Rewrite

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Okay guys! We're back for update #2! I'm glad you guys are enjoying the triple updates this week. Thank you for all the congratulations I received. Half a mill is quite a lot of words. We're also dangerously close to 1000 pages (which is milestone #3) and just as close to 400 reviews which is just mind boggling to me. SO next chapter… something bad is gonna happen. But I'm telling you it will be the downfall of everything. It's the catalyst to several relationship changes and other very important events. I understand perfectly if you get upset, but I'm warning you now that it's gonna happen so don't be too surprised on Friday. See you then!

Chapter 62

Rowan sat in the back of the car as the people around her spoke some type of Spanish. It probably wasn't Spanish, it might have been Cuban? Was that even a language or was it just a place? Fuck she should have paid more attention in school. Not that it mattered now.

She didn't know why they wanted her. She didn't know why she was useful. She only knew that they had taken her and left Catherine behind. Catherine had protested, weakly, and still got beat for it. Rowan felt back, but she had stepped in before they could get too violent and just told them to take her if they were that adamant about it.

Also, the woman in red was absolutely terrified of her. And it was hilarious to see.

"Magic hands?!" erupted from the El Condor who was driving. Oh great, they had been talking about her.

His eyes turned to her. "You think she has magic hands?"

Rowan scoffed. "Magic? She thinks I can do magic?" she asked. "Obviously I didn't just channel Thor and shock her, I obviously hit her with a stun gun."

"So why the tactic?" El Condor asked her.

Rowan made a big show of rolling her eyes. "Duh, psychological warfare," she told him.

He stared at her for a few moment "He taught you, but not so well I think," he said and she let out her breathe in a long, relieved sigh. Well thank Christ he believed that lie.

The he had to be Wo Fat. She longed to tell him that psychological warfare was learned on the skate circuit where her and her brother ruled with an iron fist. Their speciality? Psyching out other skaters.

But she couldn't say that to him so she hit him with a noncommittal shrug.

He opened his mouth to say more but his phone began to ring. So, he fished it out of his pocket. Gave the screen a perplexed look. He answered it with an almost hesitant with hello and then a smug smirk hit his face.

"I'm sorry, but she's unavailable right now," he said.

Rowan's eyes crinkled. Okay, that was either Steve or Wo.

"You can threaten me all you want, but we already know there's nothing you can do to us from prison," El Condor answered lazily.

Okay. Wo Fat. He was definitely talking to Wo Fat. Unless Steve got arrested for whatever he did to get these prisoners out of that SWAT van. After a moment of listening to whatever Wo Fat had to say, El Condor's smile widened.

"Quite insistent, aren't you?" he said. "She must be something special."

Rowan cocked an eyebrow at him and then looked at the phone he was offering. The last time she had been in this situation she could hear Steve on the other side. But Wo Fat was usually cool and collected, so it made sense that silence was coming out of it instead.

She took it gingerly and put it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Are you all right?" he asked immediately. There was an edge to his voice that she recognized. He was worried.

"No!" she cried. "I hate this network bullshit. It has not been helpful in the least. Except for that one sniper who shot someone before I asked him to."

"Yes… there have been some unforeseen drawbacks, but that wasn't what I was asking you," Wo Fat said. He didn't sound exasperated with her like he should have, like he usually did. He sounded cold and distant and nothing like the man she was used to.

Not good.

"Well, I mean. I'm freaked out. I'm scared. He's cuffed me a few times, but otherwise I'm all right," she answered.

There was a pause. "He hit you?" he asked. "How many times?"

"Uhm… only, you know, two or three times," she answered.

"Well what is it? Two or three?" he asked.

But before Rowan could answer, Flora, the woman in red, had grabbed her hands and then punched her. Rowan cried out, because she hadn't expected it. She hadn't fought them, she hadn't said anything bad, she would have totally handed back the phone if one of them had asked for it. The punch to the face, the one that had hit her square in the nose, had been completely uncalled for.

"Three," he answered for her as Rowan tilted her head back, her hand to her nose. Her eyes watered because fuck that hurt. How did the boys get decked all the time and just take it? This fucking hurt like a motherfucker. She didn't want to cry but she knew she was cause she could feel the tears leaking from her eyes. She was more concerned with the blood coming out of her nose.

"Again, with the threats. This is to pay you back for your involvement with Five-0," El Condor said. "We will be sure to exploit your network quite efficiently."

Whatever Wo said to him after knocked the smirk right off of his face. He hastily hung up the phone and Rowan noticed that his eyes purposely stayed away from her. She glowered at him.

"I hope he kills you in the slowest way imaginable," she growled.

El Condor leant in towards her. "He's not going to kill me," he hissed. "Now, you're going to help us, not only get off the island…"

"Why do you need my help to get you off the island? You stole a helicopter?" Rowan asked before she could stop herself. This meant she had interrupted him, she had used a bit of knowledge from one of her visions.

El Condor stared at her. Everyone in the van stared at her. "How do you know that?" he asked.

"I can speak some Spanish guys," she lied. They all stared at her almost perplexed before she said: "Okay, let's breeze on past that awkward little moment. You said I'm not only getting you off the island. What does that mean? Have you even looked at me? What else do you think I could I do?"

"You're going to transfer all the money in that safety account he has for you, to us," he said. Oh! No one corrected her. They were speaking Spanish!

Rowan blinked her eyes. "Okay, look, I don't know a lot about that app he created but like… I unno if I can do that?"

"Oh, you will. Or we'll send you back to him in boxes," he said.

"You're going to mail me in pieces to a Maximum-Security Prison in Colorado?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Dude all my bits are gonna be totally confiscated by customs."

"Does Flora need to hit you again?" he growled.

"I mean she could, but it's not really going to help you," she said with a shrug.

He swore in Spanish but sat back and said nothing else to her. The got to the Aloha stadium to find cops waiting for them. Rowan brushed her hand against Ernesto who was sitting beside her, he yelped at the small static shock that hit them and Rowan got the vision she needed. And she did not like what she saw.

"Stop," she said. But El Condor didn't listen, he sped up. "Stop. You're going to kill us!"

El Condor answered her by ordering them all to "hold on!" But Rowan's hands were tied and she wasn't strapped in. The hit the spike strip and the car began to skid. Still he didn't slow them down. They hit the barricade of cop cars and flipped.

For those few moments after the impact Rowan's world was nothing but a buzzing white pain and complete darkness. The sounds were muffled by the ringing in her ears and the banging in her head. She was resting against the roof of the car, as she wasn't strapped in, there was nothing to keep her hanging. She was in an awkward position, she could feel shards of glass digging into her skin and through her shirt. And something warm and sticky was dripping onto her face.

This was bringing back memories. Bad memories. Flashes of things she'd rather forget. Flashes of a morning, of a car lodged upside down in a snow bank after rolling a few times. Memories she thought she didn't actually remember but were there none the less.

She opened her eyes and found it was blood. Blood from Flora who had been in the front but was now half hanging above her. Her neck twisted in a terrible angle. Her brown eyes open and glassy, just staring at her. She was dead.

Rowan immediately panicked. Bile rose up into her throat. She tried to push herself towards the open window, but she hit another body and that panic turned into out right terror. She was two seconds from screaming when something grabbed her by the back of her shirt and practically ripped her out of the car.

She expected Steve, but it wasn't. It was El Condor again.

"Oh, come on," she groaned and he forced her to stand. The bullets began to ricochet again and Rowan half ducked. "Just let me go, I'm going to slow you down."

But he didn't listen. He forced her to run, dragging her after him. They were heading into a building, probably to get to the field. Already she could hear the helicopter whirling in the distance.

A shot whizzed past her face. El Condor forced her to the ground and turned, opening fire with his bigger gun. Rowan already knew who was after them.

Despite the bullets flying around her she popped up crying his name and Steve answered her from where he was taking cover. Steve was here! Steve had come to get her.

El Condor forced her up and into the building, shoving her over the turnstile and dragging her down many different hallways. They made it to the seating area and then she was being forced to run down stairs. She could hear Steve behind them, felt him closing in. But El Condor wasn't going to play fair. When he got them to the grass, the men in the helicopter opened up fire, using a Gatling gun to force Steve to stop his pursuit.

Rowan turned just in time to see Steve dive behind a row of chairs. He was effectively pinned.

Then there were two shots. Loud booming, terrible shots. The first took out the shooter. The second took out the pilot.

Then lastly there was one last shot. Louder than the Gatling gun, louder than Steve's and beside her El Condor's head practically blew up. Her face got coated with a mist of red, and since he was holding onto her when it happened, the blast from the shot blew both of them back, landing Rowan on her ass in the grass beside a headless body.

She just sat there, her stomach protesting, her breathing shallow. She heard Steve's cries for her, she saw him running forward but she didn't have it in her to react. She just kept sitting there, wide eyed and horrified.

She was going to vomit. Steve reached her in seconds, his hands on her shoulders, saying her name over and over again, asking if she was okay. Rowan blinked her big glassy eyes at him. No, she was not okay. Physically she was perfectly fine but she was covered in another people's blood and quite freaking out.

But the throwing up didn't happen until Steve left. He only left to turn the helicopter off, so that he could hear her talk and he could make sure that she was okay. Rowan had clumsily got to her feet, trying to put a distance between her and the bodies, to get away from the smell and the feel of blood. She stumbled a few feet away, slipping on the blood in the grass, and immediately started to vomit. Everything she had eaten that day, which wasn't very much that hadn't come out that morning, came out at that moment.

Steve had his hands on her back immediately. His gun lay discarded beside her, his hands went to her hair to hold it back. Once he had a solid grip on her hair, he rubbed her back soothingly. Rowan continued to heave until nothing else came up, until all that was in her mouth was stomach acid and phlegm.

"Excuse me," a voice said and Steve and Rowan both looked up. Above them was a man in full tactical gear, and not one of Steve's men. He was holding a giant ass sniper, like the kind that Kono usually carried around with her. Steve lunged for the gun he had discarded but this guy was faster. He stepped on it and then put both his hands on his own gun.

Steve fell back, both his hands rested on Rowan's shoulders, he was coiled with tension she could feel it leeching into her body but she was just so fucking tired that she couldn't care less.

The man stared down at them with unfeeling eyes. "Payment, please," he said.

Rowan blinked up to him and then to the phone that seemed to just materialize in his hand out of no where. She was supposed to do something, she knew that. Code, what was the code? "Now? Can't we do this later?" she cried. But when the man just continued to stare at them with those unfeeling eyes she quickly wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. "Uh… I'm Rowan Pierce and I approve this transfer."

The man took his phone out of her face and smiled at the screen. "Thank you," he said absently. He then looked up to her and gestured to his face. "You know you gotta little something…"

Rowan blinked her eyes. Blood. She had blood on her face, didn't she? She felt a strangled yelp rise up into her throat and already Steve was turning her.

"No, don't worry, don't worry," he said to her as his hands framed her face.

"There's blood on my face," she squeaked. "And it's not mine."

"Well, some of it is yours," he said as his fingers carefully wiped it all off of her. "Your nose is bleeding."

"Still?" she asked, her hand coming to her nose which still hurt. "I didn't think she had hit me that hard."

"… hit you… she hit you? What the fuck did you do?" he growled.

Rowan gave him a noncommittal shrug because she didn't know what she did. He was scowling at her but Rowan couldn't tell him and she refused to talk about it.

"Is it all off?" she asked instead. She didn't like staring into his eyes. She hated it how it made her feel. She hated how it made her stomach flutter and her pulse race. She was still feeling queasy so the butterflies weren't helping her situation.

"Yes, you're good," he said, quickly getting to his feet. Rowan let her breath out in a shaky sigh. "Can you get up?"

She nodded and took his offered hand and from behind her she heard a call of her name. "Danny!" Rowan called back, turning away from Steve and to the blonde man running towards her.

She accepted his hug, letting him pull her close and ask if she was okay. She said she was over and over and then Chin was beside him patiently waiting for his hug. Rowan threw herself at him too, they had gotten closer today. One didn't go through the shit they went through that afternoon and not get closer.

Once she had assured him that she too was okay she turned on Steve.

"Take me to the airfield," she growled.

"The airfield?" he echoed.

"Yes. Take me to Wo," she growled, her eyes narrowed at him and added: "So I can kill him."

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Wo Fat sat patiently. Eyes closed. Meditating. He needed to. He was on edge. Every synapse of his brain and body were firing at once. Worry was making him nauseous. Fear was making his chest hurt. His head pounded with the scenarios running through it on loop. Blood, dismemberment, screaming, not all of it Rowan's. And under all of that was anger.

Anger for the situation. Anger that he was stuck in this cage when he should have been out there dealing with it. Anger with the NLM who would be feeling the full force of revenge at his hand. Anger with Rowan for getting herself into this situation. Anger with McGarrett for not keeping her safe like Wo Fat thought he would be able to. Anger with himself for thinking that the man who lost Rowan to him in the first place would be able to keep her safe in any way shape or form.

YOU!

Wo Fat's eyes opened and Rowan was barrelling down the empty plane at him. She was angry, she was pale, she was covered in blood but otherwise she looked like she was okay.

He stood to meet her. He almost smiled, a big huge grin of relief before he realized McGarrett was behind her and reminded himself to be subdued.

"You're okay," he whispered breathlessly once she was close enough.

"Yeah. Physically!" Rowan snapped. "I've had the worst day ever! I've vomited like twenty times. I've been shot at, I fell out of the rafters at the Palace, I electrocute someone with my own two hands, I got kidnapped, I was in a car crash and some guy shot a bunch of people without me asking him to and then made me pay him!"

There was a lot in that sentence that scared him. Electrocution, car crashes, someone let her climb into the rafters of the Iolani Palace? What the hell had happened when she wasn't with him? Oh, he would be having words with McGarrett after this.

"I don't like this system, Wo," she said. "It has done nothing but backfire. And quite frankly it scares me. They were gonna make me help them, make me transfer all of that money to them and then who knows what they would have done to me!"

"There are systems in place," he said. "Remember. If you're with more than one person they ask you to approve your companions. What happens if you say you don't?"

Rowan's lips twitched back and forth. "They get shot on the spot," she answered.

The look on Steve's face was worth it. The look of absolutely shock that hit his face when she answered him was enough to make Wo Fat laugh. But he kept his eyes on Rowan, she was what was important. Not McGarrett and his hilarious faces.

"But I don't like it, Wo," she said. "I don't like this."

"So yes, there are kinks I'll have to iron out," he admitted. "But you're fine. The man I sent down to get you did what he was told to do. You're safe, you're here, and the NLM will regret betraying me in such a fashion."

"Oh god, what are you going to do?" she groaned.

"That's not important," he said with a shake of his head. "What's important is that you're okay."

Rowan nodded. "I am okay," she whispered. "My nose really hurts though."

Yes. One of El Condor's lackies had hit her. Hit her to get to him. To make him angry. Well it had worked. It was because of that, that despite knowing Five-0 was on it, he still sent someone down to the Aloha Stadium to make sure not a single person in that SUV, other than Rowan, survived.

If Wo Fat's hands weren't bound, if McGarrett wasn't standing there staring at them, he might have raised his hands to brush the tendrils of hair behind her cheek. But that was not an option so he smiled at her instead.

Rowan was suddenly sad. He could see it on her face but he didn't know what caused it. "I had a really bad day and I really want a hug," she suddenly cried.

As Wo Fat looked at the cage bars between them, at the fact that his hands were bound in front of him, Steve stepped forward to give her that hug. Rowan put one hand to the center of his chest and pushed him away.

"Not you!" she snapped. She shuffled closer, put herself right against the bars and then put her arms in through the bars and pulled him against them. It was awkward and somewhat painful. But Wo Fat felt himself melt into it. Awkward or not this would be the last time he hugged her in what would be a very long time.

"I'm going to miss you," she whispered into his chest and that worry hit him full force. Who was going to take care of her if this network failed again like it did today? It wasn't like he could trust McGarrett with her.

He looked up to him and saw it. That look on Steve's face. He looked so pathetically disappointed and lovelorn that Wo Fat almost laughed at him.

"We're wheels up in 2 minutes," a soldier called to them.

Rowan turned back to him with a scowl. "Make it ten," she snapped and the solider just stared at her surprised. His eyes went to Steve who winced for them.

"We'll be done soon," McGarrett ensured as Rowan turned back to Wo.

"You'll call me every week, right?" she asked, those big blue eyes shining brightly.

McGarrett there or not, Wo Fat brought his forehead to hers, just like her brother used to do and smiled into her face. It was to calm her. To make her relax. To keep that worry at bay. It must have made Steve mad because immediately he snapped: "He's going to be in maximum security, Rowan, how is he going to call you?"

"How did he call me from here?" she shot back. "I'm sure he can find a way to phone me from Colorado."

Wo Fat put that distance back between them "Yes. Don't worry. I will call you every week," he promised. He then turned to McGarrett who was staring at them with expectantly glaring eyes. "But I think your Commander would like to talk to me."

"Okay," she said. "Uh… please be nice."

Her eyes went between Steve and Wo but he wasn't sure who it was she was talking to at that moment. Then she got up on her very tippy toes and pressed the softest of kisses on his good cheek, through the bars. Wo Fat found himself staring at McGarrett. He watched him, watched his reaction, the way he seemed to swallow down his words. The way he struggled to look at her. How it seemed to utterly horrify him that she had dared to show Wo Fat any kind of softness.

She waved to him as she walked away and his heart strings tugged. This was the kind of movie moment that made her cry and ridiculously he felt like he might cry too. Damn, what was this girl doing to him?

But as soon as she was off that plane and he was squaring with Steven McGarrett again all that mushy gooeyness left him. He sat back down and smiled up to him coolly and calmly.

"Coach is even worse than I imagined," he said smugly because he wasn't here to make it easy for Steve.

"Oh, why don't you cut the crap?" he snapped and Wo struggled to keep his smile from his face. Steve was unnerved. Either by his attitude change or how he was with Rowan, either way, Steven McGarrett was cracking under all the pressure.

"I just saved your life," he growled. "You owe me."

"And Rowan used her favours save your life, and the lives of your team. I used more of my favours and my own money to save hers when you saved Catherine and left Rowan to her own devices," Wo Fat reminded him.

"I did not leave Rowan. They didn't tell me they had her. They wanted her for you, not for me. How am I supposed to save her when I don't know she's in trouble?" Steve thundered.

"Either way, your debt is no longer owed," Wo Fat said with a shrug. "I have more than made it up to you."

"Saving Rowan was for you, not for me, so stop trying to use her against me," Steve warned. "Because I can do the exact same to you."

And then Wo Fat was standing. The threat. Slapping him right there in the face. It was enough to make him angry again, it was enough to put him in a fighting mood. "You have done enough to that girl," Wo Fat snarled. "No prison will be able to contain me if something happens to her because of you."

"You want me to look out for her, fine. I can do that. I am more than willing to do that, but you have to give me something," Steve said, softening. "Now, tell me, why did my mother come and visit you in prison? Why did she leave Rowan with you when you had her hostage?"

He stood there. Silent and stoic. He had a problem. He didn't want to tell McGarrett what Doris had told them those times she had visited. He didn't want to tell McGarrett who his mother was, really, to him. But he had more than self-preservation to worry about now. Someone else's life was in his hands and she was just as important as protecting himself.

"She came to apologize," he said. Part of it was true. It was the believable part of the story and the only part of the story he was getting. Steve didn't need the other details and he wouldn't be getting them from him. Especially not the story about why his mother left Rowan with him.

"Apologize for what?" Steve snapped. Okay, maybe that part was believable to him.

"For killing my father!" Wo Fat shot right back. Because, up until recently that was what he thought she had to apologize for. The fact that it turned out to be so much more than that was nothing of consequence at that moment.

Steve seemed to digest this before saying: "You killed her husband, my father, and then you hunted her for 20 years. Why would my mother ever apologize to you?"

Well he hadn't quite done it in that order, but yes, he had done those things. And at that moment, call it the lack of sleep, the lack of pain meds, the lack of food or proper washroom facilities for the last twenty-four hours, he was struggling to come up with a good lie to cover Steve's question.

"That is a question only she can answer," was the reason he went with. Total deflection. A total Doris move.

Steve nodded. "I was afraid you were gonna say that," he said, almost cockily. Wo Fat almost told him that Rowan had the same ability. To predict what people were going to say. But Steve grabbed him by the collar and slammed his face into the bars before he could say anything else.

He had just cracked his forehead open, he could feel the ringing in his brain, the stinging in the crest between his eyebrows and he beginning of sticky blood running down the bridge of his nose. He tried not to show he was in pain, but DAMN, what the hell man? He had collapsed to his seat and when he looked up again, Steve was swabbing the bar he had hit, taking a sample of Wo Fat's blood.

Aw come on, what was he doing now?

"What are you doing, Steve?" he asked. It was rare he said the man's first name let alone the man's name in its shortened form. It unnerved him but it didn't seem to do anything to Steve.

Steve barely looked at him. So, he asked: "What do you think you're going to find? The truth?"

Steve said absolutely nothing to him, he just capped his evidence and walked away. Well now Wo Fat was mad. Steven couldn't go looking for the truth, not when he needed to get to it first. "You don't want to know the truth!" he screamed after Steve's retreating back. But he did not turn back around.

Wo Fat struggled to get his emotion back under control. He sat himself down and closed his eyes again, repeating a mantra in his head, over and over again.

I won the girl.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve got off that plane and found that Rowan had waited for him, and beside her was Danny. But Danny must have seen that lazer focus he had on Rowan, and he backed away. So that by the time he got close to Rowan, close enough to shake some goddamn sense into her, Danny had conveniently disappeared and left Rowan to her fate. But Rowan was undeterred and unafraid of the look on Steve's face. She just looked… sad.

"You didn't have to punch him," she said softly when he got closer to her.

"I didn't punch him," he said because there was a big difference. "I bashed him into the bars."

Rowan rolled her eyes at him and sighed in a frustrated manner. "Fine. You didn't have to get so violent with him, you happy?" she asked. No, he wasn't and she must have sensed that because she added: "I could have told you he's not really your half-brother."

"I told you not to tell me the future Rowan," he reminded her through grit teeth. After what he just witnessed he was so mad, so disappointed. That hug she gave Wo Fat, the kiss good-bye on his cheek, like she used to do for him. How dare she? Right in front of him, as if it meant absolutely nothing to her. As if that wasn't their tradition. That was it. That was the last little bit of confirmation he needed.

Wo Fat was 100% irrevocably, unchangeably in love with Rowan Pierce. And she was just as in love with him.

They stood together and watched as the plane took off and Steve suddenly felt the guilt creep up on him. She was so obviously in love with him, and so clearly upset about the whole situation, the one that he had indirectly caused.

"You could have just told me you know," he suddenly blurted out.

Rowan turned to him confusion written all over her face. "You literally just reminded me that you told me not to tell you about your future," she said. "Jesus Christ, Steve, make up your fucking mind."

"No, no, not about that, about you and Wo Fat," he said.

"Yes, because me telling you I don't want you in my life anymore is perfectly followed up with but I totally want to keep seeing your nemesis and the guy who shot me," she snapped back with a shake of her head.

"You could have told me it was because you loved him, I would have understood," Steve whispered. When he gathered the courage to look at Rowan again, he saw something on her face that filled him with hope. She was wearing a face that said she was clearly fucking horrified by that sentence.

"What the actual fuck?" she asked. "You think I love him? Like… romantic love him? Like kissy faces and… and… really?"

"Well come on, look at the two of you," he said. "He fucking set up an entire network to protect you, you guys have dance routines, he will physically protect you, he knew all about your fear of blood and bodies before I did and he's just so damn nice to you all the time! Clearly the two of you are in love!"

"No, we're not," Rowan scoffed. "Not the way you're thinking."

"What?" Steve cried, because what did that even mean?

Rowan sighed again, a pained look crossed her beautiful features. "God Steve… it's hard to explain."

"Look, Rowan, I'm trying to understand. I am," he said. "But you're like my mother, for god sake. You keep things from me and hide things from me to protect me. But I don't need to be protected, I want to help you, I want to understand. You have to let me in."

"I'm not trying to protect you Steve, I'm trying to protect myself," she said. "It hurts to talk about and to think about this stuff so I just… don't."

"It hurts you to think about Wo Fat?" he asked because if that was the case Steve was going to make sure that asshole didn't come back from Colorado.

"No," she sighed and then looked at him. "If I tell you… you are absolutely not allowed to bring it up. Ever. No questions, no future talks, no going looking for them, nothing, you get me?"

Steve's eyes narrowed in surprise. He wasn't sure that was a promise he could keep. "Uhm… I mean…"

"Fucking Navy-Seal-Scouts-Honour!" she ordered pointing a stern finger in his direction. "Or I won't tell you a thing!"

"Alright," he conceded. If he wanted to know, to finally get an answer for something then that was a small price to pay.

"He reminds me of my brother," Rowan admitted after a few seconds of silence. "And you know, I didn't think I'd ever find anyone who acts like him and Wo Fat is pretty spot on. I mean, there are total differences, of course, Trevor wasn't a criminal mastermind, a murderer or a sociopath or anything like that. But when I'm with him it's like I'm home and I never thought I'd feel like that again."

Steve felt his heart drop out of his chest. Her brother? This was about her family? She missed her family and Wo Fat filled that void? Oh God. Oh no.

"Your brother," he managed to croak out.

"And I know I said that my family line probably didn't exist here. But as it turns out it does," she admitted. "They're not really my family of course, they're this world's version of them and I guess I could go all the way back to Canada to meet them but they wouldn't know who I was and that's probably worse than my family not existing."

Steve knew this, he knew about her family. Her confirming it was her family. Her confirming that she was from Canada was what scared him. Maybe he should have let them meet her, maybe they would have fixed her sadness and she wouldn't have needed Wo Fat anymore. But then they would have taken her away and Steve wouldn't be able to see her whenever he wanted, he couldn't go jet setting off to Canada every time he wanted to see her either. So maybe he was selfish about it but he couldn't tell her that now. They were on rocky territory as is. If she found out now, she'd never forgive him.

"You're Canadian?" he asked numbly because he wasn't supposed to already know that.

"Yeah. I'm from Canada," she answered.

"Uh… alright… okay…" he whispered. "Can I ask one more question?"

"Sure."

"Why wouldn't they know you?" he asked. "I mean, if they're your family."

"Because I don't exist here, Steve" she whispered. Her voice starting to tremble. "I died. I was still born. They don't know who I am because to them I never lived."

She was crying now and Steve truly felt bad for making her talk about this. "And it sucks, you know? Because my brother always had my back. And I had just started getting along with my mother and I was a total daddy's little princess and I'm none of that now. And I can't find my way through those stupid red strings to get home and I miss them all so much!"

She broke out in loud sobs her hands covering her face. Steve just stared at her not sure what to do. He was filled with a general sense that this was all his fault.

"It hurts so much to think about it that I just don't want to," she almost wailed. "Now I'm sad and I'm crying and I just want a hug."

Steve moved immediately. She had turned down his first attempt to hug her back on the plane, but he knew she wouldn't turn down this one. He wrapped her up in a tight embrace crushing her to his chest. The mere act of having her in his arms set his blood boiling but it also soothed his racing heart. She hugged him back, her slim fingers digging into his back through the fabric of his shirt and he welcomed the pain. He loved the feel of her, her loved her nails in his back, he loved holding her to his chest and being able to inhale that scent that belonged to her.

She pulled her head out of his chest, pressed her arms forward to get him to let go, but he only loosened his grip, he didn't let it go entirely. He kept his grip on her because he couldn't let her go, his fingers had frozen. She was stuck there permanently now.

"Sorry," she whispered to him. "This is was what I was trying to avoid."

Steve frowned at her, one of his hands moved to her cheek, cupping it softly. He tried to breathe through the realization that her fingers were still gripping his ribs and that his one hand was pressed softly to the small of her back.

"You don't have to avoid those things Rowan," he whispered to her. "When my dad died, I thought I'd never have a family again, but that's not true. I have my Five-0 family, I have Mary and… well I have you and you have us. If you don't want to talk to me you can talk to Danny or Chin. I'm sure Kono would listen too if she were here. You don't have to be happy for us all the time. You can be sad, you can miss your family but you're not alone. We're your family too."

Rowan smiled at him through her tears. She murmured a thank you to him and his breath hitched. Her eyes sparkled in the waning light like diamonds in the night sky. She was so lovely and his heart was practically bleeding for her. That smile was on her face, warm and inviting, she even nibbled her lips a bit at him as she just smiled up at him. How could he resist?

But as he moved in to kiss her, before their lips could touch she ripped herself out of his grasp. She took a step away and so did he. He wasn't sure how he had read that situation so wrong but he clearly had.

"Steve… I… you… we…. We just can't," she said her voice hitched but sharp. "You're with Catherine. You love Catherine."

Steve tried not to shout at her that it wasn't true. But instead he set his mouth in a firm frown and looked away from her. It sounded like she was trying to convince herself not him.

"Yeah. Sure," he snapped.

"Yes, Steve. I am sure," she said. "You're going to marry her. In like… uh… what season are we in? Four or five?"

Steve glared at her. How the hell was he supposed to know what season they were on? His life wasn't a TV show to him.

"Kay, I think this is the start of season four, so five years. At the end of five years you two are married," she said. "And right now I'm new, and glitzy and you think you're interested in me but you're not. You're going to get with me and decide that Catherine is right for you and I wouldn't be able to take that so, no. We can't do this. I don't care how deeply you glare at me or how handsome you look with your stupid chiselled jaw and your perfect abs and broad shoulders. I swear you were engineered in a damn lab!"

Steve couldn't help but laugh at her. He couldn't. She thought that he would get tired of her? That if he had her he'd choose to go back to Catherine? And what about her, with her eyes so blue he could drown in them, and her silken red hair with the faded to blonde tips, that cute button nose and luscious bubble butt she had going on?

But most importantly, she wasn't over him. She still wanted him. She was protecting herself from an assumed loss of him. He still had a chance.

"Just cause it was in your TV show doesn't mean it's going to happen. You've changed plenty of outcomes Rowan," he reminded her.

But Rowan shook her head at him. "No. We can't. I can't," she repeated. And Steve looked away because he had to respect her wishes and he didn't want to put himself on the line again have her reject him all over again.

"I better go," she said. "I have somewhere to go,"

By then Danny had come over, Steve knew instinctively he had seen and heard everything which just made his cheeks burn with embarrassment.

"Do you have a ride?" he asked and cursed himself for it. God why couldn't he stop caring about her?

"Sure do, it's called a cab," she said. Steve wrinkled his nose at her, he didn't want her to take cab alone, but he had to remind himself that Rowan wasn't interested in him taking care of her so he would have to let her go on his own.

Luckily for him Danny didn't say anything while Rowan was in ear shot but once she disappeared into the hanger Steve snapped: "Not a fucking word."

"Nope, nothing about your failed attempt to kiss a girl. A girl who's not your girlfriend. A girl who you think is in love with the man taking off in that plane. A girl who has her own boyfriend. A girl who…"

"Oh god, shut up, just… just shut up!" Steve snapped. "It was a stupid idea. It backfired in my face. Let. It. Go… God."

Danny raised his hands in surrender and then failed to hide his smile from him. "Alright, I'm sorry." The two of them walked towards his classic car, where Danny got into the passenger seat. "So what are you going to do with that?"

He meant the DNA sample he was clutching desperately in his hand. "I'm going to have Max run it right away," he said.

"Against what?" Danny asked.

"My blood," Steve answered.

"You… uh… you want to have Max run your DNA against Wo Fat's?" Danny asked as if it were the stupidest idea in the wold.

"That's right," Steve answered after clearing his throat.

Danny nodded as if thinking it over. "Why on earth would you do something like that?" he asked.

"Because I suspect that we might be half-brothers," Steve whispered. He didn't really wanna go over this but Danny wasn't going to shut up about it so he was going to have to.

"You and Wo Fat?" Danny asked. Clearly not following the thought process here.

"It's the only explanation I could come up with, okay?" Steve snapped. "Wo Fat, he's a sociopath, he's a terrorist, he had my father killed and yet my mother is protecting him. She's been protecting him the whole time. Why would she do that? I can't figure it out."

"But, just so I'm clear, you say he's a psychopath, he's a sociopath, so you just assume you two are brothers," Danny said with a sarcastic shrug of his shoulders. "Makes sense to me."

"I got nothing else. Give me something else!" Steve cried and Danny sighed deeply not liking that he had been put on the spot.

"Maybe your mother's just trying to protect you," Danny offered after some contemplation.

"From what?"

"Well, uh, the way I see it, this thing between you and Wo Fat, it ends two ways. Maybe three now that Rowan's involved," Danny said ignoring the clear wince of displeasure that crossed his face at the mention of Rowan. "One of those ways ends with you being dead. Uh, so maybe your mother, by visiting him in prison, she's trying to make peace. Maybe end the blood feud before someone else gets hurt."

Steve shook his head. "No."

"No," Danny echoed.

"Not my mother. You know Doris. She's up to something," Steve argued.

Danny just sighed. He then carefully turned to Steve and asked: "What does Rowan say about all of this."

Steve turned a dry glare to him and then busied himself with the keys to the car and struggling to get it into gear. "Shut up Danny. Just shut up."