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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Alright, so we didn't get to 360 reviews but I feel super bad about that cliff hanger so we're gonna do the triple update this week. So we'll get two more updates this week. One today and one more on Saturday cause this one ends on an exciting little cliffhanger. Anyone wanna tell me what you think? Things are gonna get interesting from here on in and at the end of this episode there's gonna be another negative change between Rowan and Steve (I know, I know) I swear we're almost to the day that they start working it out. I SWEAR! Don't forget to tell me what to think and I'll see you guys on Saturday!

Chapter 59

The men with guns stormed in. They had guns ready to go, all aimed in one direction, at Wo Fat. But the smoke cleared and it wasn't Wo Fat but Rowan in between them and Wo Fat, a box in her fucking hands.

"Hi. I'm Rowan. Want a cupcake?" she asked.

There was a beat of silence before that sentence and them opening fire. There was a yelp and when Steve poked his head out from behind the pillar he was hiding behind he saw that it was because Wo Fat had thrown Rowan back to where his cot was. He alone was staring down the gunmen as they attempted to shatter the bullet proof glass between them with bullets alone.

Steve stepped out when one of them stepped forward and placed a small incendiary device on the glass. Small or not that blast would break the glass, hurt Wo Fat but it was Rowan he was worried about. He attacked the man closest to him, knocked him out and then used his gun to shoot the others, and his body to shield him from the bullets flying.

With the other men down, Steve dropped the body in his arms and then turned to the frantic beeping. He practically threw himself at the bomb covering it with his hand, hitting the termination button before it could go off.

Wo Fat was wearing a smug grin on his face and Steve scowled. "I didn't do this for you," he growled.

And then Rowan popped up beside him. "Are they all dead?" she asked him. Her wide blue eyes surveying the carnage behind him.

Steve saw Wo Fat shake his head. His eyes imploring Steve to do something but he didn't know what. So he said: "Yeah."

Rowan nodded, her eyes finding the bodies behind him again, her face going that terrible pale he was still getting used to. There was one second between him saying that and Rowan's gag. He saw Wo Fat's scowl, watched him turn her around.

"Just don't look at them," he said. But Rowan gagged again, and now he was frantically pushing her towards the toilet in the room.

Steve cringed as she heaved. He glared at Wo Fat who knew, not just where to stand, but how to hold her hair back just right. His hand rubbed up and down her spine the way Steve had done for her back when her head injuries and accidental pill mix-ups made her sick. Wo Fat filled every void Steve's lack of presence had left in her life.

No wonder she didn't need Steve. She had Wo Fat.

Steve couldn't bear to watch them anymore. He couldn't bear to watch Wo Fat be so soft and caring with her, so he turned away and looked at the mess around him. He needed someone who was alive, someone he could question to explain why any of this happened. And he had one.

Steve dragged the one living guy through the hallway that had been decimated. He was covered in sweat, debris and dust from the explosion, flecks of blood and he was absolutely fuming.

Danny came running with Chin hot on his heels. "Steve! Steve are you okay?" he asked.

He couldn't answer that complicated of a question. Physically yes, mentally… fuck no…

"Get Wo Fat to a secure location. Get him off of Rowan…" "—Wait… Rowan was here for this?" "Bring her to the Palace, I'll meet you there."

He wasn't even out of the hallway where he heard the screech. Her scream was nothing but his name and everything in his body reacted instantly. He dropped his injured NLM operative and practically sprinted back to her, suddenly filled with a catatonic driving need to protect her from whatever the hell had made her scream for him like that. He hated that she had that power over him, he hated that his body was attuned to protect her in that way. And even though his brain and pride begged him not to his heart had different ideas.

When he got there, he found that Danny had gotten the door to Wo Fat's cell open, Wo Fat hadn't even tried to escape, he wasn't even glaring at them or smiling smugly. His eyes were on Rowan who had her head in her hands and was trembling. Her back against the concrete wall, her knees to her chest.

He looked up to Steve with nothing short of concern on his face and said: "She doesn't do well with blood or bodies."

As if Steve hadn't figured that out. Though to be honest it upset him to realize that he had never noticed that before. The ashiness of her face when she had visions, the way she paled when he spoke of injuries and death blows. All of those were signs. Signs he ignored.

Steve knelt down in front of her, took a hold of her wrists and slowly and carefully pulled her hands away from her face. She was crying. Violently. Steve's heart broke. He had never seen her so scared before and she had been in a hostage situation, and faced down a criminal in a prison riot that was three times her size. It killed him that this was what debilitated her, that the one thing he could have protected and saved her from he hadn't even tried to help her with. He had left her to Wo Fat. Maybe she did need him… because Steve had been certainly lacking in that department.

"Did they kill Brian?" she asked her voice small, tearful and fearful.

Steve didn't know who Brian was, but if he was one of the guys in the hallway he sure as hell wasn't alive. His face must have betrayed the answer because Rowan hiccupped into sobs again, her body shaking so hard he was certain she'd do herself harm.

Steve wrapped her up in his arms, forced her to her feet and then swung her legs up. It hit him that he was carrying her the way he'd carry a new bride. He felt that thought enter his mind and heart, the image of her in a white dress, him in a black suit smiling as he carried her to a bed. Their bed.

But this was nothing like that image and he forced it to the back of his mind for later.

"Close your eyes," he ordered. "Okay?"

Rowan nodded, but she didn't just close her eyes. She put her face into Steve's neck, her arms around him as she held herself there. As if pressing herself into him would save her from what he was going to walk her through. He walked quickly, got her as far away from the carnage as he could. He set her down facing the elevator that would take her up. He made sure she wasn't looking at anything behind her.

"Okay, go upstairs, wait for me there, okay?" he said.

"What if there are more bodies?" she asked in a hollow voice.

"Would you rather ride the elevator with him?" he asked gesturing to the injured guy who was trying to crawl away.

"If you're going to be with me, yes," she answered.

Steve tried to stifle his smile. She wanted him. Not Wo Fat. She wanted him to protect her from this.

"Alright, give me a minute," he whispered. And then went to go get the NLM idiot who decided to piss him off today.

Maybe today wasn't going to be as bad as he thought it would be.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve had been interrogating the NLM agent for what seemed like hours. Anything to not have to go upstairs and see Rowan in his office, head in her hands, still queasy from the attack. He'd have to question her later and he was putting it off purposely.

Danny knocked on the door and Steve left the guy there. Danny was waiting for him with a new shirt that Steve took immediately.

"I've handed Wo Fat off to the Feds," he said. "They've got him on the tarmac waiting to ship him off to his new maximum security facility in Colorado."

"Good, did he say why these people attacked him?"

"No, surprisingly he wasn't very chatty," Danny told him. "He did however tell me to commend you on your battle prowess."

"He said that to you?" Steve asked, very concerned that Wo Fat may have been trying to give him a compliment.

"No, he gave me a look," Danny snapped. Ah yes, because Danny was being sarcastic, of course. "To be honest the only thing he asked about was Rowan. He wanted to know if she was okay."

Steve must have pulled a face because Danny immediately tried to change the topic. "Why were you even there?" he asked.

"Before my mother left, she went to see him, I wanted to know why," Steve admitted as he stripped himself of the blue button-down shirt he had worn because in the back of his mind he had a feeling he'd see Rowan at that prison and she loved that shirt on him.

"I'm taking a guess, he didn't tell you anything," Danny shot off. "And Doris is conveniently unavailable to give you an answer."

"I have my theories. I just hope they're not right," Steve said.

"Okay, call me crazy here, but have you thought about asking Rowan?" Danny asked. "She was there. She knew the attack was coming, she mentioned at the dock that she knows what's going on between them, so she's gotta know why your mother went to visit him… right? Rowan's always chatty. Ask her."

Steve didn't want to ask her. He didn't want to know what happened in her TV show. So instead of answering him he finished buttoning him the white shirt and then went back into the interrogation room.

He kept asking the same questions, over and over. Promised to take the guy to the hospital to get his wound looked at but the guy either couldn't or wouldn't talk.

And then Chin called.

"Hey Chin, what have you got?" he asked. If Chin had an update on Rowan he was going to hang up.

"The man you're interrogating is Ricardo Cosi," Chin voice echoed out through the phone. The man in the chair didn't even stir. "He's known to be involved in drug trafficking and kidnapping for ransom and murder. He's linked to over thirty National Liberation Movement action in the past decade."

Fuck she was right. "Wait, so this guy really is NLM?" he asked.

Danny sighed. "I thought we were done with these guys."

Steve scowled. "Apparently not," he snarled. And of course Rowan was right. Wo Fat had just straight up offered her information like that. He had to fucking pull teeth to get either of them to talk.

"Ricardo Cosi is NLM Royalty. He's the nephew of the leader, Esteban Luna, a.k.a El Condor" Chin told them.

Steve just stared at this man. Why the hell had he been sent to dispatch Wo Fat? What the hell did they want from him.

"So that's why they went after Wo Fat. Because he helped us get Salgado and prevent the attack on San Francisco," Danny whispered.

"Well, now they're looking for payback," Chin agreed.

"Yo… has uh… has Rowan said anything of use?" Danny asked.

In the background came a loud groan that they knew wasn't Chin. "No, to be honest, by the amount she's groaning, I'm surprised she hasn't vomited."

Steve shook his head, though he mentally made note that he would need to get Rowan a ginger ale before he spoke to her. He needed to get them back on track. "This guy's got a blood tie to the NLM leader. Means he's going to have some serious intelligence value."

Finally, the man in the chair looked up. He said nothing but the look on his face said it all. He had no intention of talking. He had no intention of telling them anything. And he fully expected someone to come and rescue him soon.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Chin stared at the smart table watching the trajectory of the boat. He had heard from Adam and everything was fine so far, he'd get back to him when they were settled. Rowan was somewhere behind him, he kept hearing her groan as she hiccupped and heaved. Still sick from the scene she witnessed apparently.

But Chin knew she had never been that bad before. He wondered if something else was wrong with her.

"You shouldn't be tracking their boat," Rowan called from Steve's office, her head still in her hands.

Chin turned a scowl to her. "And why not?"

Rowan was silent a moment before she whispered: "I don't remember."

Chin shook his head. It would be helpful if she could at least give him a reason.

"God, why do I feel so sick?" she grumbled as she dropped her head to the desk. Chin immediately felt bad. The poor girl, she was sick and he wasn't being very nice to her considering what she had witnessed. But then again with the type of visions she had been having one would think that she was better with those sorts of things.

Then the gunshots started. Rowan's head whipped up immediately. "That's today?!" she thundered.

Chin Ho pulled out his own gun and he ran towards the gunshots. He didn't have time to decode that comment. He didn't have time for any of it.

"Stay down!" he ordered as he ran out of the room. He only had to take one look to realize that he was out gunned and outnumbered. Plus, they had put a bomb on the front entrance. If they were willing to do it to that one, they were willing to do it to all of them.

Chin quickly retreated and then picked up his phone. Steve answered on the first ring.

"Steve, we got a situation here," he said. But all he got was beeping. "Steve?"

Nothing. No signal. Fucking shit. And then two people came into the office. Chin ducked into Steve's office where Rowan was perched on the couch her eyes wide but she didn't seem afraid. She didn't ask what happened, she didn't ask why he was coming in there, gun drawn and getting ready to hide, in fact, she said absolutely nothing.

He pulled her off of the couch and out of sight. But there was something on Rowan's face that made him nervous.

"What are they doing?" she asked. "Are they at the smart table?"

Chin hazarded a peak. They were. He nodded and Rowan's face was almost set in stone with anger. "I know what they want," she whispered. The woman in red, obviously in charge at that moment was speaking on a walkie talkie, Chin was trying to listen, but Rowan was rooting through his back pocket, nearly startling a yelp out of him.

Good thing it couldn't be heard over the sound of them opening fire on the Smart Table. Chin ducked back down to where Rowan was cowering and covered her exposed parts from any stray or ricocheting bullets. Chin waited for silence and then the intruders were heading for the elevator. Rowan had silently pulled out her phone and crawled back to Steve's desk. She plugged her phone into his laptop and then stared at her phone.

As soon as the criminal were in the elevator and the doors had closed he could hear talking. He turned and Chin realized that Rowan had somehow managed to make a call.

"Hi… uh… I'm Rowan Pierce, Wo Fat told me to call you if I ever got into big trouble," she said into the phone. She raised her thumb up to gnaw on her cuticle like she did when she was nervous. "Yes. I'm in big trouble."

She listened once more. "Uhm… well I'm at the Iolani Palace in the middle of a hostage situation. Snipers would be nice but you're the expert so, uh, whatever you think is good," she said. She listened a little bit more and then said: "Okay, eta… great see you then."

She hung up the phone and handed it back to Chin. "Twenty minutes," she told him. "Twenty minutes and then we'll move."

"We had no service. How did you make a call without service?" he asked. He pulled out his phone and checked it. Still no service, he took her phone from her and saw that she had no service either. How the hell had she made a call?

"I called using the Wi-Fi," she whispered.

"I'm sorry… what?" he half cried still trying to keep his voice down. He didn't know if they were in the elevator or still waiting.

"I used an app to make a call over Wi-Fi, it's not this hard, Chin," she whispered back. But this just left Chin with more question. "They've gone down for that injured guy. I need to get to them before they get back upstairs. I need to know what they took."

"They probably took information," Chin told her, "We have hostages to worry about."

"No. Trust me. This is more important," she said. "I need to know what they took and who they're going to give it to. I feel like I should know but I'm so sick right now and I can't remember."

She had gotten up and slowly made her way to the elevator where she pressed the button and began to wait.

Chin wanted to ask her how she knew the number to an assassin or sniper. He wanted to know how she knew this was more important. He wanted to know what she planned on doing. Once she was sure the elevator was moving, she said: "Come on, let's take the stairs," and then rushed off before Chin could ask her any questions.

He followed after her as she rushed down the stairs. Sure, enough when they got down, they could see the two waiting by the elevator guns drawn and ready to open fire. Chin used his access card to get them out and into the hallway and then the two of them snuck up on the other two.

Chin took his eyes off of Rowan for two seconds, only two seconds, while he made sure the door shut quietly behind them. The villains were busy with the now open and empty elevator, they wouldn't have noticed him. But in that time, in those brief two seconds Rowan had left his side and was now standing behind the two of them.

Rowan drew herself up, straightened every inch of her vertebra, put her hands on her hips and set her face in a dark glare.

"What did you steal?" she asked, her voice level and clear. It wasn't her usual voice either, this voice was low and dangerous, it sent shivers up Chin's spine. The two turned, their guns raised into Rowan's face but neither of them fired. Immediately Chin felt his heart rate jump. If something happened to Rowan, Steve would kill him. He moved to get beside her, his own gun raised, but neither the woman in red nor the man with her looked intimidated by him and his pistol. When neither the woman in red nor the man answered her Rowan scowled.

"I'll ask you again. What did you steal?" Rowan repeated.

"You're not in a position to question me," the woman in red said. "You have no weapon, you have no…"

"I'm Rowan Pierce," Rowan growled and in both of their pocket phones chimed. "Now tell me what you just did or I'll make you suffer."

The woman in red stared at her for a moment before lowering the gun in her hand with a laugh. "You, you're the girl who brought Wo Fat to his knees?" she asked.

"Not just him, but you too if you keep testing me," Rowan snapped. But neither of them said anything. Rowan was clearly getting angry. She took half a step forward and the woman raised her automatic assault rifle up to Rowan's chest, but it didn't seem to scare her. It scared the shit out of Chin Ho, who raised his gun a little higher in hopes of maybe shooting one of them before they shot Rowan. But the odds weren't good for that.

"We're not a part of your little network anymore," the woman said. "We're not working for you, nor are we afraid of you."

"Pity," Rowan snapped. "You should be."

Now this seemed to actually scare the woman because she was suddenly staring at Rowan as if she had just told them she had two heads. Rowan's glare stayed on her face, all silent and dark. The woman actually took a step back.

"I will not ask you again. What did you steal? And who are you giving it to?" she asked. The woman just glared at her and Rowan suddenly growled. "Fine. Then you brought this on yourself."

With a quickness Chin didn't think Rowan had, she had knocked the rifle away from her chest and then gripped the woman's arms, suddenly and unexpectedly everything began to spark all over again. Rowan eyes glowed white, that orange electricity flew from her to the lights above them shattering the bulbs and causing glass to rain down on them. The woman jerked and screamed like she was getting electrocuted and maybe she was.

The man beside them threw himself back. He screamed a word bruja and then raised his gun to shoot. Chin had no choice but to put two bullets in him to keep him from shooting Rowan. When she was done she dropped the woman in red to the ground and then collapsed against the wall breathless and bleeding again.

She caught her breath and then knelt down beside the woman. She rifled through her jacket and pockets until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out the data bank and then crushed it under her heel.

"They already transmitted it. I need a phone that works," she whispered but before Chin could ask her what that meant a voice rang out from the walkie-talkie attached to the woman's waist. Asking about progress. About the man they were looking for. Chin didn't have time to stop Rowan from picking it up and answering the call.

"The bitch is dead," Rowan said into the walkie-talkie. "And you're next."

She threw the walkie-talkie down at the woman and then glanced up to Chin. She clocked his horrified look and she avoided his eyes. "She's not really dead. She's just unconscious… I think…"

They were silent for a bit before he asked: "Are you okay?"

Rowan looked down to her arm which was bleeding, the look on her face clear, she knew she was bleeding in other places as well. She blinked her eyes and looked down at the woman. "I think I saved them. So, yeah, I think I'm okay. But we're not out of the clear yet. I need to stop them from shooting Danny… or Steve," she whispered. "It could go either way at this point."

"Can I ask how you did that?" Chin asked.

"You could but I wouldn't be able to answer you," she said. "I'm not sure how I did it myself, but right now, what's more important is getting these bastards out of the Iolani Palace and as far away from us as possible. Help me get her in the elevator."

Chin just stared at her. In this light, with that look on her face, Chin Ho Kelly realized that Rowan Pierce was exactly like Steve McGarrett and Wo Fat combined. That made her twice as dangerous.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Ernesto looked at the walkie-talkie in his hand. He didn't know that voice. His man had said that the offices were clear but now he wasn't so sure.

"I thought you said you cleared the offices," he said to the underling closest to him.

The man nodded. "We did," he said.

Ernesto indicated to the walkie-talkie in his hand. Where the woman's voice had told him that Flora was dead. Clearly they hadn't.

Above them came the distant chatter of another voice. A different voice. Ernesto glared at him.

"It seems you weren't as carefully as you thought," he said and then sent the guy back up there to deal with it. "If you find the bitch with the walkie, bring her to me."

The man nodded and walked away heading towards the office that held Five-0 the whole reason they were there in the first place. The conversation getting clearer as he got closer.

"…I'm trapped on the second floor in the offices of Five-0. They cut all the phone lines. They're jamming our cell signals. I think there's more hiding in the basement. Please, they'll kill everyone unless you do something. You gotta help. We got men here with guns…."

He got into the office but there was no one there. Just a cell phone on the floor playing a recorded message.

It was a trap.

He didn't realize someone was there until they dropped from the ceiling. One man, Asian, landing neatly on his feet, decking him immediately. The red-headed girl that dropped with him did not land on her feet, but crashed to the floor and then groaned.

The man struggled in Chin's arms, but Chin only needed to deck him and then get him in a choke hold to get him out.

By the time Rowan stood up the man was unconscious and the leader was on the walkie again. Before Chin could stop her Rowan had it.

"I told you. You're all going to die."

Chin glared at her.

"You have got to stop doing that," he snarled.

"Half the battle is psychological warfare," Rowan hissed back at him.

"You sound just like him," Chin said. Rowan didn't have to ask who he meant. "You better not let Steve hear you talk like that."

Rowan said nothing, but went back into Steve's office where she began to pull the unconscious girl out of the office and through the shards of glass.

"What are you even doing?" he asked.

"Well… she's still alive, and she wasn't supposed to be left here. I'm pretty sure I have to give her back to the dude calling the shots at some point," Rowan said.

"Or you could just leave her," Chin said.

Rowan looked down to the woman she was lugging and then dropped her. "True. I could. But I get a bad feeling when I try, so for now, I'm just going to take her. You gonna help me or not?"

"You better be right about this," Chin muttered.

"Hurry up before the second guy comes up," Rowan said and then picked up the walkie and started talking again. Chin tried to block out the words. Tried to block out the similarities. But every word that dropped out of her mouth sounded more and more like Wo Fat and less like Rowan.

What's the matter peasants? Are you afraid?

… Good. You should be.