve was the worst.

A nervous wreck. Still stained by her blood and still shaking. Still trying to hold back tears and failing miserably.

But, unfortunately, it was Alex who proved to be the most useful of the people who came to wait with them.

Steve had purposely not called two people. First was Catherine because he was still unhappy with her over their last argument, and he wasn't ready to have the we're done talk until he knew Rowan was alive and well. Mainly because he figured he was too much of an emotional wreck to actually have that talk with tact and decorum. Then he had purposely not called Alex, because he wanted Alex really fucking far away from Rowan, especially if Steve was going to pour his heart out to her.

Alex had stormed into waiting room, maybe around the 10 hours mark, in his scrubs and practically attacked Steve. Sucker punched him right out of his chair.

"You son of a bitch!" he shouted. Immediately Danny was between them warding Alex off. "What happened to bringing her back alive? See this is why you need to exit her life! She couldn't just come back not injured, no she had to get shot?"

"I didn't shoot her!" Steve cried. Steve picked himself up off the ground. His Five-0 family stood with him. Chin and Kono at his flank, Kamekona and Flipper behind them, Danny in front like a pit bull ready to attack. "You think I shot her?"

"No, but this wouldn't have happened if she wasn't associating with you!" Alex hollered

"Okay, you need to take it down a notch, asshole. It's no one's fault but the guy who shot her," Danny snapped.

"By his nemesis!" Alex cried pointing at Steve.

He had a point. She had been shot by Wo Fat. And the guy kind of was his nemesis. Rowan wouldn't have been in this situation if he hadn't taken her up in that helicopter with him that day. If she didn't have visions about his life and want to help. She may be at home curled up with a book instead of in surgery fighting for her life. He could have gone home last night and had her in his house, in his room, in his bed, but they had taken this terrible detour and he wanted nothing more than to get them back on track.

Alex took a few calming breaths as he tried to calm himself down. "I'm going to go see if I can get an update on how her surgery is going," Alex snapped. He then turned a dry glare onto Steve and growled: "Try not to get anyone else killed while I'm gone."

As soon as he left, as soon as he was gone, Steve broke down again. He found himself sitting in a chair flat out sobbing, not because he wanted to but because it was true. Had he just made different choices both he and Rowan would be somewhere else right now. He had brought Rowan so much misery. He was the reason she was always in so much pain. He didn't deserve her and he knew it.

"It's not your fault," Danny said wrapping an arm around Steve's shoulder. "Don't listen to him. He's a douche."

"I should have left her at the base. I shouldn't have let her come with us," Steve said.

"And I should have held onto her tighter when she was dangling out of that helicopter. I should have realized when she showed up at that Roller Derby that Wo Fat couldn't be too far behind her," Danny reminded him. "But we're not the ones who shot her, Steve. We're probably the ones who have saved her. You got her out of the water. We all worked to keep her alive until the EMTs arrived. It's not your fault."

Steve forced himself to wipe his eyes. Forced himself to man up. He couldn't help Rowan by falling to pieces. He needed to be strong for her. He glanced over to where Grace was watching him with wide fearful, tearful eyes. He needed to be strong for Grace too.

Alex came back a couple of minutes after that. He didn't look ready to fight Steve. He looked defeated and a dreadful stillness descended upon the Five-0 Family.

Alex looked to each and every one of their faces before saying: "She's going to be in surgery for another couple hours."

"A couple hours?" Steve echoed. That couldn't be good. Something must have gone wrong.

"The bullet hit her Brachial Artery. It's the vein in the shoulder that supplies all the blood to her arm. It also nicked the Brachial Plexus and has damaged several nerves. They're attempting to cauterize the injuries so there's the least amount of damage done to the nerves but she's making it hard for them," he told them.

Steve had gone ashen listening to this. His poor Rowan. She'd be in so much pain when she woke up. She might lose the ability to move her left arm.

"What do you mean she's making it hard?" Danny asked, which was both a blessing a curse. Steve hadn't been able to ask. He had been worried he wouldn't be able to take the answer, but he so desperately wanted to know.

"So she was DOA when the ambulance got there and the EMTs got her heart started en route, right?" he asked. So he knew Steve arrived with her, great. And you know, he really didn't need the reminder of that harrowing ambulance ride. He nodded. "Yeah, well they've had to stop three times to get her heart started again."

She kept dying.

Her surgery was taking hours because she kept dying.

"So what's the eta?" Kono asked. Ever practical Kono. On the outside she looked perfectly fine, but Steve knew she wasn't taking it well. She had been so distraught that Adam had come to see her. Upon seeing her he had decided not to leave. He now stood, hand on her shoulder, offering all the comfort he could to a woman who didn't really want it. "How much longer do they think?"

"Anywhere between two to seven more hours. It depends on the damage. Depends on her heart. She's loosing so much blood they're hooking her up to a transfusion machine to get it into her. I'm not going to lie. It's bad," Alex said. His eyes never leaving Steve. As if he didn't feel enough guilt.

"But she's going to be okay, right?" Grace asked. Alex's eyes fell to her, surprise lit up his face like he hadn't realized that she was there standing in front of Danny with his hands on her shoulders.

"You know what, kiddo, I don't know," he told her. "But the doctors are trying really hard to patch her up so she will be okay. So we all need to send her positive thoughts to help her get better. Do you think you can do that?"

Grace nodded softly and Alex smiled. "I have to go on my rounds, but my friends are going to keep me posted. If anything drastic happens they'll call me and I'll come back, okay?"

Everyone nodded and Alex ran off leaving Steve with the knowledge that while he had been out in the waiting room internally dying while Rowan was on an operating table literally dying and being revived over and over.

Grace went with her Auntie Kono and her Uncle Adam to get a hot chocolate and Danny sat down next to Steve.

"Let's go for a walk," he said. "A quick one around the ward.

Steve shook his head. "I should be here. I should be here in case…"

He didn't know how to finish that sentence so he left it hanging there. He couldn't put the outcomes into words. It was either Rowan lived or she… she… and he just couldn't imagine that other option. But it didn't change the sentiment. He wanted to stay here, so he could be there for whatever news came out of that operating room.

"Trust me. You need this," Danny said. "Besides Chin will call if there's anything."

Chin nodded his assent and Danny pulled Steve out of his chair. Steve let Danny lead him along. They were silent for all of two minutes before Danny said: "You know he said it like that to make you feel bad, right?"

"Her heart's stopped three times since she was taken out of the ambulance," Steve whispered in response. "That's going to make me feel bad no matter how it's said."

"Steve, this isn't your fault," Danny said again and Steve said nothing. It was useless to argue. Danny didn't understand but he'd blame himself for the rest of his life if Rowan died today.

They were almost back to the waiting room when they heard crying. Crying that Steve recognized. He spotted Doris in a shadowed room and left Danny to walk back by himself. He went to his mother's side and put an arm around her shoulder. It surprised him that Doris was this frantically worried about Rowan, but he figured that the two of them had been close, sort of like a surrogate daughter.

"Its okay mom, she's going to be okay," he whispered to her. It helped him to say it, it helped him to believe that it was true. That she'd pull through and everything would be okay. Rowan had been lucky before, maybe his indestructible streak was wearing off on her.

"This is my fault," Doris sobbed into her hand. "It's my fault this happened."

Steve's eyebrows pulled together in confusion. What was his mother talking about? "Come on Mom, how is this your fault. You didn't know where she was or what was going on," he told her.

Doris turned to him. She was going to say something. He could see it. But then she shut her mouth, adverted her eyes and whispered: "I could have found her. I should have worked harder to find her."

Steve fell silent. It seemed everyone had a little bit to feel guilty about. Danny, who had left Steve to deal with his mother, knocked on the door.

"Everything good?" he asked. Steve nodded and the three returned to the waiting room. Kamekona left to go and make them more food. Max went with them to get them real coffee and then the Five-0 family hunkered together and told their favourite Rowan stories.

Danny's was Steve tackling Rowan into the water. Chin's was his moments with her in Halawa. Kono told them about Rowan versus the South African mercenaries. Max told them about the first time he met Rowan, playing his piano with her, and then the night she spent on his couch and how much hair she had left in his shower, he was still snaking it out apparently. Doris told everyone about Rowan and the bomb and how she had distracted the cops so Rowan could get to Danny and Steve.

Steve mumbled that his favourite story was the time they went to the aquarium and she nearly fell into the stingray tank. But that wasn't true. His favourite moment with Rowan was the first morning he woke up in her bed, wrapped up in each other the sunshine streaming in on her face, highlighting every beautiful feature. But he couldn't say any of that. Not that he thought his Five-0 family would tell Catherine about it he just didn't want to make them accomplices in his lies.

They did this for four hours, exchanging their favourite Rowan stories, exchanging their theories about her back story, and telling Steve all about their many bets and who won which one. Kono won most of them. They didn't stop until the power on their level flickered.

Steve straightened. "What the hell was that?" he asked.

He must have sounded worried because Kono said: "Don't worry Boss, even if we lose power they have back-up generators."

But that wasn't what bothered him. His fingers went to his sternum. There was a sudden sharp pain in his chest the kind he got when she started flickering. A power flicker made him nervous. What if the void was calling to her, trying to pull her through, while she was on the table? But this was nothing like the pain when she was actually attempting to travel and Kono was right they had back-up generators if the power went out.

He wasn't truly worried until Alex went sprinting through the waiting room. Steve called after him, he asked what was wrong but Alex didn't answer. He disappeared into the Surgery Theater leaving Steve a quaking worried mess. Something had gone wrong. Something had happened. He knew it. He just knew it.

The Five-0 family all stood around him They put their hands on his shoulder at separate times and told him not to worry. But that didn't make the emotion go away.

Steve paced while they waited. Paced wondering what happened to have Alex run back into her surgery. He paced because if he sat still he'd break down again. Motion kept the emotions moving. Motion kept him together because if he stood still that fragile glue that was holding him together would shatter.

Alex came out an hour later where he then pulled Steve aside.

"Is there anything you guys left out?" he asked. "Had she been electrocuted before this? Or hit by lightning?"

"No, why?" Steve asked. "Is she okay?"

"She started to seize on the table and then everything in the room shorted out. They said it was like an electromagnetic pulse, but that it came from her," he told him. "There's no way that's possible though so they're just in shock over it."

Steve shook his head. No, it didn't make sense, but he had a feeling he knew what had happened. But he noticed that Alex hadn't answered his original question. "But is she okay?"

"What?" he asked clearly distracted. "Oh yeah, she's fine. Surgery's done. She's got a steady pulse but she needs the machine to breathe for her. They expect a full recovery if she doesn't take any turns in the night."

"She pulled through!" Steve cried and a resounding cry from the people waiting for news on Rowan echoed through the waiting room and the Alex and Steve were swarmed for more information.

"Yes, yes, she's out of surgery. They managed to stop the bleeding, fix up the nerves best they could and sew her back up. She's not breathing on her own, but she has a pulse. They expect her to wake up in the next few days, and she has a lot of rest and recovery on the horizon, but they think, if she can make it through the night, there'll be nothing to worry about."

Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief, Steve's was the biggest of all. HE found himself hunched over braced on his knees as he gulping in air like he had just swum a mile underwater. But he saw the threat in Alex's eyes. If Alex got to Rowan before he did he'd turn her against him. Steve couldn't let that happen. Alex wasn't going to take her from him. He was going to prove to her and to Alex that he could take care of her. He'd never let her get hurt again.

"Can I go sit with her?" Steve asked.

Alex shrugged. "Yeah, soon. They're just transferring her to a room," he said.

Steve forced himself to stand straight, he knew the doctors would be coming out and then he'd be in her room. He wasn't going to leave her side until she woke up. He was going to be the first person she saw. He'd guarantee it.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Two hours later.

Rowan had her own room. She lay dwarfed in a hospital bed, a respiration tube down her throat, her arm in a sling. She looked ten times paler than usual. She had the fading of yellow and green bruises around her throat from when that man had tried to choke her, but other then that she was said to be in good health. Whatever she had been doing with Wo Fat had kept her healthy. She was no longer that skeletal thing that had come home to him two months before. She had clearly not been tortured or held in squalid conditions.

Hell, if she hadn't been shot by her captor he would have been forced to agree with Alex. Wo Fat had definitely been taking really good care of her.

Luckily Alex wouldn't come into her room. Once it was deemed that Rowan was okay everyone else left. They went back home, or to work, or wherever they needed to be. Only Steve stayed. Holding her hand, kissing her knuckles and talking to her.

He told her how scared he was when she fell. How upset he had been when he had to leave her behind. How he stayed up, drunk and worried, pacing his floorboards waiting to feel it when she opened the void. He told her how much of a mess he was when Wo Fat sent the first ransom demand. He told her that he was going to go through with it, but then she was injured and Wo Fat no longer wanted to trade. He told her that he felt her at that shooting, though he didn't know what it meant at the time. He told her that he missed her every second of every day that she was gone and that his biggest regret was picking Catherine when his heart so clearly wanted her.

He told her that if she'd let him he'd fix everything, he'd pick her. He'd stay with her, ask her to be his and then never leave her side. He'd treat her right, he'd never forget what she meant to him, and she meant a lot.

Steve, who was not good at talking about his feelings, had suddenly become a babbling brook, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. And he wasn't sure he wanted to stop it anyway.

Seventeen hours later

Steve had barely left that room. He went to the washroom, he had nurses who were vying for his attention bringing him coffee. The Five-0s all came sporadically to visit. Kono came with Adam. Kamekona came with Flipper and Max. Doris showed up with a vase of flowers. Danny came back with Chin and Grace and a get well soon teddy that Grace made him buy Rowan.

They all said the same thing.

"You need to go home and rest."

Steve said the same thing every time. "I want to be here with her."

It was Danny who didn't buy that line. It was Danny who wouldn't accept that as an excuse.

"You've been up for 34 hours in this hospital alone. This doesn't include the full day you were awake before we rushed off to chase her. Steve, you need to sleep," he snapped.

"And a shower," Chin added.

Steve shook his head. "I want to be the first person she sees. I want her to know I was here for her."

"Fucking go sleep down the hall then," Danny snapped. "Steve. You need to sleep. Use the showers here, use a spare cot to nap in. I'm sure the nurses will set you up with something. Chin can stay and watch Rowan. If she wakes up he'll call you."

"Oh! Why is it Chin can stay?" Chin cried. "It's your plan, you stay!"

"I have Grace tonight," Danny added.

"So we both stay! I can braid Rowan's hair," Grace cried trying to climb up on Rowan's bed. Steve lurched forward and pulled Grace off the bed and into his arms. She wasn't trying to hurt her, she just didn't know any better, but he didn't want her hurting Rowan by accident. He squeezed the little girl in a quick hug before dropping her back to the ground.

"If I agree to this you have to promise to call me if she wakes up," he said.

"Yeah, yeah," Danny said. "We promise, now go get some sleep before you keel over where you stand."

Steve reluctantly agreed. As Danny thought, the nurses were more than willing to help him out. He had his shower first. Took him less than 60 seconds. Would have been 30 if he hadn't dozed where he was standing while washing the shampoo out of his hair. After that he got back into his clothes which now felt greasy and dirty against his skin. He dropped by the room again and found Danny and Chin outside arguing over who was staying. When they saw Steve, Danny jumped at the chance to take Grace and leave, promising to bring back a change of clothes for him.

Begrudgingly he allowed a nurse to take him to what she called the crash room. Where nurses and doctors curled up and took naps when they had been working too long. He told himself he'd be too worried to sleep, he told himself that he needed to be there for Rowan, but the second his head hit the pillow he was out like a light.

Until Grace was shaking him awake.

"Danno and Uncle Chin say that there's a man here trying to hurt Auntie Ro," she told him. "Danno said to stay with you."

Steve was up immediately. Rowan in danger? What the hell? He had been asleep for what? Ten minutes. He checked his phone. Four hours?! That had not been the plan!

"Grace, I need you to stay here, okay?" he told her. Grace nodded climbing up onto the bed he had just vacated. He still didn't have his gun but he'd take this guy on with his bare hands before he let him do anything to Rowan.

He got out onto the floor noticing that whatever the issue was it wasn't enough to have the nurses and doctors scurrying away. He got close to Rowan's room and someone came out. A doctor judging by the white lab coat but he shoes were wrong. They were dress shoes. There was a face mask on, not necessary in Rowan's room. She wasn't contagious or sick, just injured.

But when that Doctor spotted him, when their eyes met, Steve recognized him.

Wo Fat.

Steve started forward just as Wo Fat shoved a nurse aside to get away from him. He was primed to chase. Primed to tackle Wo Fat to the ground and strangle him with his own two bare hands for doing this to Rowan. But he was distracted by a shrill beeping. Steve turned. Why was Rowan's room beeping?

No. No. No, Wo Fat had not finished the job off, had he?

For the second time in three days he abandoned the chase for Wo Fat and ran to Rowan. Nurses were piling into the room as the machines around her beeped uncontrollably.

"What's going on?" Steve asked. He watched her body arch, her good arm coming up to her face. Panic blossomed in his chest. "What's wrong with her?"

"Please just stand back Commander," the no nonsense nurse that hadn't pandered to him once since they had arrived told him. God why hadn't he bothered to remember any of their names? Steve stood back and watched as the tube was pulled from Rowan's throat. He heard her terrible gags and then her wet coughs and gasps for air.

He didn't understand why they would possibly take her off the machine that was breathing for her until her heard a rasping gasp of: "Tell him he can go fuck himself!"

Steve pushed through so he was standing at the foot of the bed. Rowan was awake, sort of. She was half up and pointing at the door that Wo Fat had left through She then coughed again and dropped back to the bed.

He hadn't been the first person she saw, and that was disappointing. And while he should have been worried that she wanted to tell Wo Fat to go fuck himself, and that she had woken up and the first person she saw was Wo Fat instead of him, he couldn't help but be happy. Rowan was breathing again. But best of all, Rowan was awake.