Rewrite

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Alright guys, two posts in a row. Though to be fair it's accidental cause I didn't get a chance to post on Monday. I hope you liked the steaminess of the last chapter and how cute everyone is. This chapter is also quite cute but it's someone else being cute. We're also going to see the resurrection of an issue in the next chapter so I'm quite excited to see your reactions to that. I'm going to tell you guys right now, I've hit writers block again. I think it's cause I'm also to season 6 and I'm really worried y'all are going to be really mad when we hit that section. I'm going to try and get my mojo back this week and I'll update you on that when I post next! As always thanks for reading, don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you on Friday!

Chapter 155

Two months he'd been doing this. Two months of undefinable… whatever this was… with Jian Hui. Thank god she was patient with him because he had no idea what he was doing.

After the Christmas debacle with the terrible gifts they had exchanged lists of things that they were okay with the other buying for them. Since then it had been easier to surprise her with things. She still didn't ask him the hard questions about his work, though he knew that she knew what he did. He was always asking her about her work, because she loved to complain about the stupid patrons and their silly questions that came into her work.

They didn't have much in the way of having things in common except they were both emotionally aloof, he more than her, and the sex… wow… the sex… he still wasn't used to having sex the way they did. It felt… it felt like nothing he had ever felt before.

"So I was thinking… and call me crazy here… but I was thinking… vacation."

Wo Fat who had been sitting across from her, business magazine in one hand propped up on the knee he had crossed, and whiskey in the other, stopped reading to look up to her. She was across from him, practicing her sutures on a stuffed tiger, her favourite animal, a stuffed animal he had gotten her just for this purpose and thought about it.

"You know travelling for me is… hard…" he said. "You'd have to be okay with going without me and meeting me at our destination."

"No. I know. And I'm fine with that… if you are… I just thought… we both work so much, it might be fun to go on a vacation. See how compatible we are in enclosed spaces."

A trial run for living together. Oh lord. It wasn't like he didn't spent a lot of time with her. She'd come to the lavish apartment that he had rented, he'd go to her place, but they always left to go to work. They never spent a whole day together. Just whole nights. This was a big step and she had carefully paired it with trigger words. Like fun. Since he had opened up about how Rowan had always reminded him to have fun and not be so serious, she had been trying to do the same.

"Alright, and where would you like to go?" he asked, determined to do this. He spent almost a whole three week period dealing with Rowan day in and day out, if he could do it for her he could do it for Jian.

"Hawaii."

The no came out of him so fast she was actually so startled she slipped and stabbed herself with her suture needle.

She yelped and shook her hand, while he winced. It occurred to him to get up to help her, but she was the doctor not him. Instead he watched her get up and rush to the kitchen to run her finger underwater. He waited until she went into the bathroom for a plaster before he got up to follow her. He leant against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets as she dealt with her injury. Was he supposed to say sorry? He sort of felt like maybe he should have, but he didn't know how to say it without damaging his pride or sounding sincere. Besides… he was sort of used to Rowan just demanding an apology from him and then taking whatever he said as the apology. She was also very big on trades.

I will forgive you, but you'll owe me like… so many favours.

Literally a sentence she said to him once. He kinda wanted Jian to be like that. He needed direction. Like a lot of it. But even he knew it would be weird to say: "Can you act more like my sister" to the girl he was trying to have his very first sincere relationship with.

"What was that about?" she snapped once her finger was suitably treated. "What the hell do you have against Hawaii? It's near-by, it can be affordable… it's beautiful?"

"It's where Ro and Steve live."

Jian fell quiet and just stared at him, standing in front of him staring up at him with those caramel colored eyes. She was obviously surprised, Wo may not have talked a lot about Rowan and Steve… that was a lie he talked a lot about them, and how he didn't like Steve and how his sister was too good for him, but he had failed to mention certain things.

Like how Rowan and Steve lived in Hawaii. How Wo Fat was the reason Steve's father was dead and that he and Steve shared a mother and not well at that. That Rowan had adopted him a year ago, and she was a little white girl. Yeah, Jian was assuming she looked like him and she was going to be surprised if he ever showed her a picture of his sister. Not to mention, he wasn't sure Jian knew that Rowan's name was Rowan, he always called her Ro. Probably because, like Jian like to tell him, he thought it was cute that she was Ro and he was Wo.

He hated that pity in her eyes so he reached out for her injured hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the plaster softly. Good-bye pity and hello fuck-me eyes.

She cleared her throat and whispered: "I didn't know that."

"Steve… uh… Steve runs a special tactical unit and he's on the rampage for me. Getting back to Hawaii will be… uh… hard… staying there would also be hard. If he gets wind of me on the island, he'll hit hard… I don't really want you caught up in our uh… feud…"

"No doubt… I mean, we can… uh… I guess we can go somewhere else… I just… uhm… it'll be fine."

But it wouldn't be fine. He could tell, something was up.

"You just what?" he asked. "Something's bothering you, tell me?"

"I don't like planes," she whispered. "Hawaii is about as far as I can handle on a plane."

She blushed as she said that to him and he realized that this was something that embarrassed her though he didn't know why. Everyone was afraid of something. Hers was planes.

"You know the flight to Hawaii straight is 8 hours right?"

Jian blanked. "Wait… is it? I thought it was closer."

"Nope, Hawaii is 8 hours," he repeated. "It's longer if you do stops. 14 for one stop, if we're going to Honolulu though I'd prefer we go to a different island…"

"But if I do stops it won't be as long right?"

"Wow you really want to go to Hawaii don't you?" he asked. When she blushed and looked away again he sighed to himself, not because he was mad but because he hadn't wanted to return but he could figure this out, he could avoid Rowan. "Okay, alright. We're doing this. We're going to Hawaii…"

"But your sister… and Steven? Won't you get arrested?"

"Well I'm going to assume that due to my falling out with my sister he won't expect me on the island. If I stay out of his world while I'm there there's a good chance I won't fall into his scope."

"How can you assure that you're not in his scope? It's all island…"

"Well, he and Ro live on Ohau. So, if we avoid…" he noted a strange looking wince on her face and he sighed. "You want to go to Ohau… why?"

"There's an art convention in two weeks and… uhm…"

"You want to go to the Pacific Art Forum," he said. "You know that's for… uh… very serious art collectors."

She blushed again and he quickly realized that this was just something she wanted to do. Rowan had things like that, bucket list items of unreasonable things she wanted to do or experience. Like the festival of Mask in Venice, waltzing on the Disney cruise as Ariel and Eric, things to do with Steven they both know would never happen cause there was no way way Steven would ever take a shift off. But this must have been a bucket list thing for Jian and he could help her realize it. He already knew he liked doing small things to make her smile, how would it feel if he succeeded in something bit like this?

"Alright, we'll you're in luck, I know a few people in that world. I'll get us in, you book all the trip details and I will meet you there."

"But it's on Oahu," she muttered. "I don't want to chance…"

"Well… so long as no one gets murdered at the forum there's no reason for Ro or Steve to be there. So just pray that no one gets murdered."

"Wait you're really good to do this?" she asked. "Are you sure, I could look into something else…"

"If you have your heart set on art on Oahu then that it what we'll do," he said taking her hand and kissing the inside of her wrist. "I'm more worried about you and your fear of flying."

"Oh don't worry. I'll do the one with the most stops, then it's not nonstop and I'll get myself something for the nerves, something pill like, what do you think?"

"I think if that's what you'd like to do, I'll support you, okay?"

She squealed happily, something she rarely did and then hugged him. "Oh thank you," she said to him. "I'll make it worth your while, I promise."

He just smiled a nodded wondering if he should have told her that the smile on her face had already made it worth it to him.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Strange things were happening on Oahu. Some poor guy got shot in his hotel room and one single bag was stole. Their vic was holding on by a thread and they were trying to figure out who on the island could hold a grudge against this guy, so much that they'd shoot him in the chest and steal a carry on.

Also, what was in that carry on that could be worth killing a man?

After asking the wife about the state of their financials and how they could afford a trip if he had been fired. Steve had casually remarked to Grover that he couldn't imagine a husband not telling his wife something that important. Grover had then hit him with speech about pride, and how scary it was to be the man of the house and not be able to take care of his family. But it was the: And I don't see how you can say that when you and Rowan hide more secrets from one another then the fucking FBI that got him though.

He didn't think he hid things, not as much as Rowan did, but he was sitting on a few whoppers. Like that I love you he had sitting in the back of his throat that had yet to come up. But Rowan's lies were different, she still wouldn't admit she called Wo Fat at Christmas, and when he did catch her lying it was amazing because she was so fucking good at it, he had a hard time figuring out if she was lying or not.

This left him distracted. Not by Nicole Booth, the agent the insurance company had sent to find the missing 5-million-dollar painting that had been stolen and possibly smuggled in their vic's suitcase. Not by the fact that this was about a stolen Vincent van Gogh's painting. Not by the conversation they were having about the art show happening on Hawaii that he had no idea about.

Was that something Rowan would have liked to go to? It's expensive, of course, they'd have to dress up… he could probably not afford it, and she knew that which means if he had asked she would have lied. God this was a conundrum, that was what had him distracted, what else was she convincingly lying about?

"Steve," Kono said nudging his arm so he'd look at her. "Did you hear? We have our middle man."

"No, sorry… I… uh… I spaced out… who…"

"Gerard Hirsch," Nicole said, if she was annoyed, she was hiding it well. Great another wonderful liar like Rowan. "See, on paper he's clean. A respected art appraiser. But to insiders, he's a black-market facilitator dealing in stolen art and high-end forgeries. He's also a notorious perv."

"Good. We'll be able to get some leverage on him," Steve mused crossing his arms across the Navy blue polo he had put on specifically for Rowan that morning that made her smile so brightly at him. "We just need some bait."

"Oh no," Kono said and then turned a playful glare right back at him. "What about Rowan? Can't Rowan go, she deals so much better with this sort of stuff."

"You think I want my girlfriend anywhere near that perv, I don't think so," he said.

He thought that was the conversation done, but Chin just smiled. "Let's tell the truth, huh? We all know he'd say the wrong thing and you'd punch him out and ruin the op."

Steve scowled, they all laughed and then they moved on. All forging forward to plan this strategic op that would catch Hirsch in their net and as they did Steve put his phone on silent so nothing else would distract him that day.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

They were watching Kono flirt with Hirsch, the poor man was so blinded by Kono that he wouldn't see it coming until it hit him. Nicole had made a comment about how nicely he and Grover cleaned up with her eyes coolly appraising him in particular but Steve didn't care. Before he had finished getting changed he had snapped a few pictures and sent them off to Rowan.

Rowan loved him in this suit. Fucking loved him in it. He was going to love her attacking him over this when he got home. He wanted her to rip it off of him, he wouldn't even care if he had to buy a new dress shirt cause she fucked up all his buttons.

He turned to Chin who was sitting in the bidding section, making insane bids on a piece of art that he better not win cause they could not afford to pay for it.

Grover was standing beside him with an amused smile on his face, both of them focusing on Kono now. "Look at her, she's reeled him right in," he murmured and Steve smiled proudly.

"What do you mean I'm not on the list," someone cried and Steve turned. There was Jerry was standing at the entrance trying to gain entrance with…. Fuck… with Rowan.

Rowan patiently took the list of guests, pointed to a name and went: "And that would be us, party of two. I shall be sure to tell my benefactor that you gave us a hard time,"

And then she and Jerry were walking in, ignoring the apologies of the woman behind them, and Steve was rushing towards them. Rowan's eyes found him immediately, concern coloring her face, Jerry however spotted Kono and almost blew her cover.

Steve grabbed both of them and forced them onward.

"What are you doing here?" both Steve and Rowan hissed at the same time.

But it was Jerry who answered with: "Researching my book on the CIA's use of art sales to covertly fund a moon colonization project. Rowan had a bad day and was looking for a distraction so I asked if she'd come along."

Steve's eyes turned to Rowan. She was having a bad day? Why was he only finding out about that now? "Why didn't you call me?"

"I did. Check your phone," she answered sulking at him. Steve fished out his phone and sure enough five missed calls and a bunch of texts.

"Ro I'm sorry I was…"

"You were on a case, yeah I've figured that out," she snapped she then turned to Booth and looked her up and down with those cold Ice queen eyes of hers. "Why is it you never tell me about your cases when there's a pretty girl involved?"

Steve withered under the intensity of that cold glare not sure what to do about it, clearly everyone around them was just as awkward because Grover immediately forged forward.

"Nicole this is Jerry and he girl who looks like she's about to eat Steven and not in the good way would be his girlfriend, Rowan."

"Ah," Rowan said quickly. "Not girlfriend. Just his girl. Isn't that right Steven?"

Steve glared at her and she turned a smug look to him as she hissed: "Yeah not so nice when I do it, is it?"

Nicole offered them both her hand and said: "Nicole Booth. Bishop and Copley Insurance." But only Jerry shook her hand.

"Really, Bishop and Copley? Wow you must've worked the Pordenone case."

"Yes, I did."

"If you have time I'd love to interview you for my book."

"Ugh, I need a drink," Rowan snapped already turning away from them.

"All they're serving his is champagne, Rowan," Steve snapped as she tried to walk away.

Rowan snatched her hand out of his grasp. "I happen to know that events like these have unlimited hard liquor. It's just the fancy gold flaked shit. Now if you don't mine, your pervy little art dealer has taken the bait. So, go do what you do best which is ignoring me for cases."

And with that she stormed off. "Whoa… what's wrong with her?" Grover asked.

Jerry shrugged. "Uh… I unno. All she said was that she had it rough over at Atlantic today. I mean, I got her to admit that she and Alex were arguing about something and well she's been a super bad mood since she came over."

"Great. Thanks Jerry," Steve muttered watching his girl go to the bar. But she was right, Kono was disappearing with Gerard Hirsch

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

They got Hirsch, caught him in the act of agreeing to sign off on a forgery. To keep himself from going to jail he had agreed to work with Five-0. Which was what they wanted so it worked out. After capturing Hirsch, Steve had gone to go get Rowan from the bar and found her drunk as hell in the middle of the day. She had fought him, but a drunk Rowan was a loose Rowan, so while she was basically about as limp as wet noodle but squirming like a snake, Steve still managed to pick her up and get her into the back of the Camero.

He got everyone back to the Palace, had to struggle through carrying a girl who didn't want him touching her. He nearly dropped her twice. But he got her into his office, gave her water and ginger ale to drink, and then shut the lights off for her. He left Rowan, sleeping it off in his office, and they were talking about next moves when he got a call from Jerry who was being weird again. Still he didn't tell anyone he was in the hallway and he went out to see what Jerry was being so secretive about.

Turns out he had something big. Nicole didn't work for an insurance company. Not according to the information that Jerry had managed to dig up.

He took Jerry's intel and took Nicole into his office immediately to accost her with it.

"Now, just hang on a minute… and I can explain."

"What there to explain? I know who you are. You're a bounty hunter who tracks down lost and stolen pieces of art for massive rewards, right? And based on the warrants out for your arrest in Athens and Budapest, it's clear you don't have a problem bending the law."

"Look this isn't just a pay day for me, alright?" she cried.

"Actually, it is," Rowan said that was exactly when Steve remembered she was in the room. "Her plan is to make off with all the other stolen paintings, but the one we're currently looking for she's going to leave behind and you give the reward money to the injured guy… I think… I unno… everything's fuzzy right now," Rowan said from where she had been at his desk, arms folded on top and her head resting on her arms. Yeah that was probably the alcohol talking… or the fact that her visions and dreams hadn't come back as strongly as they had been before.

"What is she talking about?"

"Ignore her," Steve snapped and then turned back to Nicole.

"Look. I track these pieces down, and I return them to their rightful owners. So what if I have to bend the rules sometimes?"

"Hey, Bryan Wallace is laying in a hospital room fighting for his life. And while I've been out there trying to catch the guy who put him there, you've been lying to me."

"Oh my god, what are you still arguing about this? She does the exact same thing you get paid to do except instead of catching terrorists and murderers she saves artwork. The only difference is you have the governor of a state standing behind you."

"Rowan," Steve snapped. "Stop. Helping!" He turned back to Nicole with a scowl on his face. "You wanna know what the really crazy part about all this is? I still need your help. There's dozens of artworks and buyers who need to be I.D.'d. So here's the deal. We get Janssen you get to return the van Gogh and collect the reward. The whole 1.5 million of it."

Nicole tried to hide her smile and failed. "Girl's gotta eat right?"

"Yeah, flying private can't be cheap, either," Steve growled sarcastically.

"Look, thank you, really," she said blinking her light blue eyes at him. She had nice eyes but they were nothing like Rowan's. "I promise I'll be up front moving forward, and help any way that I can, really."

"Alright, good," he said as they shook on it.

"Of course, you're going to make the pretty girl stay. She's gonna screw you, she's gonna screw you so bad. You're gonna look like the stupid goodie-good-doer you are."

Holy fucking hell. Steve rounded on Rowan his eyes wide with horror. "Okay, you're next," he snapped pointing a finger at her.

He then turned back to Nicole and just pointed her out the door. "You're going to go out there… not alone… I'm going to put Jerry on you cause you can't be trusted, but right now I need you out of my office."

Nicole stared past him to where Rowan was still at his desk, head down and grumbling. "Can you handle her? Or should I send in back up?"

Steve opened his mouth to clap back at her but Rowan was the one who snapped: "Oh just get out you cheap Evil Lara Croft knock off!"

Nicole scampered out of the office and Steve rounded on Rowan again. He went to her side, kneeling down beside her.

"Okay that's it. What the hell happened at work today? Okay? What?" he snapped. When she didn't look at him he turned her chair to force him to look at him. She sighed and rolled her eyes but she finally pointed those bleary watery eyes at him.

"Alex happened okay?!" she cried. "He's turned into this little drama queen straight off of his first tour that sold out, and he fucking served me with papers"

"Wait he served you?"

"Yes, he's suing me. Saying I used Five-0 and a criminal alliance to blackmail him into signing his rights away, he's saying that all my songs are his, every single one of them. So if he wins, I have to forfeit all profits, all the songs I've sold and royalties will go into his name, and he'll own my songs. All my songs. That includes the book of singles I haven't sold because the songs mean too much to me to sell."

Steve took at that in, he took in his girl's watery blue eyes, and the anguish on her face and in her voice and remembered that she had called him and he hadn't answered. The guilt hit him like a sledgehammer and took his breath away, but it also made him angry. He was going to fix this and he wasn't going to be nice to Alex about it either.

"I'm going to lose everything I worked so hard to build and I really, really needed you. I called you over and over and you didn't answer," she sobbed and Steve's heart just broke in his chest.

"Baby I'm sorry, I am… I didn't…"

"I needed you and you chose work over me."

"That's not true, babe, I didn't even know you called my phone was on silent," he said coming to kneel beside her. "Babe, I'm sorry. If I knew I would have left, I wouldn't have stayed on the case, I promise."

She sniffled a bit and he tugged her to his chest, letting her cry on the nice suit he had on. He didn't even care so long as she gained some sort of comfort from this.

"Want me to beat him up for you?" Steve asked as he held her tightly. Rowan melded into the embrace, her cheek resting against his shoulder.

"Could you? Or arrest him? Or make him disappear? Hawaii has a Guantanamo Bay, right?"

"No, it doesn't," Steve whispered pressing a kiss to her head, which wasn't entirely true. It kinda did… and it was the Palace. "But you know what, I can definitely think of a way to fuck him over though, we can get you out of this. I promise. Even if I have to deport him myself, okay babe?"

Rowan nodded and pulled away, she let Steve brush her tears away and then she let him kiss her. "I'll help you fix it okay? I promise. You gonna be okay to sober up here or do you want to call me a cab?"

"Are you leaving right now?"

"No probably not… why?"

"Could I stay with you? Until I feel better…"

"I wouldn't mind but I'm going to be on case stuff."

"That's okay, I just… I just want you to stay with me."

"Anything," he whispered offering her a hand that she took. Holding it tightly he let her fix her makeup and her hair before joining everyone out in the lobby. They had an op to plan, but until she felt better he wasn't going to let her go.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Kono and Chin sat calmly beside Gerard Hirsch was freaking out. They had only way to describe this and it was cold feet.

"You don't know what this could do," he cried. "If people find out I'm working with you… I'll lose all my business… I'll ruin my reputation… they could demand refunds!"

Wow. Those were his concerns huh? Well, clearly money was all that mattered to him.

"We're going to do our best to make sure they don't find out," Chin assured him but Gerard shook his head.

"And if things don't go well what happens? This Janssen guy has had no problem shooting a civilian what do you think he'll do to me?"

Or them, when he found out they were cops.

"Well, we could just arrest you for forgery and ruin your reputation that way," Kono offered and Hirsch just frowned at her.

"Either way I'm screwed, doesn't matter which way I go does it?"

Steve finally came into the conference room with Rowan still beside him. They were still in their fancy outfits, having not had the chance to change. Rowan still carried the ginger ale which meant that she was still de-sobering.

"So… what's the problem?" Steve asked, as he pulled Rowan in front of him and then wrapped his arms around her. Something had to be wrong, otherwise he wouldn't have been holding her like that. They were usually more professional than this in front of other people.

"Hirsch works on money and rep," Rowan said, surprising everyone. "Everyone knows that. So if he goes down for this, if they think he's working with the good guys, everyone he's sold to is gonna come after him and everyone he could potential sell to is going to walk in the opposite direction. No rep, no sales… and sometimes no life."

All eyes turned to her, even Hirsch. "Do I know you?" he asked, he narrowed his eyes at her, his eyes moving up and down her body which caused Steven to scowl. "I feel like if I did… I'd remember."

"You worked with my brother a few times," she said with a wave of her hand. Rowan couldn't see it, but Kono caught it, the look Steve gave her when she called Wo Fat her brother, as if they weren't done, like she hadn't taken that name away from him.

"Your brother."

"Sure, you called him Anthony, or Mr. Shu."

"You're Rowan Pierce?!" he shouted shooting to his feet looking her up and down in a different light.

"Wait… wait…" Nicole said moving towards Steve's side. "Wait. Rowan Pierce? Rowan the Destroyer. That's her. The Rowan Pierce who rules a criminal empire with an iron fist, that's you."

Rowan blinked her eyes and then sighed in a frustrated manner. "Jesus Christ. Why does everyone say it like that?!" she cried. "I can be very intimidating!"

She looked not even the slightest bit intimidating in a black polka dotted flared skirt dress. Her hair in waves of curls pinned to one side, though slightly messed up from when Steve had been carrying her.

"No. Of course I can see that," Nicole said. "But I think… when people hear of the things you do they see someone… a bit more butch and a little less girly."

"Like what?" Kono asked. "What sort of things did you hear?"

But before she could answer the question Steve stepped in to wave her off. "Okay… can we get off of this topic please?"

"I want her to come with us," Gerard interrupted. "No one's going to do anything if I have her on my arm."

Steve blinked his eyes, Rowan tilted her head back, which made no senses because she was just looking at his chin, as if waiting for a response. "My girl is not touching you," came out of him in a growl so low Kono almost missed it. That possessive darkness masking his face, twisting it into something that put the fear into Gerard… and everyone else in the room.

"But he has a point," Rowan whispered. "I could help… if you let me."

"You think I'm going to put you in the middle of a sting op, are you insane?" Steve hissed to her.

"Well, why not?" she asked. "You let me spy on a known pimp… had me steal her client list from her…"

"Rowan… that was special circumstances and you know it… you were already in… this… and with everything… you and him aren't even…." He stuttered he then turned to Gerard. "Chin and Kono are more than capable. Besides… could you even get a third person in?"

Gerard shifted and answered with a sullen: "No."

"Then that answers that, because we're not subbing out one of them for a girl with no training," Steve snapped. "It'll be fine, we'll be outside ready to move the second you spot Janssen and the painting. All you have to do, Hirsch, is get them in."

He nodded and then turned to Rowan. "And you need to go home."

"Can you come with me? Just for a bit. Just until you have to leave for the op?" she asked, something akin to panic in her eyes.

But it was Steve. Steve who brought a hand up to brush her hair behind her ear, his eyes caressing her in this soft way, painting her with some emotion Kono had never seen on him before that took Kono's breath away. "Yeah, course baby," he whispered and when Rowan smiled, a proud sort of grin hit his face, lighting him up, taking all the years off him.

Kono wondered, as the two left, if she should have worried about Rowan's lack of arguing about being denied access to the op. It had never led to good things when she didn't argue, when she just knuckled under. But she was hungover, not well, and having a bad day, so if Steve didn't worry, Kono wouldn't worry either.