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AvalonReeseFanfics
A/N: Okay, so I know that Steve's get annoying. But I promise, I promise it's going to get better. We just have one more chapter after this and then we're going to get a break from his douchieness, but after that episode I believe there's only two more chapters of him being a jerk and then they're all okay. Obviously their relationship has it's issues, but they will eventually work through it, it does take all of season 6 for them to work out their issues though so be patient. I promise that there are cute fluffy scenes from Chapter 141-145, and then we get angst from 146-148. But after that the cute fluffy moments take over and during chapter 149 and there shouldn't be anything super angsty after that. Hope that helps prepare you guys better. And I will see you guys on Wednesday!
Chapter 139
Rowan got home late purposely. She had stayed at the studio hours after everyone went home, laying down beats, lyrics, and guitar chords. She recorded, and re-recorded, and when she couldn't sing anymore, she wrote until she had more to sing. But she couldn't avoid going home forever, sooner or later Steve would come looking for her… right? Honestly, she was a little surprised that he hadn't come already.
Rowan returned to a silent, dark, empty house. A house, she felt, mirrored how she was feeling. She knew Steve was home, his truck was in the drive way and he had left the porch light on for her. But everything on the inside was off.
That's how they were now. On the outside, he was still there, but inside… inside he felt miles away from her. She thought nothing could be worse than standing on the outside of their little family, of all the Five-0s and not being able to join in, but that was nothing compared to having Steve go through the motions with her, half-heartedly and dejectedly all while staring at her with those harsh accusing eyes like she had murdered someone right in front of him.
Logically she understood why he was mad. She hid things from him. She went to Wo Fat in her time of need. She hadn't told him the truth about the night with Reyes. She was having nightmares she couldn't share with him. But that didn't excuse him looking at her like she was the walking nightmare.
And then he was at that little coffee shop on the beach, smiling with a beautiful blonde, wearing a beautiful suit and looking so fine and perfect. The first real smile she had seen on his lips since that night with Reyes and it wasn't for her, but for that new girl. A girl he had met at his father's grave. A grave he went to visit on the anniversary of his father's death… without Rowan.
As quietly as she could Rowan made her way across the living room and up the stairs. But despite the slow and quite trek she found herself in the doorway of the room she shared with him and couldn't bring herself to go in. She stared at Steve as he slept in their bed. He lay on his side, a hand outstretched to her side of the bed, like he was waiting for her, like he was waiting to put that arm around her.
She still couldn't move. She couldn't bring herself to go to him.
She couldn't forget the look in his eyes. He kept looking at her like she… like she was a monster. He didn't trust her. He didn't want her to go to his dad's grave. It was starting to feel a lot like he just didn't want her.
Unable to stomach staring at him, no matter how serene he looked, or how much she wanted to just curl up into his embrace, she turned back to the room that used to be hers. Though the place was musty and dark she still kicked off her shoes and slipped out of her outfit, resting it onto a chair she hadn't sat in in months. She changed into the odd ends she had left in that room, her shark sweater, still riddled with burns and holes from all the times it had gone into the void with her and a pair of old shorts. With a heavy sigh she pulled back the covers and slipped herself into a bed that was cold and uncomfortable, now that she was used to Steve's plush mattress and his strong arms around her and his body keeping her warm. Curling into herself to keep herself warm. She was so used to sleeping with Steve who always produced heat that she was cold when he wasn't in bed with her.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but her eyes burned, burned with the tears she couldn't stop shedding, with tears that wanted to escape now. But she didn't want to cry with Steve right in the next room because she'd wake him up and then he'd ask her what was wrong and she couldn't face those eyes… not again.
She must have been trying to sleep for a good ten minutes before she felt him in the room. She wondered if he'd ask why she was there and not with him, she wondered if he'd just leave her there, but after a few charged seconds the bed dipped and he slid in behind her.
It was both a relief and curse having him slide up to her, his arm slipping around her like it belonged there. On the one hand she needed to feel him on the other hand it hurt more to have him act like everything was fine when things were so clearly fractured between them.
"You know I can't sleep without you," he whispered into her neck. Rowan said nothing, despite herself she pressed into his embrace figuring well… if she lost him tomorrow at least she'd have this night.
That time when she closed her eyes finding sleep wasn't as hard as before.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Steve was asleep when Rowan came home. But barely. His eyes had opened when she closed the front door, no matter how quietly she had done it. He had waited, debating whether or not he get up to meet her before deciding it was best to wait for her to come to him so they could talk about what an idiot he was and how he was sorry for being so callous. But she never came into the room. He had lay there, counting silently in his head each step she took up the stairs, waiting, not wanting to get up, not wanting to argue with her right away, or see her tears. All he wanted was for her to slip into bed so he could hold her tightly to his chest and pretend like everything was okay again… just for the night.
But she never came.
Steve was sitting up in bed the second he realized she had gone into her old room. She… she had never done that before. Not even that night where she and him were arguing and she sent him over to Danny's. They had been apart the night after that but she hadn't physically been in the house. She had slept over at Wo's safe house, which he now knew was housing Matty.
Since then he had moved safe houses. Somewhere else on the islands of Hawaii, at least she didn't dare lie to him about that this time.
The problem was, Steve couldn't sleep without Rowan. He knew he had hurt her feelings that morning, he hadn't intended too, but he had. He had thought he could come home after working the case, apologize to her and they'd go back to pretending that the other issues didn't exist. But she didn't come home. And now she had chosen to not get into bed with him.
He didn't want to think that he had hurt her so badly that she didn't want to be with him because that meant her actually leaving wasn't too far behind. And that hurt way more than her picking Wo Fat over him.
Steve got out of the bed they shared together and padded across the hall to her room. One peek into the room confirmed she was there but she didn't look relaxed. She was curled into herself and shaking like she was cold, but he also knew that she did that when she was trying not to cry, which happened often after her dreams, particularly the ones she had been having since Reyes had been murdered. But these dreams weren't visions. They were just plain old nightmares. Rowan hadn't had a vision in a week.
Well… Rowan may have wanted to be alone, but Steve didn't. He crossed to the bed and slowly got in behind her. He had wrapped her up in his arms, held her tightly to him willing her to feel just how badly he still wanted her and then whispered: "You know I can't sleep without you."
Sleep found him moments after she relaxed in his arms. And sleep left him as soon as he realized he was once again in an empty bed.
She hadn't left the room though, he knew that, he could feel her milling around, probably getting ready for work. He didn't think she had work to go to today. She hadn't taken a smaller job this month, opting to just write songs, but, to be fair, she had been pretty busy at the studio… and she had been pretty busy lying to him too.
"Hey," he murmured sleepily. He checked the alarm clock by her dusty bedside table. Five in the morning, she was never up this early. "Hey, you okay?"
A soft: "Mhmmm," came back at him and he frowned. An upset Rowan was a Rowan that didn't talk. Was this still about yesterday or had something else happened? He couldn't have upset her in his sleep, could he?
Steve sat up and sure enough she was fully dressed, that nice suit skirt he liked so much and a pale blue linen shirt. She was working on putting earrings in, her eyes focusing on the mirror in front of her and not him allowing him to just watch her.
Looking like that… she was lovely. And that ache in his chest fired up. His heart begged him to concede, anything to keep her, but his pride and fear wouldn't let him.
"Where you going?"
"Work," she answered, still clipped. She never went to work this early, and she didn't have one of her odd jobs either. He knew, right then and there, that she was avoiding him.
"Hey… uh… about yesterday…" he started but she suddenly turned, that iceness he attributed to her sociopathic side was covering her face like a war mask and glittering in her eyes.
"Did you find the poker chip?" she asked, cutting off his dying words. She clearly didn't want to talk about that.
Steve's eyes narrowed. "No… I… uh… are you dreaming again?"
"Maybe," she said with a shrug. "Are you sure you didn't find it? It's all black… it might… it might be on a card?"
"I found a black business card with markings that could be a poker chip on it," Steve said. She made the mistake of coming closer to the bed, instinctively, his hand reached out of her, snagging her waist and pulling her closer to him again. She let him do it, but she didn't meld into him like she usually did, she didn't wrap her arms around him she just stood there, stiff as a board with her hands resting softly on his shoulders, as if ready to shove him away.
He couldn't keep himself from pressing a soft kiss to the space between her breasts, even if it was through her shirt. Anything to have her close to him, to get back a little bit of the distance he had put between them. A shaking hand came to the back of his head and he almost groaned at the contact. To have missed this in such little time… it reminded him of why he was being so distant with her in the first place. But he didn't want to go back to that. To that feeling knowing she was in the door and she chose to walk away from him.
"That's the one," she said softly. "It should help you… I think…"
Steve nodded nuzzling into her again. "I don't have to go right away," he whispered but before he could ask her to stay Rowan twisted out of his grip.
"I do though," she said quickly heading for the door. "Good luck with your case."
And just like that she was gone and Steve was left perched on the bed, his chest cracking under the weight of the fear and the panic. Because he was certain, absolutely certain that he couldn't feel the dog tags in that hug.
Rowan had taken her little piece of him off. And he couldn't help but feel like maybe… maybe that was a sign. And he realized he, more than anything, that he didn't want things to end with her, not like that… not ever.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Taking Rowan's lead, Steve had given the weird card to Kono who took it and ran it through the HPD symbol and images database. And she got a hit.
Just like Rowan had said, it was a poker chip.
It was a membership card to an underground card parlour called Paradise Den. It had a reputation for being merciless when it came to people who defaulted on their debts but the guy who was running it was Dominic Alonzo, had been dead ten years. This left Steve having to run down people who used to work for him to see what they knew about Paul Clayton.
They combined that knowledge with the bullet fragments they got from exhuming Paul Clayton's body, got them a match.
Tony Malua. The gun belonged to him. He was an ex SVL which was a Samoan street gang, and a very brutal one at that. But Tony had told them that he had given the gun to Jimmy Sykes, the same guy who Paul had been trying to save that boy from. The drug dealer.
The problem was proving it.
Steve had come up with the great idea of sending in Jordan, the same kid pushing meth outside of Aces High that Clayton was trying to save. Jordan was doing great, he got Sykes to admit that he killed Clayton but he went way off script, smashing a bottle over the man's head and shouting at him.
Paul Clayton had believed in Jordan, had been trying to save his life. And Jordan had not been able to take Sykes telling him that Jordan was the reason that Paul was dead. He attacked Sykes with a bottle and while they got into a tousle Steve and his team moved in on them before anything too bad could happen.
But Steve was late. Sykes pulled a gun on poor Jordan, getting a shot off that Steve would find out got Jordan in the shoulder. And when Steve got through the door, Sykes pulled that gun on Steve too and he had to shoot him. Got him, too, in the shoulder, instead of killing him like the man had deserved. Now he would get to rot in jail.
Steve pulled Sykes up off the ground and found that the man was laughing.
"Malua got the word out, you know. Said you'd be paying me a visit," Sykes hissed. "I gotta question for you commander. Do you know where your girlfriend is?"
Steve straightened, looked down at Sykes and found himself asking: "What did you just say?"
Sykes just laughed again. "I said… do you know where your girlfriend is? You know that pretty little redhead you've got as the background on your phone."
Steve didn't have time to digest how he got that information he just knew that, without a shadow of a doubt he needed to know where Rowan was… now.
"Chin, use your phone to locate Rowan. Call me when you got it," he ordered dropping his arrest to rush for the door.
God if something happened to her and that morning had been the last exchange they ever had; he'd never forgive himself.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Rowan was officially bummed. Like properly depressed. To the point where she couldn't even stomach going to work. The last time she had gotten like this she was in witness protection, she had gotten Malcolm and Trevor together, and she had just been told that her leg would heal right… not in a way that would lead to her skating again.
She eventually proved that prognosis wrong, but the months after she got that news had been bad for her. It was like she had lost a piece of her and she hadn't been able to function. This was a lot like that time, except the damage wasn't just on the outside, it was all inside her.
She had gone to the beach to sit on the rocks and watch the waves. She thought it might make her feel better, but all it did was open up the free time to think about everything. To try and figure out what to do. All those crazy hair-brained schemes she pulled out of nowhere in a time of need, and she couldn't think of something to fix this?
"Hey."
Rowan jumped and turned to Wo Fat who had just appeared beside her. How the hell had he found her? Oh her phone. That stupid network. He had called her that morning, his weekly check on her. He had noted that something was wrong with her, she had thought she had deflected him but she was clearly wrong.
"What… uh… what is all this?" he asked pointing to… well… all of her.
"What?"
"You look like you're contemplating drowning yourself, what's going on with you? This isn't like you…"
Great, the sociopath couldn't read her emotions. Explaining it was going to make her cry. "I'm sad Wo," she snapped resting her chin on her pulled-up knees.
Wo Fat looked around at the beach and then carefully sat down beside her, even though the sand and the rocks were going to ruin his dress pants.
"When you're sad you cry. You're not crying," he said.
"There are different types of sad."
"Different types of… wow women are exhausting. Or is this just a you thing?" he asked her. When she just stared at him he nodded his head and then turned his gaze out to the ocean. "Fine, what kind of sad is this and how do I make it stop happening?"
"The kind where I give up. And I unno. That's the problem I don't know how to fix this."
"Give up? Isn't your family crest literally don't give up and don't let go? Or something ridiculous like that?"
Rowan rolled her eyes at him. How dare he throw her own family crest back at her. "That's it. I'm jumping in the ocean."
She moved to get up, a bluff really, Wo Fat had a hold of her shoulders and tugging her down even before she got an inch off the ground. "No, you're not. No guy is worth that. Not even the Great Steven McGarrett, which is clearly not so great." She turned a dry glare to him and he returned it. "Don't look at me like that. He's clearly not if he's this big of an idiot. You would have thought after Afghanistan he would have just proposed."
Rowan shrugged. "Well you'll be pleased to hear that we probably won't be together much longer," she told him and when Wo Fat turned his shocked eyes to her, she added: "He thinks I'm a monster."
Now a dark glare was coloring his face. "He said that to you? Those words? In that order?"
"No…" "Then how would you…" "It's in his eyes. He looks at me like I'm a monster."
Wo Fat scoffed. "You are so clearly not a monster. You're the nicest person I know."
"You're a criminal. Everyone you deal with is a bad guy. Of course, I'm the nicest person you know."
"So? There are still some villains with good intentions. Your intentions are always good and your actions are well… they're mostly good with a tad bit of villainous mixed in. But all in all, you're a decent human being and an upstanding member of the community."
Rowan turned to him, no smile on her face she just stared at him and Wo Fat stared back not sure what to do. They were silent a moment before real actual concern crossed Wo Fat's marred face.
"Okay… now you're scaring me," he whispered. "What do I need to do? Is this an alcoholic shaved ice situation? Unlimited spending spree in a bookstore of your choice… or at the Disney store? A kitten? I could get you a kitten, you like black cats, right?"
Rowan turned back to the ocean. "I just want to be good enough."
Wo Fat sat back and looked back out to the ocean too. Well, fuck, he didn't know how to give her that. How could McGarrett not think she was good enough for him? How was he supposed to make that idiot see that? After a moment's silence he whispered: "You're good enough for me."
Rowan half smiled again, a single tear fell from her eye and she dropped her head to his shoulder. "That's nice, Wo," she whispered to him. "You're a good big brother."
He wrapped an arm around her and tugged her to him, resting his head against hers. They were like that for all of two seconds before someone ripped Rowan out of his arms. She had yelped and Wo Fat was up on his feet in a defensive position ready to attack but it was only McGarrett who was uncharacteristically red and shaking.
"How nice. Got yourself in trouble and immediately called your brother, isn't that just like you?"
He was gripping Rowan too hard, Wo Fat could tell by the whitness of the skin under his grip. He had a hold of Steve's arm before Steve could even look at him and twisted it until Steve let go, and continued to twist until Steve was down on his knees. Steve cried out mostly in surprise and lashed out catching Wo Fat just above the knee and he too went down. Once they were at each other's level Steve lunged at him, tackling him to the sand and trying to strangle life out of him.
"Stop it, stop it!" Rowan was shouting trying to pull Steve off of him. God the only reason Wo Fat hadn't gone for his gun was cause she was there. He brought a leg up and managed to shove it between he and Steve, kneeing him in the chest and sending him sprawling back.
Rowan rushed to Steve's side, helping him to get him though he didn't need it, leaving Wo Fat to get up on his own. But Steve wouldn't let Rowan touch him. He got up, shrugged off her hands and then glared at her while she backed away from him. And that right there must have been the look that had her thinking that he thought she was a monster. Wo Fat got it though, the way Steven was looking at her was the same way he looked at Wo Fat, and everyone knew how Steven McGarrett felt about him.
"You two deserve each other," he snarled to her and Wo Fat shook his head in surprise, ready to jump to her defense like she was prone to doing for him.
"What the hell is your problem McGarrett?" he shouted, sweeping Rowan aside. The words had stabbed into her like a knife straight to the heart, even as he was sweeping her aside she seemed to be crumpling around the emotional wound. "We haven't done anything. We were just sitting!"
"I'm running around worried about her and you two are off staring into the sunset!" he shouted back.
"Worried about her… she was on the fucking beach! And it's like the middle of the day! The sun is high above us not setting, what the fuck are you on?!" Wo Fat snapped actually legitimately concerned for Steve's sanity.
Steve half turned away only to turn back and shout: "You're ruining everything! Why can't you just go back to hell, or crawl into a hole and die, why can't you just go away!"
"I haven't done anything yet!" he shouted back at him. Then he remembered Rowan and how she hated it when the two of them argued and fought so he forced himself to take two deep breaths and then said: "That's it. You clearly need to calm down. I'm going to take Rowan…." he turned to grab her but she wasn't behind him anymore. Wo Fat did a full three sixty scanning the beach before he thought about calling her name, but she wasn't on the beach anymore. Or at least, he couldn't see her.
"I don't have my keys," Steve whispered and then turned and ran off. She had taken his truck? She kept saying the truck was too big for her to drive. Wo Fat followed after him ready to take Rowan away from all of this and find some Steven look-alike for her to fall in love with instead. But Steve's truck was empty. His keys were in the ignition, the driver side door just wide open and on the seat was her phone.
Steve took it. "Her phone… she… she left her phone."
So she wouldn't get tracked. She realized that Wo Fat had tracked her location, and that Steve had done the same to find her… for some reason. She had left the phone to go off the grid.
"Oh god… she's gone… she… she's gone…"
Wo Fat was ready to shout that all of this was Steve's fault but Steve suddenly collapsed into himself. Suddenly struggling to breathe, his chest heaving and he was making terrible gagging noises. Wo Fat wasn't sure what was happening or what he was supposed to do to make it stop.
"Are… are you going to vomit?" he asked taking a precautionary step away from Steve who was now braced on his knees and trying to breathe. When Steve didn't answer but just kept heaving Wo Fat took a hesitant step forward wondering if he was supposed to offer comfort. He put a hand to Steve's back and pat him twice punctuated by: "There, there."
Steve turned a glare up to him and Wo Fat immediately withdrew his hand. "I don't know why I did that, Rowan doesn't like it either."
"Why are you even here huh?" Steve asked him. "Why does she always call you first?"
"She didn't call me… I called her this morning to check up on her and she sounded upset, and even though she told me she wanted to be alone, I traced her phone and found her," he explained. "Why did you… uh… why are you here?"
"Sykes threatened her. I had Chin track the app to find her," Steve added. "Do you know where she'd go now? I mean… who else does she have? She wouldn't go to my guys she doesn't trust them, would she go to one of your contacts?"
"Wait… hold up. Sykes? Jimmy Sykes the SLV meth dealer… the wannabe club owner… threatened Rowan?"
"She's in the pastel GTO right? Maybe I could just put a bolo out on that?" Steve mused to himself. "Maybe she'll go home? No, she's mad at me she's not going to do that."
"No, no. You don't get to gloss over that. Rewind," he ordered getting Steve to look at him. "You're telling me that low life threatened her and now she's on her own, without her phone, driving around in a giant pastel purple beacon?" When Steve nodded Wo Fat groaned in frustration. "Might as well have taped a bullseye to her back."
"No, no, she's fine… I took him down…"
"Fine? You call this fine? She's sitting on the rocks talking about giving it all up cause you're being a baby, she's been threatened by a low level drug dealer who thinks he's bigger than that, and now she's run off because neither of us would leave her alone and she does that thing where she runs from her problems when she's upset… AND THAT! All of this! Is fine to you? What the hell is the matter with you?"
"Giving up, what are you talking about?" Steve asked as Wo Fat turned to walk away.
"No. I'm done with you," he snapped heading back towards where he had left his Audi with Steve trailing behind. "You're an absolute moron. You know that? You're just… you're pathetic."
"Pathetic? You think I'm the pathetic one?"
"Yeah. I said it. Sulking because she called me. Asshole, look at what your goddamn job is!" he thundered whirling around to face Steve. "She's gonna call a cop to help her hide a body? A cop that has, in the past, arrested her for things that weren't fucking crimes? You fucking nutjob, of course she's not, she's not stupid. And while I'm at it, she is not a monster and if I find out that you actually uttered those words to her, so help me I'll rip out your fucking voice box with my own bare hands."
It was amazing how truly violent he got the angrier her got about Rowan. As he stormed away Wo Fat wondered… where else would Rowan go? Maybe she'd go to Kong, maybe she'd go… he didn't know. This was the first time Rowan had ever tried to run from him on purpose. He wasn't sure he liked it. In fact, he was entirely sure that he didn't like it one bit. And he blamed McGarrett fully.