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A/N: Hello my lovely readers! We've reached it… we've reached the chaos. This first chapter is not that chaotic, there's not much that's really going to happen other then we're setting it up for the chaos to come. We do get to see a little bit more of Domestic Rowan and Steve so I hope you guys are enjoying that. We're getting a little bit of more of Rowan's backstory, plus a little bit more knowledge of Rowan's criminal-esque history. GUYS! We're almost to 700 reviews. This is amazing to me! Really, I'm just so… grateful. Thank you for all your support, please continue to give me all your support and I will see you guys on Wednesday!

Chapter 114

Poker night at McGarrett's was supposed to be a quiet night with his friends but somehow over the course of a week it had become a whole thing for charity. He was fine with that because it was for a good cause and because Rowan dealt with the planning and spacing and everything else for the event. He was originally supposed to help but they had a last minute case but she was more than capable of putting together that party. They were having great fun except for the fact that he was currently losing and his stubborn, competitive streak was coming right out. But what he did like was the amazing company and having Rowan sitting beside him.

She hadn't wanted to come originally; he had had to twist her arm into it. He had spent the hour before as they were busy with last minute set up teaching her some of the techniques but she hadn't seemed to get it. She was extra giggly today, acting extra vapid which was weird for her.

Catherine had come in and immediately said she didn't want to sit at a table with Rowan cause Rowan had won every hand the last time she had played her. Granted they were only playing for candy and their other player had been a 12 year old Steve had found at the HPD and helped find his missing dad.

For the last couple rounds though, Rowan had picked up the game. Quite well. Not only had she not asked him for any help, or showed him her cards and asked for advice, but she had won. Each and every single time.

Steve glanced to Rowan who was sitting staring doe-eyed at everyone, blinking her blue eyes and smiling in that strange way and then down to his cards. He had good cards this time. He just didn't have enough money to call Nick's insane bet.

Steve nudged Rowan. "Hey, uh… could you…"

"No," she answered quickly. "No I will not give you any more money."

Steve stared at her, a frown on his face. She had no problem footing him before, but now, now that she was winning big pots, she wouldn't share. He was going to say something about it but Rowan just had to pin him with that icy cold stare for him to turn to Danny and repeat the question just not as politely as he had attempted to ask Rowan.

"Stake me. I need some money for a rebuy."

"You've rebought three times already. That's not including all the chips you keep sneaking from Ro," Danny snapped, which won a: "He what?" from Rowan who was suddenly glaring at him. Steve ignored him and continued to stare at Danny imploring him to help. "Why don't you push that little stack and go all in?"

"I got a monster hand here, Danny," he argued and Rowan scoffed.

"Don't give him money Danny, he does not have a monster hand," she said.

Steve turned a glare at her, the girl didn't even know if her cards were good half the time, they were, but she had no idea. Who was she to say that his cards weren't good? "How would you even know that? You haven't seen my cards," he snapped instead.

"The laws of probability alone are enough to prove you're not a sound bid. Basic high school statistics are also against you. Not to mention your terrible track record. You are not a horse to bet on when it comes to poker, my darling."

"Laws of probability… Rowan you failed high school math, so excuse me if I don't take your calculations at face value."

Around the table their friends avoid their eyes but laughed to themselves, beside him Rowan gasped and then her smile turned into a thin lined frown.

"Why would you announce that to the table?" Rowan asked him instead. "Are you trying to make sure you don't get laid tonight? If so, you're doing a great job of it."

"Jesus will one of you just give him the money?" Nick cried.

"Why does it have to be my money?" Danny and Rowan whined at the same time.

"It's for a good cause. It's for charity. It's for the HPD Bereavement Fund."

"Wait a second, I don't get to keep this money?" Rowan asked. And Steve turned to her, he had told her that, hadn't he? "You mean to tell me I memorized every fucking hand for no reason?" That seemed to be a rhetorical question because she leant back and sighed. "Kay, calm down. It's for a charity, can't be a monster all the time."

That last sentence was quietly said to herself. But Steve caught it. He had also caught all the times she had been muttering under breath, muttering numbers. Apparently… she had been memorizing what cards they had been playing?

Steve stared at her hard. A theory forming in his mind. "Rowan… are you… can you count cards?"

Rowan seemed genuinely surprised that he asked her that. She blinked her eyes at him and put on an air of innocence that Steve could see through now.

"What? Me? You just told everyone I failed high school math…"

"But did you really? I mean I haven't seen your report cards…" "Who brags about failing high school math?" "And you're doing surprisingly well for a beginner."

"Am I though? Am I doing well?"

"Rowan… look at your goddamn pile, you've practically cleaned us out. Are you hustling us?"

"I unno what'chu talking about McGarrett… but it's starting to sound an awful lot like you're a sore looser which is not an attractive quality in a boyfriend."

"I'm not… we agreed no labels," he reminded her quietly despite her hating it when he did that. He quickly changed topics before she could argue. "Don't change the topic. I think you're playing us because, to me, this looks and sound like, word for word, your Professional Hustle."

Danny's mouth fell open. He pointed at Rowan with a gobsmacked look and echoed: "Professional!" in a reverent tone.

Rowan glared at him. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said through grit teeth, her eyes wide in warning. It was how Steve knew he was right.

"It is. This is it, isn't it? You're not Rowan you're the Professional right now!" He crowed and Rowan threw her hand down and leant back in her chair glaring at him as she folded her arms over her chest.

"Someone explain this professional business to me cause I ain't following," Grover ordered and Danny turned to him.

"It is where Rowan pretends to be an idiot and then smokes us all with her skills," Danny said and everyone at the table groaned as they realized that that was exactly what had been happening.

"And it was working until someone opened his goddamn mouth," she growled glaring at Steve. "I wish Trevor were here, he would have just shut his mouth and split the fucking profits with me. But noooooo, someone had to be all high and mighty. You're definitely not getting laid tonight, asshole. Matter of fact, go home with Danny I've kicked you out."

Steve groaned and threw down his own hand, shaking his head. Fuck. "It's my house," at the same time Danny muttered: "It sounds like your brother is an enabler."

Rowan ignored him, folded her arms over her chest and sniffed indignantly at him. "Fine, I'll go home with Chin then..."

"Rowan!" Steve snapped knowing fully that he was not going to let Rowan go home with Chin tonight. That wasn't in any set of cards. He was fully and completely used to waking up with her in his bed, there was no going back now.

"I thought the Professional was a thing you did with drag racing," Danny said to her before the two of them could get into an even louder or heated argument.

Rowan shrugged. "Well yeah that's what it evolved into. It was our most lucrative hustle. Actually, it started off with crazy eights… that started at Elphinstone… it's a sleep away camp that my brother and I went to every summer. Anyway, we'd play for candy, and we always acted like we had no idea what we were doing, really only worked the first three nights we were there. When we got older crazy eights became Poker, which is even easier to hustle at because I can very easily convince people that I have no idea how to play. You should see me at blackjack though, I'm lethal at blackjack."

"But you can really count cards."

"Uhm… I mean, if we're playing blackjack sure. But you can't count cards in Poker if you guys were to properly shuffle and you're not. I've got a general idea of what each of you has and I know all your tells. So I'm fairly certain that most of y'all have nothing that can beat me."

"You failed high school math but you can count cards?" Danny teased.

"Okay look, school never made sense to me. But when it comes to real world applications me and math get along quite well. I used advanced calculus to calculate the trajectory of a jump in a car once. Didn't even know I that I knew advanced calculus I never took it in school. Anyway… it used to drive my parents crazy," Rowan snapped.

"We need to take this girl to Vegas," Grover said.

Rowan shook her head. "Naw, I've been black listed in every major gambling house in Vegas, and all the ones on the east coast of Canada," she answered absent going back to color coding her chips. "The only ones I can gamble in are the illegal ones and their stakes are always much higher than just loosing a bit of money."

Everyone stared at her. She took in their stares and blinked her eyes. Steve wondered if she realized that in the world she probably wasn't blacklisted anywhere. "Did I never tell you guys about the six months my brother and I lived off of gambling in Vegas?" she asked. And when she got dry nos from every at the table she nodded. "Oh, my bad. Uh, in the months between our last championship and me going solo, my brother and I lived off gambling for a full six months before we got bored."

"You sure they didn't run you out of town?"

"Or after they ran us out of town. Look we gonna play or what? Max has been shading his eyes so he's probably got above a pair, Kamekona's has been wiping his sweat off so he's got nothing, Nicky never has anything, Danny you're doing that thing with your lips so I'm guessing pair above five and Steve… well I managed to peek at his cards when he wasn't looking and it's a bust, whereas I have the jack and queen of diamonds making it a full house, now give me my monehh!"

They all groaned and threw down their cards proving Rowan to be right and she raked in the pot to her side. Steve shook his head.

"That's not fair, we should all get our chips back. You were cheating. That hand should be null and void!" Grover complained. "And get us a new deck of cards that home girl hasn't fucking counted."

"You want my chips, fight me for them," Rowan said and no said anything but no one was going to touch her with McGarrett sitting right beside her. They weren't stupid, they knew how that would end."

"You're not allowed to play anymore. You've been cut out, and dealt out. Take your chips and give them to someone so they know how much money they're getting," he ordered. "And then come back here and help me play."

"No, not fair," Danny said.

"How about I just come back, sit on your lap and cheer you on?"

"Oh, even better," Steve said, letting her kiss him before he swept her chips off the table and rushed off.

"You two are disgusting," Danny snapped. But Grover said: "Naw, they're just cute. A little too cute though, may wanna dial it down."

Catherine, who was sitting at the table next to theirs had suspiciously gotten a phone call right after Rowan and Steve had kissed. He would have thought it was ruse to get away from the scene but it was phone call in a different language that had her leaving the table behind. Steve was both curious and he felt bad. He probably shouldn't have been rubbing his happiness with Rowan in his ex's face.

He dealt himself out and excused himself. The plan was to go out to talk to Catherine, to apologise for the display she probably didn't want to see and to see if she was okay, but he walked into something else entirely.

She was speaking Pashto, a hill language in Afghanistan. She waved him off in time for Danny to catch a case for them which meant they had to leave.

When he got back into the house Rowan was there, she was staring at Catherine with a strange look on her face. "Where are you going?" she asked in a soft voice laced with fear. He was surprised, he didn't know what she had to be afraid of.

"Got a hit and run," he said. "We've been called in."

"Not Afghanistan."

"Rowan, of course not," he said to her, his hands resting on her shoulders and he tried to smile down to her reassuringly. "I told you, I told you that I wouldn't be going, okay?"

Her eyes found Catherine out on the lanai again. "Promise?"

"Yeah," he said kissing her forehead. "Don't gamble anymore, okay? I'll be back soon."

That one was a lie, he knew he wouldn't be back soon, but he didn't care. He left Rowan there hoping that everything would still run okay with her at the helm. With any luck he'd be back before dawn. With just enough time to curl up into bed beside her.

If he wrapped up the case, then he could spend the whole day cuddled up to her in his bed. Those were the kind of days he loved best. The pressure was on now to get this case wrapped up as soon as possible. Anything to get him back to Rowan.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve got back to the Palace with a game plan in mind. Find who stole the organ from the organ transplant carrier, avenge the death of their victim, get back to Rowan and spend the rest of the day cuddling, kissing and hopefully fucking.

Should be easy.

Should take no time at all.

But then he got to the Palace and Catherine was in his office, biting her nails and looking all sorts of worried. Steve immediately knew that this had to be about the phone call she had received.

He entered his office and tried to look nonchalant and not nervous. He noted that Catherine had taken the picture frame that housed a picture of Rowan and Steve together and placed it picture down so she wouldn't have to look at it. Rude. That was his frame and he liked that picture of him and Rowan, his arms around her from behind, it was the same photo she had as the background for his phone. Why did she sit in his chair if she didn't want to see the things he saw every time he sat down at his desk?

Before he could even ask her what was going on, she was out of her seat, out from around the desk and asking him for help.

"I need your help Steve. That call I got earlier it was from a man in Afghanistan named Amir Khan."

"I take it he's a friend of yours?"

"Yeah he is and he reached out to me because his fourteen-year-old son Najib was kidnaped by the Taliban. Now these guys don't do K&R, which only means one thing."

Steve nodded, this wasn't a rare story. This sort of thing happened all the time out there. He knew immediately what was going to happen to that poor kid. "The kid was recruited against his will."

"Or they're gonna strap an IED to him and turn him into a suicide bomber. Either way his life is over. Which is why I'm going over there. I'm going to find him and I'll bring him home to his family."

"What?" Steve snapped because that was happy ending that was uncommon in that part of the world. Not in a country where women had to cover themselves and had no rights.

"Okay, Steve. I know what you're going to say, okay? And I agree that it sounds crazy, but I'm going. Remember that recon surveillance op in '07 that went way sideways…"

"Your unit came under fire and you got separated from your group," he recited from memory. This had happened long before Rowan had come into the picture. This was back when hearing this story was the worst thing that he could imagine someone he cared about having to deal with. Rowan had shot that story right out of the fucking water with all the crazy shit she got into… with all of the terrible things she had been through before she jumped realities.

"Yeah, well here's the part I didn't tell you," Catherine whispered and Steve blinked his eyes. Oh wow, even more secrets and lies. Why did every woman in his life lie to him? Seriously, why? Every woman related to him, and every woman he was romantically attached to, did this to him. Why was this a pattern in his life? Why did no one think he could handle the tough stuff? He was a goddamn Super Seal. "After I got separated, I found myself in a field and I was badly wounded. I had a GSW to the leg, a broken arm, a broken vertebra. I had no sat phone, no radio. I was completely cut off. And that's when they found me. Amir and his son. They were Pashto and for reasons I didn't understand at the time Amir offered me his help and I accepted. They risked everything to help me Steve which Is why I have to go back and help them."

He understood her wanting to help. He did. He understood that she felt honour bound to help them, but there really wasn't much that Catherine could do as a civilian and she needed to know that. Steve needed to be the voice of reason here. Danny would be so proud.

"Catherine this is not the way to help them. You have to call the military you have to tell them what's going on."

"Come on Steve, come on, they're not going to do anything. Look I just… I was hoping that you'd…"

Aw fucking hell. This was why Rowan was so squirrely at the party when he said he had to go. This was the beginning of it all. That Afghanistan dream she made him promise to never make true. This was it. Well… he was going to keep his promise, he was not going to go.

"I can't go with you, Cath, I can't. Rowan… she's been begging me for months not to go to Afghanistan… she's got some crazy dream…"

"Oh her and her dreams," Catherine snapped. "I don't need you to come Steve I just need you to help me get there. Call Joe White and get him to get me into Afghanistan under the radar."

"Call Joe… Catherine you're not listening to me, this is insane!" he cried but Catherine merely shook her head at him.

"This is not up for discussion. Whether you like it or not this is happening. So you can help me or you can shut up."

Steve stared at her. He remembered Rowan's dreams. How with him there Catherine fails, and he dies. What would happen to Catherine if she went without him?

Steve didn't like where this was going, but he knew what he had to do.

"Alright. I'll call Joe."

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Rowan had gone to sleep feeling uneasy. Which lead for uneasy dreams. She had long since stopped trying to dissect the beheading dream. There was no option that kept Steve's head on his shoulders, except for him not going in the first place. He had assured her over and over that he wouldn't be going to Afghanistan, but there was a single problem with that…

Steven McGarrett's words were worthless.

She knew if Catherine asked him, told him she needed him for this, he'd go. He'd go because he cared about Catherine, they had been on and off dating for a long time how could he not after all, and he wanted to help. Too bad it was going to get him killed.

So when Rowan woke up to Steve crouched beside her side of the bed, his fingertips lightly tracing her jawline, with that worried look on his face, she knew immediately that he was about to tell her that he was going to go to Afghanistan.

Rowan sat up in the bed and swung her legs over the side. Her hands went to Steve's shoulders as he stared up at her.

"Don't do this."

It was all she could think to say and it pained Steve to hear it. Immediately his eyebrows crinkled together and the anguish became ever so apparent on his face.

"What happens if I don't go with her, Ro," he asked in a small voice. "What will happen?"

Rowan winced. God she didn't want to tell him what was going to happen, she didn't want to admit it because then he'd leave for sure.

"I don't know," she lied. "I've only seen what happens to you."

Steve's eyes remained that soft blue as he continued to stare at her, she knew he was going to call out her bullshit before he even opened his mouth.

"I know you looked Rowan. Just like you looked at all the different options when me and Dannny were stuck in the rubble. You've been dreaming and you haven't been talking to me about them. You're forgetting you share a bed with me. I know when you wake up after one of those dreams cause the very first thing you do is check my pulse, and then you cling to me for the rest of the night. I'm not stupid. What have you seen?"

"Just please don't go," Rowan tried again. "Please, Steven… if you go… how can I help you if you go? When they take you… how will… please don't make me live through that, I don't want you to… I don't want…"

"What happens Rowan?"

"They're going to cut your head off…"

"What happens if I don't go with her, Rowan?"

She stared at him, knowing he wouldn't let it go and she couldn't lie anymore.

"They're going to rape and murder her." Steve fell quiet, and Rowan lowered her eyes from him to where her fingers were digging into the skin of his shoulders. "The rape takes a lot longer than the murdering part."

"Well… I guess that settles that," Steve said. Quickly standing but Rowan felt the tears already coming to her eyes.

"No, please, please I'm begging you not to go, please, please, please, please," she cried clinging to him.

Steve swept her up in a tight embrace pulling her off the bed and into his lap. "I know, I know, I'm sorry," he whispered. "I know I promised, but next time… next time I'll keep my promise. But I can't… I can't keep this one. I can't leave her to that fate, I need to help."

Rowan tried to hold back the sobs but they were shaking her body now. "They're… they're going to chop your head off…"

"Okay, you know what? Tell me everything you know about what's going to happen. And that way… that way I can avoid it…"

"Just don't go. Please, Steve. Please. Please don't make me tell you… please. Please Steve, I really… I really don't ask for much, I just… for once please pick me. Please?"

The tears were flowing down her cheeks as she cried, and when she finally looked up to him she saw tears in his eyes too. His hands framed her face, his thumbs wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"I have to do this Rowan. I'll never forgive myself if I let her go alone and something happens. I know you're scared, and I'm scared too but I'm going to come back to you, okay?" he whispered. Rowan looked back up at him, she wanted to believe him but the pictures were still vivid in her memory. "It doesn't matter where you go, how far apart we are, God could come down here himself and take you from me and I'd still find a way to get to you. Okay? Now please, please tell me everything you know about it. Everything you remember and I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to change it."

Rowan wanted to believe him. She wanted to trust him. She didn't but she also knew that he was going to go no matter what she said, and no matter what she did. So instead of fighting him, instead of making him stay, she simply told him everything she knew because at that point it was the only thing she could do.