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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Hey guys! So this, is, it. This is the episode that ends in the CUTEST relationship change, EVER. I don't think you understand how excited I am to get to this set of chapters. I worked really hard to make these cute and funny so I hope you enjoy them! Don't forget to tell me what you think and I'll see you guys on Friday!

P.S. Alexlover, as funny as that suggestion was, I think that might be a bit too much even for me. But I'll think of something.

Chapter 174

Fuck Steve hated the Therapist. He hated it. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hated it. But here he was, mandated back to this place with Danny, being forced to get all touchy feely with a man he didn't want to get all touchy and feely with… with a man he was already too touchy feely with.

But if he didn't try they'd both get taken off Five-0 so… he kind of had no choice but to sit there and deal with it.

"Daniel, sometimes I feel that you could be a little overly sensitive," Steve told him.

He waited for fireworks, but Danny took a deep breath, sighed out all his frustration, nodded along like he understood and then asked: "Okay. Why is it that you feel that way?"

The rat bastard playing nice for their shrink. Bullshit. That asshole… he wouldn't… if there were anyone else Steve would have been hit with so much fucking sass. Now, instead of the argument he thought he was going to get, Steve was expected to come up with another answer.

"I don't know," he muttered. "I guess it's the way you are. I mean, you'll take the most benign comment and you'll take it as a personal insult. It's extremely annoying."

Danny made the face, the face he made before every argument and turned back to Dr. Carlin who immediately said: "Positive language, Commander."

Steve paused, sighed himself and then said: "Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. When you do that, it's the opposite of pleasing to me. Is that okay?"

Clearly not, judging by the face that both she and Danny were making.

"Okay, I think that the reason that you, uh, think that I am so sensitive is because I'm an actual person. I mean, I have feelings. I'm not an animal, I'm not a killing-machine robot."

"Active listening, Detective Williams," Dr. Carlin chided and Steve smiled, finally she was on his side. "Don't deflect."

"This… this is stupid. I'm sorry, but can we move on? I don't…" he said pulling out his phone and checking it again just in case Nahele had an emergency at that school sleep away thing he was on or Rowan needed him at work or something.

"Gentleman, when I conducted your psychological audit back in September, you agreed to check in with me and share your progress," she reminded them. "And Frankly, I'm not seeing any. Which makes me wonder if you guys should be coming here more regularly."

Steve was immediately sitting up. "Okay, now wait a second. I didn't mean to give you that impression."

"In fact, Commander McGarrett, I'm most worried about you. Since our last visit in September you seemed to have become more closed off and aggressive than before… and from my understanding, with the new addition to your family you should be happy…"

Danny turned to him, a shit eating grin on his face. "Go on, Steven. Why don't you tell Dr. Carlin why you're so… agitated?"

"Shut up, Danny," Steve growled.

"This is a safe space Commander…"

"Not with him in it, it's not," Steve snapped but Danny was already talking.

"Along with his inability to speak about his emotions, he has an inability to commit."

Dr. Carlin straightened and repositioned herself. "I don't see how that can be true, taking on a foster child…"

"Yeah he lied. The Foster Child is Rowan's legally, kid just lives in his house. Legally, on paper, Steve's got nothing to do with that kid, but that's not what I meant," Danny said causing Steve to scowl. Just because it was true didn't mean he had to tell her all of that. "No, what I meant, is Rowan asked for that label again and when he said no she started withholding sex. They have been aggressively arguing… with everyone… not just each other for… uh… how long has it been Steven?"

Steve stayed quiet and when he didn't answer Dr. Carlin prodded him. "Detective Williams asked you a question."

"About two weeks," he grumbled.

"It's been ten days," Danny clarified "Ten days. Ten days and he's acting like…"

"She is purposely goading me and you know it. You've seen her parading around in her short skirts, and that thing she does with her eyes. And the low cut shirts and the singing, she knows I can't resist her in a short skirt and she's been wearing nothing but short skirts for ten days!" Steve snapped.

"And you haven't been walking around shirtless for ten days?"

"She happens to like my chest," Steve growled. "She'll cave… I know she will… she can't keep this up forever…"

It was true, he knew that she wouldn't be able to hold out much longer, because Steve couldn't hold out much longer. They had been trying to goad one another into caving. Rowan was doing things he knew turned him on and vice versa, but most of the time he was just so goddamn desperate for her that everything she did was attractive, everything set him off. He was panting for her constantly, he hadn't jerked off this much since he was fourteen and he had learned what that was and how good it felt. Though nothing compare to her on top of him, him inside her, and he was slowly going crazy without it. The only reprieve was that she had been picking fights with him to keep him on the couch and out of their bed. But it was often that he ended up back in that bed, holding her, cause he couldn't sleep if she wasn't with him. It was hard to wake up beside her, holding her, wanting her, and not being able to do anything about it.

"It seems like the lack of physical intimacy is causing a lot of problems for you Commander. Is it possible the relationship you have with Rowan is based mainly on… that?"

Steve glowered at her. Yes, he was starting to believe that the only thing keeping them together was sex and that the only reason they hadn't broken up yet now that it was gone was because of Nahele. And because she knew Steve was an absolute disaster when it came to her leaving.

"Yes that is a problem," Danny answered for him. "But I think we should focus on his commitment issues."

Steve didn't like this anymore. He didn't want to talk about what he was afraid of. He wanted to get a text from Nahele or Rowan, telling him to come now, preferably Rowan cause what he needed at that moment was a hug.

"Do you think you have commitment issues, Commander?"

"No," he growled. "I just… I don't think… I don't think I'm… ready…"

"You've been dating the girl for ten months. You've been practically obsessed with her for three years. How are you not ready?"

"Will you stop it, stop it Danny!" Steve thundered. "You know why, you know. I've told you. Stop it."

"You told me like a year ago when we were under a collapsed building and the two of you were doing that unofficial thing and you were half dating Catherine to spite her. You've been official with her for ten months, she has every right to be impatient with you."

"You see," Steve said pointing at Danny and glaring at Dr. Carlin. "You see what he's doing? He does this, they do this, and they purposely side with one another to get at me. Purposely! He doesn't even like me and Rowan together, he keeps betting on when we're going to break up."

"Now wait a second, I didn't say that… You're right, I'm betting that you'll break up but that's cause you guys are so volatile it's bound to happen. But everyone thinks that when it comes to Rowan you're a bit crazy and I'd be much more actively attempting to break you two but I happen to know that you're crazier when you're apart, and her leaving the island isn't a possibility…"

"Leaving the... leaving the island?! What the hell have you and Rowan been talking about? What the hell are you telling my girlfriend, Danny?"

"GENTLEMEN!" Dr. Carlin near shouted to get their attention.

"Who's the sensitive one now?" Danny asked her but she pinned him with a glare and he let it go.

"It is very clear that a lot of your issues seem to stem for a lack of communications… and apparently your relationship with Rowan…"

"No, it doesn't," Steve growled

"Can we get back to the control issue thing?" Danny asked

"As much as I'd like to continue this, we're out of time, gentleman. We will have to get to that next time," she said.

"Whoa, next time? What next time?" Steve asked. "Aw come on, please, don't make me come back here."

"What, me, him, us?" Danny asked instead.

"Both of you, for this moment, though if I don't see some improvement I may want to see you by yourself Commander," she said and Steve's scowl deepened. God. He was going to kill Rowan. "And I'm giving you both something to take with you."

She offered Danny the book first and the smile he got on his face was not a good one. "That gentlemen, is your homework." She said and Danny showed him the cover. The Perfect Partner's Workbook. Fucking shoot him now. "Since you saw fit to waste almost the entire hour attacking each other and complaining about your girlfriend, Commander…"

"Oh no, she's not his girlfriend," Danny said just as Steve snapped: "She's not my girlfriend…"

"Okay well whatever she is. Either way, now you're going to do a little conflict counseling on your own time and I expect that to be completed by our next session," she ordered and Steve rolled his eyes. God. He was too old for homework.

"And for you Commander McGarrett. On top of the workbook, I want you to do some soul searching. I want you to look deep inside of yourself and find out why you're so afraid to put a label on someone you are clearly have such strong feelings for."

Steve turned a glare to Danny noting that he was smiling like he won the greatest prize. Could this day get any worse? Could it?

Yeah, he shouldn't have opened that up to the universe. Because the call he got right after that internal question told him it could, in fact, get worse.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Rowan was not having a good day. She sat in the ambulance shaking. Her hands were coated in blood but she was done her vomiting over that. Now she only wanted one thing, but her phone was in an active crime scene, or at least in her locker at the back so she couldn't go in to get it.

But Lou had told her that Steve had been notified and was on the way. She just needed him to get there faster. Instead she sat in the back of an ambulance, hunched into an emergency blanket, ignoring Grover's questions, asking if she were better now. She'd be better when Steve got there.

"Lou!" she heard his voice carry over the din. "Lou where…"

But he must have spotted her cause he trailed off. Rowan caught a glimpse of him vaulting over decorative flower bushes to get to the ambulance. Rowan was crying before he got to her, her arms opening to him because she needed him to hold her and tell her that everything was okay. His hands had snatched her up within seconds, pressing her to his chest as he held her tightly.

"Are you okay?" he kept whispering to her but Rowan could only cry into him, listening to his heart beat running wild in his chest, as he tried to soothe her sobbing.

"She's suffered no external injuries except from the nasty bruise she got from the gunman, she's just in some major shock. We tried to take her from the scene to calm her down but she's been waiting for you," the EMT told him and beside him Grover nodded stoically to prove that it was true.

"Okay, thank you," he whispered, before carefully prying her away from him. He looked down at her face and seemingly winced at it. Alright so it wasn't a good look on her.

"He pistol whipped me when I wouldn't move fast enough," she whispered and Steve growled. He pressed the softest of kisses to her forming bruise and then carefully looked her over.

"Did you get a good look at him?"

"Not today. He was… uh… wearing a mask today," she whispered.

"You've been dreaming about this?" he whispered. "You're supposed to tell me about this stuff, Ro…"

The guilt rushed back at her and Rowan bit it back. "Yeah well I forgot, okay? I've been distracted. You won't stop wearing blue and taking your shirt off and you're constantly swimming and running and… and… we're not really talking… so I just…"

"Okay, okay, let's calm down here," he whispered.

"Mike… he died, Steve," she whispered. "He died in my arms and I couldn't fix the strings to keep him alive and it's… it's my fault… he came in hot to save me…"

The tears of shame leaked hot against her skin and Steve crushed her to his chest. "Fix the strings?" he echoed but Rowan couldn't answer him again because she was crying again, so he changed the topic. "This is not your fault. Okay? Okay Rowan. This is not your fault."

But it was. She just couldn't tell Steve why it was her fault. She didn't want him to know what she had done, what she had let happen.

"Steve!" Danny called and Steve half turned but his grip on her didn't loosen.

"Please don't go, please Steve," she whispered. She knew they weren't okay at that moment, she knew that they were still arguing and she was still so mad at him for not caving by now and giving her that label but she needed him to put all of that side and stay with her.

She felt him stiffen, but he didn't move to push her away. He was clearly dithering. "Babe, I've got… I've got a case…"

"Just please, just a few more minutes… please? I just need…"

"Oh you need me huh? What about that label? Do you need me more than you need that label?" he asked and Rowan froze. She pushed her head out of his chest to glare at him and his cocky smile faded.

"Really? Really Steven we're going to do that right now?" she asked.

"No, I'm sorry…"

Rowan pushed him away. "No. Forget it Steven. Just… just go to your case…" "—Rowan…" "… No, you obviously don't want to be here, so just go. I'm fine now, just… just go."

She turned away from him so she wouldn't have to watch him leave but he surprised her. "When's Nahele back from that sleep away biology thing he's at?"

"I've told you this a million times Steve, he'll be back by the end of the week."

"Right. Well, I'll be home before it gets dark, okay. You're still shaking and I know how you are about being alone, okay?" he said.

Though Rowan was mad at him she couldn't help but turn her watery eyes to him and whisper: "You promise?"

"Yeah, promise," he said swooping in and kissing her forehead. "I'm going to send you to the Palace with Chin or Kono to get your statement, and maybe pair you up with a sketch artist, you can do all that in my office, would that make you feel better?"

Rowan nodded. He took her face in his hands to look at her, his blue eyes searching her as if for any sign of injury other than his eyes found that bruise again.

"Hey. Hey. I'm really glad you're okay," he whispered and she smiled at him.

"STEVEN!" Danny near hollered and Steve growled.

"I am COMING!" he shouted back at Danny before turning away. Rowan hunched herself into the blanket and tried to stop herself from shaking. From remembering what it felt like to have someone's blood leaking through her fingers as she tried to keep them alive. For knowing that if she had just done this right… Mike would still be alive.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

They had found one of their thieves. The partner. The girlfriend. They knew she had tried to double cross her boyfriend and it failed. This was good because before they found one of their thieves, they found out that Rowan had keys to the shop, the code to the safe, knew about the new shipment of diamonds, and had come in early to help despite not being asked or schedule to do so. Steve had told them to look into Rowan's financials to prove that she didn't have a financial motive for robing the store but with the discovery of Emma Mills, Rowan was off the hook. And then they had also found the perfect place for their stake out that just added a little bit of icing on top of his cake. Their perfect stake out place was a little unit across the street owned by a little old Agnes who was obsessed with cats. Steve had shoved the landlord out while Danny had gotten the equipment into the apartment. Once the door was shut Danny looked around at all the little old-lady stuff and with a grimace on his face.

"Uh it smells in here. It's like loneliness and despair," Danny said as he sniffed the air.

"That's mothballs," Steve told him. Yeah, he didn't need it defined. "Hopefully, Anders will show up soon and we can call it a day, huh?"

But Danny wasn't listening to him he was looking at the collection of little glass cats, sitting just below a ridiculously large painting of a white cat named Mr. Pickles. "Guess who's the queen of QVC?" Danny asked snorting at his own joke. He looked up at the painting again and then down to the center piece of the all the cats, a white one with jewelled blue eyes. "Oh, I get it. I got a match."

Out of nowhere a white cat jumped out of the shadows. Danny yelped, dropped the figurine he had in his hands, going for his gun to possibly shoot whatever it was. The figurine smashed into a million pieces and it just turned out to be a cat, the Mr. Pickles from the picture clearly. Great. Steve was definitely not going to let him let that go.

"Hey, hey, hey! What are you…? "Steve asked jumping just like his friend did to watch the cat run away. "What is the matter with you?"

"The matter with me?" Danny echoed. "That thing jumped out of nowhere. I got scared. What do you want?"

"What do I want you to do? Maybe react like a grown man. How about that? It's a cat."

"Let me explain something that you do not know," Danny snapped. "I don't…" he started and then realized he was gesturing to himself with his gun. He quickly put it away. "I don't like cats."

"Well I love cats," Steve announced.

Danny sighed and rolled his eyes. "Of course you love cats."

"Yeah, I love cats. Who doesn't love cats, Rowan loves cats. Why? Cause they're awesome!" Steve said. "They're like adorable ninjas. They're smart and they're fast and they're cute and cuddly at the same time! Can you help me with this?"

Danny nodded immediately crossing the small space to help him move a table covered in more glass and crystal cat out of the way without question. Mainly cause he was still on the whole cat thing.

"Okay. Just so you know, cats are disloyal, all right? They would eat their owners if they could. They'd turn on them and kill them."

"Yeah, they would. And you wanna know why? They never lost their predatory instinct," he said. Once they were done he added: "And let's move the couch too." As they moved for the couch, Steve kept talking. "For instance, a dog. You take a dog. Take, like, a domesticated canine, you put it in the wild. Twenty-four hours, that thing's dead. Okay, but a cat, they never forgot how to hunt and kill."

"Well I guess that's why you two get along, then," Danny said as the pivoted the couch to their desired position. When Steve just stared him he elaborated. "That's why you like cats."

Steve got it. The whole killer instinct thing that Danny was getting at but just nodded and half smiled determined to not laugh at Danny's joke. "Yeah, that's funny. That's good," Steve said and then stood there for a minute.

"Oh, we got a problem," Danny said moving towards the window where they could see their perp clearly getting changed and spending a lot of time undressed in just her bra and panties. "I mean what do we do? What is the protocol here, I mean… we watch…"

Any normal red-blooded male would have been all for watching a beautiful girl disrobe, she wasn't getting completely naked, she was just stripping down to her bra and panties. And whoa what a view, he wouldn't mind putting up with the cat and the smell of loneliness and depression if he got to stare at that all day. It really sucked that she was a criminal and sooner or later they would have to bust her.

"Eh," Steve said turning away even before the girl pulled the curtains closed. Wow. He hadn't even been interested the man really did only have eyes for Rowan. With the show properly hidden Danny turned back to find Steve standing there, hand on his hips staring at the couch like it held all the answers.

"What's the matter with you?" Danny asked.

Steve turned, took stock of everything they had and then turned back to Danny a look of confusion on his face. "I feel… I feel like I'm forgetting something."

"What? We got the view, we got the couch moved so we can see the view, and we got all the gear, what could we be forgetting?"

Steve blinked his eyes. "I don't know. Uh… I'm sure it'll come to me."

And with that the two hunkered down for their stakeout.