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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Alright guys, we've got our Monday update. This is a resounding thank you for 400 reviews. Thank you so much for everything, for being such loyal and amazing readers. Which is why I'm so sorry for the next two updates. I'm not going to lie, these next two updates are going to be really angsty. HOWEVER after this, there are only TWO more terrible situations that Steve is going to put Rowan through before she finally knocks him off his feet. So yes, for those who are triggered easily these next two chapters are going to be hard for you, feel free to skip them. I did throw in some cute pieces between Rowan and the others thought. But onto good things to look forward to: in 9 more chapters Steve and Catherine will be done. In 13 chapters there's going to be a change in Steve and Rowan's relationship. From there on in they're gonna be absolutely adorable. I promise. I'm working super hard on the cuteness overload factor. Just a heads up, I'm flying on Wednesday, so the update might be late… either late at night or a day late. So if it is, don't panic, I'm either stuck at an airport, or passed out in my house. I will do my best to post again on Wednesday.

Chapter 75

Rowan had not been able to get a hold of Alex, though, she didn't really try.

After Chin Ho had dropped her off, and he had made sure that she and Jerry were settled, he had run off to help Steve with the case, not that she had noticed. Rowan had been so out of it that all she did was curl up on the couch and fall asleep. When she woke up, Jerry was watching X-Files on the tv, slouched in beside her feet with a pizza and a can of Mountain Dew. At some point Rowan and acquired a blanket that was tucked nice and neatly in around her. She was worried that without the right distraction but Jerry was great company. He talked about conspiracy theories, explained the plot of the X-Files to her, and generally kept her mind off of what happened and what memories had climbed up to the surface during the hours she had been confined to the catacombs.

The darkness and the close quarters had dragged up the trauma she thought she had dealt with. Though why she thought she had dealt with it when she had done absolutely nothing but ignore it and buried it inside was another matter entirely.

When she woke, she checked her phone. Nothing except a few messages from Grace asking if she were okay, and several from Danny about the case. Apparently, she had be right. But was she surprised? No.

She called Alex, but he had not picked up. And that was it. She stopped trying.

Chin Ho came home a few hours later. They shared cold pizza, he drank a cold beer, while she drank a ginger ale to settle her still upset stomach. He talked about the case and how they got to the kid just in time, about Steve's odd behaviour and though he didn't ask her straight out she knew he was angling to find out who happened between them.

Rowan couldn't bring herself to tell him what she did. That to keep her from devolving into utter panic she had closed her eyes and dreamed a pretty little dream in which Steve and her were together. But in her catanionic state, spending hours fantasizing that Steve would come to rescue her, seeing him vault over that wall for her she had momentarily forgotten that the dream wasn't real and he wasn't hers. In that moment, all that pretending had gotten to her and she had thought that he was truly her boyfriend come to rescue her. And that was a problem because he wasn't, and she probably shouldn't have attacked him the way she had.

And she would take that goddamn secret to the grave, because she managed to take Catherine once, simply because she was injured, next time she would not be so lucky.

Chin didn't make her call Alex again, when it was clear she wasn't going back there he let her have his bed, he'd take the couch, he said. But nightmares had been present before her eyes had closed, it only got worse when she tried to sleep. She had a night terror that woke her up screaming and had Chin Ho in the room. Her subsequent break down was how he ended up in the bed with her. Nothing happened of course, except that Rowan got a good night sleep.

Except for the dream. The dream about the man, a dead man, in an oil drum. A man she didn't recognize but she knew it was important because why would she dream it otherwise?

In the morning, Chin Ho had let her sleep in. In return she made him breakfast. And then she tried to call Alex again. And he once again didn't pick up. Well, she knew, if he had been released, he'd probably be at work, and if they gave him the day off then he would have been at home sleeping. Either way she decided that the best course of action was to surprise him at the hospital.

She got to his hospital room he wasn't there, which meant he had been discharged, and then she went to his ward, but she couldn't spot him. She assumed that he was probably with a patient, and if not he was at home. So, Rowan went to the nurse's station and smiled at the secretary. Janet was one of her favourites. She was a momma bear who had no interest in sleeping with Alex and therefore did not see her as a threat and was generally much nicer then the other nurses were to her. Janet smiled warmly up at her.

"What's up, honey? Here for a check up?" she asked. "I thought your arm was good now. Both your arms."

"Oh no, it is, they are" she said showing Janet both of her arms moving to prove that they were both still okay. "No. Uh. I'm here to see Alex. Do you know if he's with a patient?"

"Alex?" she asked. "Uh… did he not tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"Oh Honey, Alex got fired last week," she said. "Conflict of interest."

She then eyed her up and down and Rowan froze. Oh god. She was the conflict of interest. She was a past patient she had gotten him fired.

"Oh. No… he didn't… I'm sorry," she said. Janet just shot her a mhmm and then went back to her paperwork.

Rowan turned quickly and retreated back to the elevators. She waited until she got out of the lobby to have a mini mental break down. She cried behind a near-by bush, but only for a few moments before she made herself toughen up. She was sure this break down was due to her incident the day before. If she listened to her psychiatrist, she would not let this defeat her, but would just work through it. So she decided that if she was going to keep herself distracted, keep the bad feelings at bad, she had to do something to make it up to Alex.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve had been called down to the beach. A body had washed up in a blue oil drum. A lot like the ones they had found the Yakuza burial ground victims in. Filled with sand so it would sink. The partially water logged and decomposed body had been found half buried in the morning tide sand and found by a pair of very inquisitive teenagers with dreams of buried treasure. All they got was a face full of a really bad smell and nightmares.

Steve stood over it, hands on hips staring down at the mess of what would have been a human being if they had found it before it half way decomposed. All of the bodies in the Yakuza grave yard had all been accounted for. So, who was this?

Danny had not been able to come, he had Grace, and after late night last night where Grace had to clean up her Uncle Steve's lawn and his truck, he didn't want to wake her up and he couldn't have asked Rowan to babysit her either as she also needed the rest. Then Chin couldn't come either because apparently Rowan had stayed the night which meant he was still on Rowan-sitting duty. On top of that, Rowan had had a bad night and she was still asleep and Chin hadn't wanted to walk her. Then a murmur came from the other side of the phone, one in Rowan distinct sleepy voice followed by a hushing: Go back to sleep, from Chin and Steve realized that Rowan was in bed… with Chin.

Steve had tried to let go of that feeling of burning jealousy and resentment that had snuck up on him but he just couldn't. How could Chin have betrayed him like? Did Rowan just really crawl into any bed to cuddle? Because if so… maybe she hadn't cared about him the way he thought she did.

Max was the only one that showed up that morning and he had to because he was the coroner. Steve tried to be present in what Max was saying. But all he could see in his mind was Chin and Rowan in bed. How the hell had this happened? How had he not seen this coming? Fuck he felt like such an idiot. He never should have let her leave with Chin. She wanted to go home with him, he should have just kicked Catherine out and taken Rowan home with him. They had both wanted it, why had he fought it, why?

"Commander McGarrett?" Max asked and Steve jerked out of his thoughts and forced himself to actually look at Max. Despite being in the hospital the previous night, he was up and ready to go this morning. What a trooper.

"Sorry, Max, I'm a bit distracted today," he admitted. But Max was super understanding like he usually was.

"I assume it has something to do with Rowan's disappearance yesterday," he said. "Even though you found her you must still have some lingering worries about it."

"Yeah, you can say that," Steve said through grit teeth. Luckily Max was a man of few words because he turned back to the body and the matter at hand.

"As I was saying, this man has been brutalized. Just at a cursory view I can see severe bruising around the face, and judging by the warping of his legs I would say that they've been broken. But none of that is the cause of death. The bullet to the head seems to be prominent cause of death," Max told him.

"Wow, someone really didn't like this guy," Steve whispered.

"I won't be able to tell you whether or not the damage was dealt post-mortem until I get him back to the morgue."

Steve thought about that. "It looks like the guys hands are bound, be sure to get the rope to the lab for testing, maybe we'll be lucky and get some DNA off of it."

"Of course, Commander," Max said with a quick nod.

"Alright, uh… call me when we got an ID."

He left the beach, knowing that everything would be brought to the lab for examination but he didn't want to do this alone. He knew where he was going to go next.

To Danny.

Because maybe Danny could help him make sense of this whole… Rowan and Chin in bed thing. Because it was still throwing him for a loop.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Alex walked into the apartment, gently placed his guitar case down and when he looked up and then nearly jumped out of his skin.

"God, Ro. You scared me I thought you were still… uh… still with whoever you went with?" he said. God maybe he should have paid attention to those voicemails she had left.

"Chin," she answered for him. "Uhm, I went by the hospital today."

She looked so bouncy, like a puppy. She hadn't been this attentive or interested in him in forever, and quite frankly it was making him nervous. "You didn't have to do that they released me yesterday," he told her.

"Yes, I know, they also kind of permanently released you a week ago too, didn't they?" she asked.

Fuck, she knew he got fired.

Alex turned to her. "Look, uh, I was going to tell you…"

"You didn't want to upset me, I guess," she said. Yea something like that. Rowan looked around at the apartment, her mouth twitching back and forth. Oh god she had something else to say.

"They… uh… they said it was a conflict of interest," she told him. Of fuck the hospital and their toxic gossip pool. "It was… uh… it was me… wasn't it?"

Her? She thought it was… well that was better than the real reason. But then he looked at Rowan and the way she was staring at him. He thought about all the shit she had put him through with Five-0 and her need to help people who didn't appreciate it. He thought about the zombie bite he didn't need to have taken if she had just told him what was going on instead of caring about some creepy little coroner instead of him. And he figured… maybe a little guilt wouldn't kill her. Maybe a little guilt would get McGarrett out of her head and back on him. It hadn't before but it was worth a shot, right?

But that was still a little too low even for him. So, he tried to tell her the truth. "Ro…" he started but she cut him off.

"Ohhh! Ohhhh I knew it!" she cried. "Alex, I'm so sorry."

She threw herself at him, hugging him tightly. "I'm so sorry that I keep messing everything up for you. I'll make it up to you. I promise. I wrote… I wrote more songs… uh… they're not all finished but maybe we can work on them together?"

Holy shit. Rowan refused to collaborate. All of her music had to be hers and hers alone. Having rights to some of her songs… like the actual words to them… would be big for him.

"Wow… really?" he asked.

Rowan looked uncomfortable when she nodded but Alex was willing to ignore that to get what he wanted. "But let's start with lunch. Uh… I'll make us lunch and then we'll spend a day together and after dinner we'll look at music? Okay?"

Yeah that actually sounded great. "Yeah. Uh. Sure," he said trying not to feel guilty. "Uhm… I'm kinda feeling spaghetti."

"Sure. Yes of course," she said. She got up on her tippy toes and pressed a sensual kiss into his cheek. "And I think I know what to give you for dessert too."

Alex found himself smiling. Yes, he wasn't going to turn down that either.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Danny stared at Steve. Steve who was currently in a major mood. First Rowan goes missing through the void and Steve had to go find her. Then he wasn't allowed to arrest Rowan last night for being the ring-leader behind the TP assault on his house. And just this morning he found out Rowan and Chin were in bed together.

Not that he knew for absolute certain. Because he didn't see it himself. He just knew Rowan was still in bed, and yet he could hear her clearly threw Chin's phone. In Steve's head that meant that Chin and Rowan were obviously in bed together.

And from the texts Danny received from Chin about the situation… well… let's just say Danny knew that Steve's theory was right but it was his job to convince him that he was nuts.

To be fair, Rowan and Chin hadn't gone to bed together. Chin had been woken up by her screams in the night and Rowan had been such a wreck, and so afraid to be alone, that he had gotten in bed to comfort her. They had been an arm's length away from each other the whole night, except for the part where Rowan's fitful sleep kicked Chin out of the bed… literally.

Still. Danny had one job and he was doing it… not well.

"Seriously, you don't have picture proof," he said. "Chin's an early riser, Rowan was practically catatonic last night. If anything, he was just in the room to check on her."

Steve winced. Yeah. Danny had him there. "Chin… she's not Rowan's type. We know what Rowan's type is."

Yes. Her type was Steve. She was dating a douch-ie carbon copy of Steve. Steve nodded. "I don't know… I guess…. I guess I just thought… that…"

That she needed him. That was the problem. Steve was Rowan's protector. Before, if she had nightmares it was his bed she crawled into. But Rowan didn't have Steve anymore, and Alex had been mad at her last night. She needed someone to help her, what was she really going to do? Call Steve? No that's ridiculous.

"Why don't we go through what we know about this case? Huh?" Danny asked. It was the reason he had driven down the palace. That and the way Steve had said he needed someone to talk to. Actually… it was more the fact that he even said he needed someone to talk to at all. It wasn't like him to want to talk about his

"Alright, well, his DNA got a match in the system. His name is Miguel Costa, he's a low level gun-runner based out of Colombia. There's no record of him coming here, but his boss… Armando Dias, he was here. And he's a known associate of Wo Fat," Steve told him.

"We better talk to Armando then…"

"No point. Armando is back in Colombia," Steve said. "He left around the time we found Rowan again. Chatter said he was in Hawaii… not for business but to help an associate out. He arrived shortly after Wo Fat took Rowan, so you can guess what Armando had been brought in for."

Yes, to help control Rowan. Wo Fat was having problems with her… she was a difficult person, especially when she was trying to be. And according to all her statements and Wo Fat's claims… yeah she was trying really hard to be difficult for her captors.

"Alright, so it's reasonable to assume that Armando brought a few of his men to help Wo Fat out," Danny said. "But that doesn't explain how he ended up in a barrel at the bottom of an ocean."

"Yeah, well Max confirmed that he was badly beaten before he was shot, so it's safe to say that he was probably punished for something," Steve said. "The prints we found on the drum match the prints of the Yakuza that Kono shot when we found the other drums. There was no useable DNA left on the ropes that bound Miguel. And there is no one else tied to him on the island."

Oh… no. Fucking no. That meant the only person who had any ties to him for Steve to interrogate was Rowan.

"Babe… babe… no," Danny said shaking his head. "Not after she went through yesterday. Not after today. You're too… you're too raw."

Steve sighed. "I don't mean to arrest her. I just need to ask her a few questions. By all means, Wo Fat usually kept her locked up, she wouldn't have interacted with him. But maybe… maybe she knew something or heard something, it wouldn't hurt to ask her."

No, it wouldn't, if Danny thought Steve might actually just ask her something. But Danny had a feeling that Steve was a little bit more than out of sorts, what with yesterday's incidents and this morning.

"And I think that should be me," Danny said.

"It doesn't matter. Max found trace DNA under the victim's fingernails," he said. "Once we know who matches that, I'll have someone else to focus on. I'll only talk to Rowan if that's a dead end."

Danny doubted that too. Steve wanted to know more about Rowan and Chin. That's what this was all about. He wanted an excuse to go see her and figure out what was happening.

"When do you think he'll know?" Danny asked. Because sitting here in that office, with Steve on edge was not good for anyone, let alone Rowan.

"Right now," Steve said and then nodded towards the door. Danny turned to see Max coming in and a spear of doubt hit his chest. The last time Max came in person instead of just calling them down to the Morgue he had come to tell them that Kono's gun had been the one to kill their victim. So… yeah… this did not bode well.

"Max, what are you doing here?" Steve asked. He too looked concerned, probably thinking about the same thing that Danny was. "You could have called."

"I got the results back on the DNA," Max said.

Steve sighed. "Oh God, it better not be Kono," he said. "Michael Noshimuri could not be fucking with us from the grave."

"No… it's much worse than that," Max said and now both he and Steve were staring at Max with wide eyes. If the name Danny thought was going to drop out of Max's mouth actually did come out of him, he was going to punch a hole though the new pane of glass they had to install in Steve's office.

"The DNA belongs to Rowan."

Shit! You could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet. Danny eyed Steve and saw that the man had gone absolutely stiff… and white. God he was so white. But this was not good. This was so not good. Steve stood his head immediately went for his phone. Danny groaned and did the same thing, but he wasn't calling Duke for an APB or a BOLO, he started sending message after message to Rowan. God. He hoped she got them, because if Steve got to her first, she was screwed.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve knocked on the door. No, he pounded. He pounded on the door until Alex opened it. All shirtless and sweaty. God she had gone from being in a bed with Chin to being in a bed with Alex. Fuck… when did Rowan become a bed hopper? She had always seemed so innocent…

And then he spotted her. Lacy tank top and a matching pair of black lacy shorts. Hair messed up, breathless and sweaty too. Marks still on her body, bruising from yesterday, fresh hickies on her neck. His blood shouldn't have boiled at the sight of her, he shouldn't have heated with desire and he definitely shouldn't have wanted to sweep Alex aside and ravish her.

"Who's at the…" she trailed off when she spotted him. She went a red color and looked away from him. "Oh… uh… Steve… what are you doing here?"

At this, he did sweep Alex aside. "I need to ask you a few questions," he snapped going for his phone. "We found a body on the beach today. I'm going to show you a picture, and I want you to tell me if you've seen him before."

"Oh… uh… sure… but I mean… I don't know if I can help you," she said. "I haven't been dreaming of anything useful."

"He was… uh… found in a barrel," Danny said. Rowan smiled to him but he didn't smile back which seemed to perplex her.

"Wait… like an oil drum? Black? White guy with like, light brown hair?" she asked.

Steve stared at her. She was dreaming about a different dead guy in a different drum? How many dead guys were floating around in drums? "No, a blue one… like the yakuza grave yard victims," Danny said and Rowan frowned.

"Oh… then yeah, I don't think I can help you."

Steve absently went about unlocking his phone as he said: "Yeah, well our Vic… Miguel Costa, he had your DNA under his nails," he said. "I want you to explain to me why."

Rowan looked confused up until he showed her the picture of Miguel. Before the beating for course. As soon as her eyes clapped onto that mug shot Rowan froze. Her eyes went wide, she paled before them and she scrambled back like the picture was repelling her.

"Rowan… whoa… whoa… are you okay?" Danny asked. He went to go to her side but Steve kept him at bay. Rowan shook her head back and forth, she couldn't speak, she was terrified of the photo.

"You know who this is?" Steve asked. "Tell me. How do you know him?"

Rowan's wide eyes didn't move away from the phone so Steve pocketed it and then made her look at him, forced her chin up so she would. "You're DNA is under his nails. If you don't tell me something, if you can't explain this… I'll have to arrest you for murder."

She blinked her eyes at him like she was seeing him for the first time. But she made no motion to answer him. Her mouth stayed firmly shut. She left Steve with no other option. And even though everyone protested, he still arrested her. Firmly aware that Rowan was the only one who didn't complain or protest, she was the only one who stayed silent.

Until she was put into the back seat of the Camaro.

Everything that happens to me will be done to them… ten fold.