Rewrite
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Well what did you guys think of that? I know you guys were probably wondering why Trevor never said anything if Savannah Walker did a whole episode with Rowan in it… well that's cause HE NEVER SAW IT! HA! Plot twists! Anyway… onto the big ticket, the moment we've been waiting for, and it's come right at a good time because this is the second last update in the marathon we have running right now. THIS IS IT! This is the chapter with… the moment guys I'm so excited for this. TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! I know it's something small but it's a start, from here on in, things are going to start changing :D I promise. Tell me what you think and I'll see you guys tomorrow for the last post!
P.S. For those of you who are confused. Instead of Danny getting TPed, Steve has gotten TPed instead. There's a reason for that. I promise.
Chapter 73
They had a lead. Someone with a certain level of skill that could plant untraceable camera's in the victim's house and car, and a certain level of crazy that was willing to cut off another person's head.
They think they had that person.
Someone had been leaving messages on Lisa Mills' phone. Messages of just breathing. That took a certain level of crazy too. They were thinking the same kind of crazy that pulled off everything else.
They had tracked that phone to this stretch of jungle off the high way that was a common encampment for homeless people.
Steve had been a nervous wreck since Rowan went missing, it was insane how being away from her for a month had done literally nothing to lessen the feeling of panic that attacked him when something even remotely endangering happened to her. But it had been steadily getting better. If he had to guess, Rowan was either out of danger and on her way home, or… she was calming down. But his chest still constricted, and his skin still felt like it was crawling, and the sense of calm hadn't blanketed him until he had gotten to this position, to this place, walking towards… where ever he was walking towards.
Walking down the trail following Danny who was looking at the dot on his phone to find the nutjob who had been leaving messages on Lisa Mills phone.
"Okay," Danny said turning the phone this way and that and slightly pivoting as if he were lost. Though he shouldn't be because the phone should have been showing him exactly where to go. He had assured Steve that he knew how to read that map, told him so over and over in the car. "The signal is triangulating in this exact area. He's gotta be around here some place."
Yes. Helpful. Steve wished he had the phone. His hands itched to snatched it out of Danny's hands, but he had been shaking since this happened. So bad that Danny also had to drive, so Danny wouldn't let him have the phone.
Steve's phone rang, crime lab flashed on his screen and he smiled. Yes, they had something. Anything to take his mind off of this. He answered the phone quickly.
"McGarrett."
Fong's voice came to him instantly. "Hey we got the tests back on your toilet paper."
"Oh good!"
"Well… not really. We could find any useable DNA trace matter," he admitted.
"Okay, what about fingerprints?"
"No… nothing useable. You have to understand this is toilet paper…."
"Okay but what about brand name?" Steve growled.
"Commander… it's just toilet paper… there's not specific formula to match to a specific…"
"Okay, well is it two ply or one, come on Fong you gotta give me something!" he thundered.
Fong sighed on the other side. "Sorry, Steve, I can't help you." And then hung up the phone.
Steve aggressively clicked the end call button and then looked up. Danny had stopped looking for any sign of their suspect and was just staring at him.
"You… uh… you actually had the crime lab run the toilet paper from the tree?" he asked.
"Yeah, Danny, yeah, I told you I was going to do that," Steve argued.
"Okay, yeah, you did, but I thought it was more of a I'm gonna say I'm gonna do the thing but not really sort of situation," Danny said. "I didn't think you were serious. I thought I made it clear that doing that would make you nuts!"
"Okay, I'm a victim of a crime, here, alright, it deserves to be investigated," Steve snapped.
Danny chuckled at him. "You have literally just become the textbook definition of an angry old man," he said. "Mazel Tov."
"Hey!" Steve snapped snatching Danny's phone out of his hand so he could go back to hunting people. "These punks vandalized my home and my truck. I'm allowed to be mad. And if anything, I've gotten all of this from you so you're the original angry old man, Danny."
"Okay, hey! Listen here, I may be angry, but I am not old, okay?" Danny cried following Steve as he followed the coordinates on the phone.
They walked to the end of the path were there was nothing but vines and trees. "Alright this is it," Steve said desperate to get off of this topic.
Danny stared at him like he was crazy. "This is it?" he echoed.
"Yep, that's what the phone says, Danny," Steve answered patronizingly. He walked towards the vines and began to move them around there had to be something he was missing. And there was. "Some kind of tunnel in here," Steve called to Danny who had not moved at all. He turned back to Danny, moved the vines aside and then said to him: "Hey, let's go."
But Danny did not move. "Uh… I… I can't go. Sorry. Can't do it. Not happening," he said, actually shaking his head and taking a step back.
"Can't do what, Danny?" Steve asked, because Danny had done so many other things he didn't want to do, Steve didn't understand what was wrong this time.
"I can't do… uh… caves or tunnels or cramped spaces. Anything where I feel like a rat. I can't," he admitted. Steve actually took a good look at him. Yeah, he did not look good at all. He actually looked afraid.
"You're claustrophobic?" Steve asked. This really surprised him, because he had not known that. At all. Like this was literally new information for him and he thought Danny told him everything. I mean… he never shut up, how had this never been mentioned before?
Danny nodded. "A little bit, yeah."
How the hell had that not come up in the four years he'd known Danny. How? The man talked about everything. Had Steve just missed it? Suddenly that pulse in his chest fired up again and Steve glanced into the tunnel. Something about this place… Rowan was here. He could feel it.
"Rowan's here," he breathed out and Danny straightened. "I think… I think she's inside."
"So she's with the nut that spies on people and leaves breathing messages on answering machines in that dark ass tunnel?" Danny asked. "Well fuck, no wonder you're anxious. She hates the dark. She's probably out of her mind freaked out. Now I gotta go."
She hated the… why didn't Steve know that? Steve shook his head. "No. uh… no you don't have to worry about that. I've got this. You just, uh, wait here, and when I find her, I'll send her to you," Steve said. He didn't want two people he cared about in a panicked state in that tunnel. Especially since he didn't know what kind of state he'd be in when he found Rowan. He assumed it would depend on the state he found her in.
"Yeah, I can do that," Danny said. "Uh… I'm sorry I can't go… you know… she'll understand… she knows. It's like her and snakes. Or her and blood. Or her and you…"
That last one was uncalled for. Steve glared at him. "You're right that was a low blow," Danny admitted without Steve even having to say anything. "I'm sorry."
"No… it's… what are you gonna do, right?" Steve said. He took one step into the tunnel and then turned back and swept the vines aside again. "Hey Danny, how'd it take me four years to learn that about you?"
Danny made a face. A face he didn't like as he thought it over. "I don't know. Maybe you don't pay such close attention to me," he answered and Steve didn't like that either. Because it wasn't true. He did. Maybe not as close as he did to Rowan, but he paid attention to Danny too.
Well he was going to pay attention much more now.
But at that moment he had to look for a crazed suspect and his missing… uh… Rowan. The tunnels lead through a catacomb of flooded hallways. Boards were placed in haphazard zigzags for Steve to walk on. Water dripped from the ceiling, dried out alcoves served as small living spaces cramped with strange lights, hanging utensils and disgusting mattresses covered in dirty blankets.
His heart was beating wildly out of his chest. Rowan was near-by. He knew it. Every synapse of his body was screaming for her. He wanted to call out, but he didn't want to spook whoever had her.
Just a head was a sort of storeroom that wasn't flooded. He could see clutter and metal wiring shelves, and other random items just strewn about. He had no leads, this place was like a warren… maybe this crazy person would have their phone on them.
Steve dialed the number thinking, well, what else did he have to lose? And to his surprise the phone actually started ringing, close enough for him to hear. In fact, it sounded an awful lot like it was in the room up a head.
Steve looked up in time to watch someone get up off of something to the side and reach for the phone that was discarded on the chair in front of him.
"Hey! Five-0. Don't move!" he called but of course the guy didn't listen. He bolted, to the left. But that wasn't all that happened.
Echoing through the corridors came a cry of: "Steve?"
Steve, who was already in pursuit of the suspect actually faltered to a stop. He knew that voice. He'd have known that voice anywhere.
"Rowan?" he answered.
"STEVE!" came ricocheting back at him followed by sobs. Steve ran now, sprinted through the dark tunnels.
"Rowan! Keep talking! I can't find you if you don't talk!" he called. He skidded, nearly wiping out on another runway of boards.
"Steve please!" she cried. He could hear the fear in her voice and his heart clenched.
"Rowan I'm coming," he called back desperate to soothe her in any way.
"Steve, I'm afraid," came back at him and his heart leapt into his throat. He was coming, he was coming! He burst into one of the alcoves, she had to be close, he could hear her sobs, he could hear her near-bye. He used a chair propped up against the wall to hoist himself up and throw himself over. He landed in a different alcove, this one covered in soft blankets and found himself in a semi-circle of whirling heaters.
He landed and something to his left threw itself away from him. Steve lifted his gun but it was only Rowan. Rowan who's red and blonde hair was matted and wet. Rowan who's make up had running down her face, and had smudges of dirt on her checks and chin in the shape of finger prints. Rowan whose dress, the black and blue Ariel one, was grimy, blood splattered and ripped. Tears were in her big blue eyes, fear contorted her face, but he saw the exact moment she recognized him, saw the way her eyes widened and a shaky smile donned her lips.
He got the first syllable of her name out, his gun immediately in his hostler when she launched herself at him. Her arms wrapped around his neck and his wrapped around her waist, he held her trembling shaking form as he let her cry into his shoulder.
"I was so scared," she said to him. "Steve I was so scared. I can still feel… I can still feel his hands, I thought I forgot, I thought… I thought it was fine but it's there. I couldn't get out, I couldn't find home."
Hands? Someone had touched her, had this guy touched her? He couldn't even contemplate that right now. He couldn't even fathom that as a possibility cause he'd cut the man's hands off if that was what happened.
"It's okay," Steve whispered to her instead. "It's okay. I got you. I found you. It's okay."
He rubbed his hands up and down her back, but his words, though comforting for her, were mostly for him. His own heart was racing, his fingers itching to dig into her skin so he could feel her against him, to know that she was flesh and blood beneath his fingertips. He longed to kiss her, just once, just so he knew what it was like to properly and thoroughly kiss her. But at that moment, what they both needed was to hold on another.
As he did, he looked around. The guy had made a nest for her, everything in that little alcove looked to be the nicest cleanest things around. He could almost feel her fear bouncing around that little room. She must have been terrified. Lost, alone, in the dark with no way to get a hold of anyone with a crazy guy keeping her there. It was then he noticed the rope, knotted around her waist, it led to the radiator. Steve didn't care it if it was evidence. As she hugged him, as he held her with one arm, he used the other to retrieve his knife and cut it off of her. Throwing it as far from her as he could.
Rowan clung to him, her body shaking. He just stayed where he was, on his knees in that little room, the woman he couldn't get out of his mind, who had a frim vice grip on his affection, straddling him, her nails digging in through his shirt, her breathing running ragged in his ear. He wanted to tell her that he'd always protect her, he wanted to tell her that he had feelings for her and this knocked sense into him, but he wasn't sure if it really had or if this was all just a side effect of the fear of losing her. When suddenly, as quickly as she had tackled him, Rowan had pulled her head out of his neck and then kissed him.
Her fingers dug into the skin of his jawline, her lips, soft against his tasted like the salt from her tears. Her body still shook but now he was shaking too. He greedily took all she had to offer him, plundering her mouth with his tongue, pressing her soft body against his so he could feel every inch of her against him. Finally properly and thoroughly kissing her. He groaned when she ended it, disappointed that it had ended almost as quickly as it had started.
"I wanna go home Steve," Rowan whispered against his lips. And that jerked him back to reality. He was on his knees in some abandoned facility with a girl who jumped in and out of a void and got herself lost. He should have been pissed, he should have been angry she had kissed him when he had a girlfriend and she had a boyfriend and a Wo Fat and had told him she wanted him out of her life. And then had promptly stayed very much in his life. But all he could bring himself to feel was the desire to kiss her all over again.
"Yeah, okay, I can get you home," he said swallowing back anything else he might have said. "We can drop you off at Alex's on the way to the Palace."
Rowan pulled away from him, she sat back on the mattress she had been camped out on and stubbornly wiped at her eyes smudging the rest of her make up everywhere.
"I don't want to go to Alex's I want to go home with you," she said. Oh his heart. Oh how he had wanted to hear those words but… Catherine…
"I… uh… I can't take you home when I've got Catherine…" he started, fully planning on telling her that he'd have to tell Catherine to leave. He was totally willing to of course, but it might take a while and would she be willing to stay camped out at the Palace until he could take her home?
"Catherine…" Rowan breathed out. "I promised I'd…" and then she looked at him. She really looked at him. It was like he was watching a fugue state lift. The cloudiness left her beautiful blue eyes and he knew in his heart that whatever this moment was… it was gone.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, scrambling back and off of him. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came… can I just… can we please get me out of here?"
Sorry wasn't the worst thing she could have said, but it was enough to stab him in the heart all over again. Still Steve nodded, he stood quickly, helping her stand too. His suspect may have gotten away but he got two things out of this.
One. He had found Rowan so he could stop being so anxious. Two. That kiss. It did absolutely nothing to assuage his obsessive need to have her. If anything, it fanned the flames of desire higher. Because he would never, ever forget that kiss, the fireworks that accompanied it and the way it made his heart sing.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Wo Fat paced the length of his cell. Four hours. No Rowan. After missing the first call, Wo Fat was worried, but he shrugged that off as him over reacting. She had been out the night before, she was probably sleeping, or hung over, or doing something he didn't want to think about with Alex. After missing the third call he got suspicious and decided to investigate.
That was when he heard about the BOLO. A BOLO on Rowan in her costume from last night. A BOLO that was put out by Five-0. What the hell had Steven McGarrett done now? Then there was the assault. Someone had assaulted Alex and he was in the hospital. The report labelled Rowan as a witness and now she was missing with a BOLO out on her. What the hell had Steven McGarrett done?!
Wo Fat had immediately gone to work. He called out all his contacts on the island. Rowan had gone into the hospital with Alex. A Five-0 member, the Asian male, the one he helped a Delano put into Halawa… god he never remembered his name, either way, he went into the hospital. Then Steve and Danny had showed up and all three of them came out later, and went their separate ways, but Rowan never did. And minutes later the BOLO was released.
Except she wasn't in the hospital. He had someone check. And she wasn't at Alex's place. He had someone check. She wasn't at the Iolani Palace. She wasn't at HPD headquarters or any of their stations. He had someone check. She wasn't in Halawa or any of their other smaller female prisons or male prisons. She wasn't at the recording studio. She wasn't at the bar she worked at… someone was going to lose her side job again. She wasn't at that stupid shrimp truck she liked, nor was she at her favourite coffee shop or any of the other shops she enjoyed in the areas she frequented either.
By the fourth hour of calling her with no answer. By the fourth hour of his contacts saying: "We can't find her," he had basically decided that he was going to break out of prison today. And if Rowan had been taken by the Yakuza… like they had been threatening to do… well… they had better run.
And then his phone rang. Wo Fat lunged for it. Rowan's name on the screen. If this was a ransom call, he'd die. Well not him, a lot of other people would die, but death would be coming!
"Hello?"
"I'm fine."
Her voice. Oh god, it was her voice. And just like that he went from worried to angry. "Where the hell have you been?" he screamed. "Four hours you've been missing. What did McGarrett do to you?"
Rowan sighed at him. "I wasn't missing, I just lost my phone," she said. She was lying why was she lying?
"Use tacos in the next sentence if McGarrett is there and you can't be honest," he ordered.
"He is here, and I can be honest," she said. "I wasn't missing I lost my phone."
She was lying. Steve was there and she was lying. He was probably on speaker phone. "Your boyfriend got attacked by someone, you went into a hospital and didn't come out, Five-0 put out a BOLO on you, and for four hours, not only were you not picking up your phone, none of my contacts were able to find you. Now tell me what happened!" he ordered.
"I was at the Palace," Rowan said. "You know dealing with the paperwork for the assault…"
"You weren't at the Palace, I had people check," he growled.
"You had people break into the Iolani Palace to look for me?" she asked and in the back ground he heard a cry of: "What?" from McGarrett.
"It doesn't matter what I did or didn't do. You're lying to me. Why are you lying to me? What the hell happened?!" he demanded to know.
Rowan sighed. "Okay… I maybe… may have been abducted…"
"WHAT?!"
"I'm fine. It's fine. Steve found me…"
"Put McGarrett on the phone," he said.
"He doesn't want to talk…"
"PUT MCGARRETT ON THE PHONE!" he shouted.
There was five second pause before he heard Steven's gruff: "McGarrett."
"I'm gone a month and she gets abducted?" he hissed. "Who did it? Was it the Yakuza? Was it the NLM again, cause I swear I paid a lot of money to have every last one of them killed."
"You had them… No. No, it wasn't the NLM, why do you think the Yakuza is after her? Do you know something?" he countered.
Wo Fat knew a lot of things. He knew that all his actions all the intervening he did in her name had gotten her noticed. Her asking him to intervene on behalf of Kono and her boytoy who was in trouble with the Yakuza, had not helped. That network he was maintaining had also become a problem. While the kinks in it had been mostly ironed out it had left one blaring metaphorical neon blinking sign pointing gin her direction that screamed: "That's the girl Wo Fat cares about." So far no one had tried to grab her to ransom her against him simply because he was a terrifying individual who had just destroyed a faction of the NLM out of spite alone and he had made sure everyone knew that Five-0 was on her like a fly stuck in glue. But he was in prison and Steve was clearly inept at taking care of her, so that effect would only last so long. He needed to get out of prison before that happened. Or he needed to get her better protection.
Either way he wasn't telling Steven McGarrett any of that.
"How the hell did she get kidnapped on your watch?" Wo Fat countered.
"She's not on my watch," Steven argued and wow, since when did the self-righteous Steven McGarrett become such a goddamn liar?
"Do you or do you not have a P.I. following her?" Wo Fat asked in a dry tone and got a: "That's not the point," from Steve.
Well what was the point of the P.I. then? "Look. What happened today was unacceptable. Answer the next questions correctly and I might forgive you…" "—forgive me? Excuse you, who do you think you are?" "…did you attack Alex? Did you put him in the hospital?"
Steven was silent for a moment before he said: "No. He got attacked by a guy who was overdosing on scopolamine."
"Wow. You are absolutely useless McGarrett. Here I was thinking that you finally did something worth while and it turns out you couldn't even do that." Wo Fat sighed. "Put the Little Mermaid on the phone."
He waited patiently until he heard her quietly repeat: "I'm fine."
"I need you to listen to me very carefully, Rowan," he said. "I… I'm rapidly approaching the time where I will not be able to help you."
"What are you talking about?" she asked.
"Rowan, the Yakuza has gotten a little too interested in you, I'm trying to dissuade them but… I'm worried that you might be in danger soon," he told her. "I… uh… I may be sending people to take you to safety. It depends. It depends how things go. I need you to… uh… I need you to stay far away from them. Can you do that for me? Can you stay away?"
"I mean… it's not like I hang out with them on the DL, Wo," she answered, she was trying to be funny but she wasn't She must have sense that the was exasperated by his answer because she sighed and added: "But… I'll try. Okay?"
"Okay. And you're okay, right? Steve got you, you're okay?" he asked, because he could hear it in her voice that she might not be.
"I… I don't know," she whispered and he heard that tell-tale quiver in her voice. She was going to cry. What had happened to her? "I… I keep remembering the… the… karaoke night and I'm too scared to go home. I don't want to be alone."
Wo Fat paused. He remembered the karaoke night too. He just didn't know how to soothe her. Especially since they had both agreed that McGarrett could never know what happened. That man was in the ocean getting eaten by god knows what, McGarrett would just freak out.
"Can't you go to see Alex?"
"Alex is mad at me," she whispered and Wo Fat rolled his eyes. My god what a tool. "It's… it's okay. Chin said that I can… I can come home with him."
Chin! Yes, Chin Ho Kelly, the Asian Five-0 male. That was his name.
"Alright. Uh. You call me if anything else happens, okay?" he asked. "And uh… always have your phone on you. At all times. No more repeats of this."
He heard her smile over the phone and he smiled too. "Okay. Sure thing. Miss you," she said, he said all the same back to her and then hung up the phone.
Good God what had his life become?