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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Happy Monday guys! We have the wonderfully cute ending to this one, I hope you guys like it. We have over-protective Steve, we have Rowan-isms and some funny moments. I'm currently up north at a spa, and posting this from my phone, hopefully it goes through. We got some more cute moments coming up after this, including a steamy moment and a birthday surprise. But we are going to come up on a few really dramatic moments. Don't forget, we have the 200th chapter coming up and I need you guys still need to tell me what kind of chapter you'd like. We got a steamy one, or a fun little scene for when their second child is born. Don't forget to leave me a review on what you wanna read and I'll see you guys on Wednesday!

Chapter 163

Don't worry Steve, I've done this before… remember?

Yes. But that had been a suicide attempt by crashing a car. Why the hell would she be doing that now? She had survived that first one by sheer luck and what had to be a fluke. FLUKE!

What the hell was she thinking? Was she out of her goddamn mind? This was Joe's fault, this was Joe's influence. He had promised himself, told himself he'd keep her from getting in another accident like that had broken her leg. But despite shouting at Joe through the earpiece there was nothing he could do from stopping it from happening. That truck they were chasing with Joe, the bees and Steve's girlfriend flew off the pier and crashed into the water, sinking way too quickly to be fair.

He slammed the Camaro to a halt, and was half out the door without even putting the car in park. Panic had rose up into his mouth like a bile. No one had resurfaced, that wasn't good. At all! His throat was closing around the scream of her name. He ripped the Kevlar off of him and sprinted the short distance between he and the water and then dove.

Right into the water and into Rowan who had been in the process of resurfacing.

He plowed into her, heard her yelp and then wrapped his arms around her to take her back to the surface where his girl coughed and sputtered and slapped him a bunch of times half-heartedly. "Geezus Christ Steve! You dove right fucking into me!"

"I'm sorry!" he shouted trying to get her hands away from hitting him and hugging him instead. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I panicked!"

"Well… I'm clearly fine!" she shouted back at him and then pushed him away.

"Well how was I supposed to know that? You're driving a truck with contaminated bees in it, fucking crashing it into the water…"

"If I can crash a car going over 200mph and roll it four times and live that shit is nothing!" Rowan said leisurely swimming away from him.

"That was LUCK! You survived the first crash by sheer dumb luck!" he snapped at her but she just ignored him and continued to swim away. Steve treaded water watching her go a scowl on his face while beside him Joe laughed. The two of them were going to give him even more grey hair.

"Could you have been any more dramatic?" Steve growled to Joe. "And did you have to take my girl with you?"

"Well…. I was gonna hold her underwater for another thirty seconds but I figured coming up quicker would mean you wouldn't have to get wet. But you jumped in anyway so I guess that didn't matter. But uh… you know… both me and her could be contagious. And uh… now you too since you just had to jump in for her."

"Wait what?" Rowan cried, halfway up and out of the water. "Aw shit. Really? I don't want the bird flu. Birds creep me out. Well actually pigeons creep me out. But they are birds… am I gonna have to do one of those shower things? Or is this a needles thing? I hate needles Steve."

"Then you should have stayed home Rowan. I shouldn't have let you talk me into this. The two of you trying to get yourselves killed. What if something had happened to you? And then what Rowan? Who was gonna look after Nahele you get yourself killed in this wreck huh?"

Rowan scowled at him and said: "Well you, of course," as Joe said: "We only did what you would have done yourself."

Rowan immediately perked up while Steven sighed internally. "Oh, that's true. We did pull a Steve. Or I guess, a Joe cause Joe trained you," Rowan said lowering herself back into the water. She swam back towards them, but closer to Joe and not him. "Makes more sense to stay here, you better go back to shore before we—"

But Steve had already swam to her side and pulled her up into his arms. "No way, if you're getting taken out by Bird flu then I'm going with you," he said to her pressing a kiss to her despite her protesting.

"But Steven! Think of the children!" she cried but let him kiss her anyway. "Eh, its fine, Danny can take Nahele for us."

"Oi!" Danny called. "What was that? Was that Danny take…? Guys. No. Don't you fucking dare. Are you listening? Stop making out in the water and fucking listen to me please!"

But neither did. Not until CDC showed up to quarantine them.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

CDC determined that as soon as they hit the water the virus was essentially not contagious at the time Steve was exposed to it. Which meant Steve was in the clear. Unfortunately, that meant that since Rowan and Joe had been exposed to the virus in its raw form that they needed to be quarantined. And though Steve wanted to go with her, they wouldn't let him stay, no point, they said, the point was that Rowan and Joe needed to be quarantined, tests needed to be done to determine whether or not they had the disease and to administer the cure at the first sign of illness.

But Rowan had been crying for him as they took him away and his heart was blistering at the thought of leaving her behind, of not being able to be there for her. So he had gone with them, despite the CDC officials not wanting him to and stood on the other side of glass and containment units to make sure that Rowan was okay, to have her at least be able to see him and in hopes, settle her.

That hadn't lasted long either. Soon Rowan was moved out of the clear containment units with the glass windows for Steve to watch her through and Steve was forced to make one of the CDC nurses at Tripler Army Medical Center take a message to her saying that he was going home to get dinner into Nahele and that he'd be back in the morning for her.

He had returned home, sore and upset. He just wanted to sink into his couch, drink beer and watch football but the second he opened the door, Nahele was on him.

It was almost exactly like when he came home and Rowan jumped on him, but instead of getting kissed, he had a child's face pressed into his chest and a little voice repeating: "You're okay, you're okay!"

Steve wrapped one arm around him and pat his back. "I'm good, I promise, I'm fine," he told him. Nahele turned his caramel brown eyes filled with nothing but fear staring up at him. He remembered that he had a cut running up from his eyebrow, and that he had cuts all over his face and neck. Yeah, he probably didn't look fine. "This is nothing, I promise."

Nahele nodded, seemingly realized that he had been holding onto Steve for too long and quickly let him go and backed away. He made a big show of looking out the door behind Steve, no doubt looking for Rowan.

He turned his confused eyes to Steve again and he sighed. "Okay, you may need to sit down," he said and that confusion and fear doubled in his eyes. Still he did as asked sitting on the couch and Steve stood above him wondering how to word what he had to tell him "So I don't know what Rowan told you…"

"She said that you had a case… that uh… that you got into a car accident and this really sick guy got stolen and that you needed her to drive the escape vehicle. She said she was coming back… she said that we'd have pizza if I was feeling up to it…"

"Well we can order a pizza," he said. "We can totally…"

"But where's mmmm…. Rowan, I mean, Rowan, where's Rowan?"

Steve blinked his eyes, completely shocked. Nahele had almost called Rowan mom, he… he had almost asked Steve where his mom was. He knew the two of them were getting close but he didn't realize it was… that close.

"She's over at the Tripler Army Medical Center, in the Containment unit," he said. He was going to tell him what happened except…

"She… is she…"

God he meant dead. Nahele was asking if Rowan was dead. Steve shook his head. "God no. She may be infected, though, with a deadly strain of the bird flu. But the chance of that is minimal. So long as she doesn't show any signs of illness she'll be good to come home."

Nahele visibly relaxed and he smiled at Steve. "When… like tomorrow?" he asked. "Could I stay home and welcome her home?"

"Uh… well… actually… I don't know how long they'd have to quarantine her for," he admitted. "But yeah, you can stay home tomorrow and we'll go visit her in the hospital, how does that sound?"

"That sounds great. Can I pick the toppings for the pizza?" he asked. Steve smiled, he fished his wallet out of his pocket and tossed it to him.

"Order whatever you want, okay, kid?" he said to him. "Do you mind if I just veg out on the couch? Not going to lie, I'm really tired."

"No problem," Nahele said jumping up to his feet and rushing off to the kitchen where he clearly left his phone. "You want a beer?"

"Yeah, thanks, kid," he said finally collapsing to the couch. Steve was so tired that as soon as he was sitting his eyes started to close. He wondered if Nahele would ever accidentally call him dad… and if he did… how happy would Steve be?

Probably very.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

He led Nahele down the hallways of the Tripler Army Medical Center. He'd be dumb not to notice that Nahele kept looking into each doorway as if expecting Rowan to be ready to go. But Steve knew that if she was good to go, he would have heard by now. He did, however, hear that her containment was going to be ridiculously long, like almost three weeks long. He also heard that Rowan had a list of things she wanted delivered to her. The top of the list was her guitar.

He took him down to the bottom floor and was taken to the room that they had put Rowan and Joe in and stepped in. He had handed off all the things that Rowan had asked him to bring, to the people who would sterilize and deliver them to her and while he did, he let Nahele go into the room first. As soon as Nahele's eyes had clapped onto Rowan he was running forward.

"Ro! You're alive!" he cried.

"Nahele!" she squealed jumping up and rushing to the windows. "You're not throwing up!"

"Yeah, you were right twenty-four-hour bug," he said. "What about you? Is yours a twenty-four-hour thing too?"

Rowan's eyes narrowed, a slight wince marring that smile she had. She hadn't even noticed Steve standing in the doorway. "Uh… I think it's going to be a little longer than twenty-four hours, sweetie, I'm sorry."

"That's okay, Steve mentioned that it would probably take longer," he said with a shrug. Rowan's eyes finally turned to Steve and he nodded to her. "Do you know how long?"

"Twenty-one days," Rowan said and Nahele's smile faded. "Yeah… uh… it's a while, but uh… but uh…"

"What's going to happen to me?" Nahele asked shooting a glance at Steven who was giving them their space and waiting in the doorway. "Am I going to… am I going to have to…"

God what was with this kid and his obsession with being sent back? It was like Rowan's obsession with being a monster. They must have similar emotional damage to be like this.

"No, no, it's going to be okay," Rowan said. "You'll stay with Steve, right, Steven tell him!"

Steve moved towards them put an arm around him and said: "Yeah, of course, of course you're going to stay with me. Seriously, you gotta stop assuming you're going back, I'm starting to think that you don't want to stay with us."

He ruffled Nahele's hair until the kid pushed him away. "No, no, I want to stay."

Steve glanced to Rowan, whose blue eyes were staring at him as if trying to convey some sort of message to him, but he wasn't getting it. He quickly fished out his wallet and pulled out a few bills and handed it to him. "How about you get me a coffee, and then you can get yourself whatever you want, okay?"

"Oh my god is that money?" Rowan asked and Steve scowled at her. She kept teasing him about how he never spent any money but he was always throwing cash at Nahele, like the kid didn't have an allowance.

"Oh, okay, I can do that, do you want something to eat?" he asked.

"No, I'm good."

"Kay we'll I'm starving, I'll be back soon!" he said disappearing. As soon as he was gone Rowan groaned and threw herself against the glass

"Twenty-one days, Steve. Twenty-one fucking days, Steve," Rowan cried. "How the hell am I going to go twenty-one days without sex? It's not even like I can say we did it recently and that may hold me over, I was literally hoping to send Nahele off to a friends' house so we could go crazy this weekend. So what am I going to do, huh? And you? How are you… I swear to god if you go out and find someone else while I'm trying to fight off Bird-flu symptoms… so help me!"

"Of course, I'm not going to go find someone else, Rowan, don't be ridiculous!" Steve snapped.

Rowan had her hand against the glass and without thinking about it he had put his own hand to hers, just on the other side of the glass. "What about Nahele? Are you going to be okay with Nahele for twenty-one days, Steve? It's a lot of responsibility…"

"Yeah, we'll be okay. I got this, I promise." he asked. "Just you know… don't get sick."

Rowan stared up to him. "I'm scared," he heard her whisper and he bent his head to the glass. "I'm afraid I'm going to have nightmares and have no one… what if… if I?"

"Hey, the stuff they got, I put your phone in there, you just call me. I don't care what I'm doing or what time of night it is, if you're having a nightmare you call me. Do you understand? Call me. I'll get you through it, and if something's too strong or too scary you let it go. Okay? I don't need your visions, Rowan, I need you."

Rowan smiled at him in a watery kind of way and he tried to smile back her. They'd be okay, it would be tough but it would be okay. "It's going to be okay, I promise. Twenty-one days are going to fly and then you'll be out and we can make up for lost time." Rowan nodded and then he gestured over to Joe "Can I talk to him for a second… privately?"

Rowan looked back at Joe and then around to the small room they were going to share. It looked like an apartment at best. It wasn't much considering what Rowan was used to, and there wasn't any walls or doors per say either. "It's a small room Steven."

He nodded. He understood the ludicrously of what he was asking but still said: "Will you just walk away?"

Rowan did as she was asked, sitting herself down on a small couch and picking up a book, Steve noted that a man in a hazmat suit had let himself in through a different door carrying things and Rowan practically attacked him for them. Alright well, that was Rowan suitably distracted for the time being then. He turned his undivided attention onto Joe. "So… I like what you've done with the place."

Joe looked around. "Not too bad for a 21 day stay, couldn't ask for better company… even though… I think her endless chatter will eventually drive me loopy," he said.

Steve smiled. "She'll grow on you, trust me. Twenty-one days huh? When was the last time you had three weeks' vacation?"

"Never, I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do with myself. Your girl's already talking about song writing and I'm worried, can she even sing Steve?"

Steve proudly smiled to where Rowan was already strumming happily on a guitar. "You're in for a real treat… she's a fucking song bird, my girl… but uh… I'm sure you heard her mention nightmares, right? Yeah well… she uh… she has a lot of those… usually… usually I'm there…"

"I got it, son," Joe said. "I'll keep an eye out."

"No seriously, please do, sometimes they take a hold of her and she kinda lives through it… there were a couple dreams a while back that stopped her breathing and I just…"

"She really takes these visions seriously then, huh?" he asked jokingly but when Steve frowned he donned a serious stare so Steve knew he meant this. "I got this, son. I'll watch her real carefully."

"Thank you… and you know… you'll be fine. Rowan's very entertaining. And you won't have to do it alone, either, I'm coming down every day to visit. I promised the kid we'd swing by after school so he can see her, and she'll want to see me too… so you know… maybe I'll set up a chessboard huh?"

Joe just nodded. So Steve cleared his throat and asked the really worrying question. "What do the doctors say?"

"So far, no infection, but your girl's running a fever," he said at Steve's panicked eyes he added: "They think it's the 24-hour bug your kid had, if she starts throwing up tonight we'll know for sure. They're going to keep sticking us with needles for the next three weeks, just to make sure. Which will be hilarious to watch Rowan go through because she doesn't want them. She had this really funny knee jerk reaction."

"Yeah and what's that?"

"She slapped the last three nurses who poked her with a needle," he said and Steve laughed.

"It's not funny, it's an actually subconscious reaction," she called out from where she was sitting digging through her freshly decontaminated goodie bag and Steve smiled at her.

"Have Joe hold your hand, baby," he called back and then turned back to Joe and pinned him with a bit of a glare and he just nodded and winked to Steve, signalling that he'd do it.

"Well, your sacrifice has been worth it."

"Why? What did you find out?"

"Carson's endgame, it was D.C.," Steve told him and Joe swore while he took that in. "He co-opted a local company, they have agricultural clearance to ship their honeybees across the country. His financials tied him to a new terror group out of the Middle East. DHS got them at Dulles airport waiting for the bees to arrive. We saved a lot of lives, Joe."

"What did you do? We're the ones who crashed the truck with the deadly bees in them. I'm the one who got the info off an app you don't even want me to have!" Rowan called.

And Steve turned his eyes heavenward as he groaned inwardly. "Rowan… what did I say about helping me…"

"You will ask me for help, if you want it," she repeated dryly in a sort of mocking tone. It was a mantra he made her repeat but she never remembered.

Steve shook his head but noted that Joe was smiling almost fondly at her. "We both know you won't ask for help," he said to him and Steve just shook his head. "Tell you the truth, when I was on that pier, I wasn't thinking about all the lives at stake, I was thinking about you."

"Me?" Steve echoed.

"Yeah. You're the closest thing I ever had to a son, Steve, and there's nothing I wouldn't do to protect you," he said. Steve just stood there taking that in, not sure what to say. There was a resounding cry of awwwww and then Rowan had Joe wrapped up in a hug.

"You are just like my Steven, hard crunchy exterior, but warm and gooey on the inside. You are a half-baked cookie, my friend," she said to him and Joe just stood there letting her hug him.

"And, while I'm admitting things, I was also thinking that if I survived and your girl didn't, I wouldn't have to worry about Wo Fat, I'd have to worry about you killing me. But most of all I didn't wanna let you down again."

"You never let me down, Joe. You just kept a whole lot of stuff from me."

"Well, that stops now. I have news of your mother."

"Oh yeah?"

"I heard from my contacts that Doris was supposed to check in with her handlers 36 hours ago but she never did."

"What happened?"

"They don't know. It can only mean one of two things, either, she's dead, or she went off the grid, and knowing your mother if she doesn't want to be found she won't be."

Steve thought about this and then turned to Rowan. He didn't even have to ask her, she saw his face, saw the worry lining it and said: "She's fine babe. She's gone underground again. I promise."

"How long does it take to find her again?"

"Uhm… we're in season five… the rescue in Morocco is… season seven, I think? So I'd say somewhere round two years, maybe less. But she wasn't supposed to stop in this summer, either, but she did it anyway, so maybe she'll do a little pop by or something," she said.

"Season five… Steve what is she…"

"It's a long story," he said cutting him off. "Is uh… is that all you got on my mother?" When Joe nodded Steve added: "Well… sounds like someone tipped her off that we were looking for her."

And then he just stared at Joe with an expectant glare until Rowan whispered: "I think he thinks that you were the one who tipped her off."

"Yeah I got that," he stage whispered back. "Is she right, son? You think it was me?" Steve just shrugged and Joe sighed. "After all these years, you don't trust me?"

"Well… I mean… you knew the whole time that his mom was Shelbourne and didn't say anything to Steve… or John…"

"Rowan… with the helping," Steve muttered and Rowan frowned but stormed away from him. Great now she was mad at him. He then turned back to Joe no longer impressed. "She's right. You've been playing both sides of the fence, Joe. Can you blame me?"

"No, no I don't. But I promise you, when I get out of here, you and I are going to go find Doris together."

"Rowan?" Steve asked. "A little help here?"

Rowan turned to him. Blinked her eyes and said: "Oh you want my help now?" he only had to growl out her name and she sighed again. "Fine. Not that I remember, but you know how everything's been going lately."

"My psychic… who is never wrong… doesn't believe you," Steve said dryly despite knowing how ineffective her dreams had been as of late.

"Oh that's not fair," Rowan said. "I've been getting my dreams late, maybe that one's a late one."

They both ignored her. Joe merely held Steve's gaze as he said: "I'm not going anywhere. Trust me."

Well, considering everything, he would just have to take it for now. "Okay."

"Let me hear you say it."

"I trust you, Joe," he answered automatically.

"Oh… that works?" Rowan cried running back up to the window. "Steve. I'm your girlfriend, right? Let me hear you say it!"

But Steve just smiled patronizingly at her. "I'll see you tomorrow, Ro," he called as he walked away already hearing her groaning following him.

Steve left because he had to. He was storming away for effect mostly, but also because he knew, if Rowan asked him to, he'd break her out of quarantine, or break himself into it and then who would take care of Nahele?

He got outside to the Camaro quicker than he expected. He had a nagging feeling that he was forgetting something but he chalked that up to not having Rowan with him and quickly got into the car. He shut the car door and then turned to Danny who had waited in the car for him with a very specific task. "We online?" he asked.

Danny handed him the tablet where he saw the hacked feed of the quarantine room that Joe and Rowan were in.

"You have any problems?" he asked.

Danny shook his head. "Nope. Well that's not true. Our hack wouldn't work," he said when Steve turned to him surprised, he added: "But Sandy got me in, ain't that right Sandy?"

That is correct, codename Jersey. Connection with Professional stable. Download to Tripler Army Medical center Databases complete. Fever detected. As this is a common symptom with most colds, and not just the N1H5 virus, an alert will not be sent to the Master until further symptoms are detected. Also, as requested by Jersey, the MOV file Professional Slapping Nurse has been filed away as hilarious and has been emailed to your personal email address.

Danny smiled up at him with a big grin but Steve was just glaring at him horrified. "You linked Sandy up to this?"

"She got me in in five seconds flat."

That is quite flattering… codename Jersey… but the actual hack took thirty-four point six seven seconds for me to complete.

Steve sighed. Goddamn if Rowan found out about this, she'd kill him. There was a bit of a silence and then Danny asked: "I thought you said you trusted him."

"I lied… of course I lied he's in there with Rowan," Steve snapped. "I want eyes on him and I want to make sure she's okay too."

But that wasn't the only reason for this. He wanted the video feed because Rowan had her phone and he wanted to see how often she was in contact with Wo Fat, if at all. Though he doubted she'd do it in front of Joe, and now with Sandy monitoring her, he was worried that Sandy would tell her that she was running surveillance on them. He'd have to worry about that when it came up though.

He put the car into gear and Danny put out a hand to stop him before he could drive away.

"Are you forgetting something?" Danny asked and Steve just stared at him.

"Uh…. No?" he answered, though he was starting to feel like he had. He then checked the back seat and found it empty and gasped. "Shit, Nahele," he cried jumping out of the car and running back to the hospital. Fuck. He'd get this. He'd get this. He'd have to, since Rowan was out of commission for three fucking weeks.