Rewrite
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Happy Monday my wonderful readers! I'm sorry this was late. I've been having some issues recently with getting the chapters finished. This one I'm technically still writing, the sucker was 15 pages long, so I've decided to split it. Firstly so it's not too long and secondly so I'd have something to give you guys today! Pray I get this epic Christmas chapter done so we can move onto what I bet will be one of my more funnier chapters. (Hint Hint it includes Steve and Danny at a certain… retreat). As always don't forget to review and I'll see you guys on Wednesday.
Chapter 235
Now that Conejo was back in Colombia, Rowan was finally comfortable with leaving the compound. This meant they had gone shopping every day for three days in a row. Christmas shopping, Conejo had said. Which translated to Christmas present shopping and, of course, that meant he was going to have to pick up a present for her. Wo Fat was just happy she wasn't crying over her guitar anymore. But it did open the door to him having to worry about shopping he'd have to do for himself, especially since Conejo had hinted that he had been Christmas present shopping too, and that he may or may not have picked up one for Wo Fat when he got his own gift for Rowan.
But Christmas shopping was going to have to be put to the side. Diego had retaliated to Wo Fat's last hit. He had attached a car bomb to the Audi Wo Fat had rented, granted it went off while Wo Fat was out to pick up the gift he had purchased for Rowan, but it could have easily gone off while Rowan was around it, it could have gone off while he was in the car… or worse… Rowan. Then one of Armando's warehouses got hit, and he lost a good chunk of merchandise that was supposed to go to the Feds.
That meant Wo Fat was going to have to find it before it was due and the Feds moved on to using Diego as their government funded drug runner. That meant leaving Rowan alone again.
When that became clear that that was going to have to be the plan, Wo Fat left Armando to prepare supplies as he went looking for Rowan. Who once again was not in her room in the early morning hours. Since no one had told him that she was going to be up pre-9am, he had no idea where she was and had a slight panic attack when he couldn't find her or Conejo for that matter. One text to her bodyguard got him a location though.
She was in the kitchen.
Wo Fat came down to what had to be a warzone for a baker. She had a bowl beside her and she was furiously rolling out a section of dough, while there was more waiting for her in the bowl. Flour was in the air, and all over her, there were stacks of boxes beside her and all three ovens in this commercial sized kitchen were running and she had several sheets of cookies already just cooling there and what seemed to be two different types of icing, regular spreadable kind and powdered.
He watched her briefly, noting the smudges of flour all over her and her clothes, despite the apron. He hadn't seen such furious baking since Rowan's sleep over in Hawaii when Matty was still around. He didn't really want to go through that again, not when what started that an argument with Steven. He'd rather have her crying over her guitar over this.
"What are you doing?" he asked coming to stand beside her, looking over all the Christmas themed cookie cutters she had beside her.
"Making Piparkoogid," she told him absently.
"What the hell is that? A kind of explosive? You agreed no more homemade explosives Ro."
"Estonian Gingerbread cookies," Con said from where he was sitting at the table, glass of milk in hand, cookie in the other. "They're horrible."
"Stop eating them then," she snapped.
"They taste like paint thinner and bad decisions."
"You're the one who gave me wrong kind of molasses!"
Wo Fat put a hand out to Rowan to stop them from arguing any further. "Damn, Rowan why are you making these?"
"Family tradition," she answered absently. "I made the dough two days ago, let it cure in the fridge. Today is baking day. I used the wrong kind of molasses though. Well it was the only kind we had, I should have added honey to make them sweeter."
She turned away from him to go to the stove where she pulled out a sheet of light brown cookies. He watched her take them off the sheet with a spatula so they could cool off. The cooling rack was already full which meant she was struggling to find room for them.
"Did you want to try one?" she asked him.
Wo Fat shook his head. "You know I hate sweet things," he reminded her.
Rowan turned and shoved a piping hot cookie in his mouth. "These are super bitter," she said. "They're usually pretty bitter, not gonna lie, but never this bad."
Wo Fat ate his cookie with a smile. "Huh, actually not that bad. I hope you made a lot of them cause I'm probably gonna…" at the sound of Sin Nombre clearing his throat he turned and saw that the table was covered in boxes.
"At this rate she's going to have enough for the whole village," he growled.
"Fucking why?" Wo Fat groaned because he know cooking that many meant delivering all of them.
"I unno the recipe always makes a lot of cookies, it's just how it is," she replied.
"And she doubled it," Conejo told him. "To hand out to her new friends."
"New friends?"
"She's made friends with the city's pick pockets. She's got them running a little monopoly on them. Has them running errands for her, shops and tourists. They get paid in tips and don't have to pick pocket. I'm assuming that most of these will be for them."
That was a lot of information coming at him. She made friends with multiple child pickpockets? Why would she do that? That meant the kingpin of that outfit was going to be livid. Just another thing for Wo Fat to be worried about.
"No one's gonna like these, Ro," he said. "They're not sweet enough."
"Again… stop eating them if you don't like them that much, Con!" she cried. She turned around as he reached for yet another cookie. "Seriously stop it, don't make me come over there with the spoon."
Sin Nombre frowned at her and then turned his outraged eyes onto Wo Fat. "Can you please tell her not to hit me with cooking utensils?" he snapped.
Wo Fat had no intention of doing that so he just stood there glaring at Sin Nombre. It was Rowan who said: "Stop being annoying then."
"I am an international assassin, I will do what I want."
"I'm Rowan Pierce, and I do what I want too, so keep your damn mitts off my cookies or suffer the wrath of my wooden spoon."
Wo Fat tried to cover his snort with the last bite of his cookie. Rowan Pierce surely was a force to be reckoned with. Lord knows he had issues with her. It was great to see Sin Nombre having the same sort of problems that he had. Wo Fat went for another and Rowan pointed a cookie cutter into his face. "That goes for you. You get one more and that's it."
"Thanks Ro," he said softly biting the head off the reindeer, and ignore the groan of frustration from Sin Nombre.
"Can we trade places please?" he cried.
"Nope, just came down to see how you guys are doing. Armando and I are gonna be… out of town for a few days."
Rowan stopped pressing the snowflake into the dough and turned to him with a pout on her face. "But Christmas is in three days. You can't miss Christmas."
Wo Fat smiled patiently at her, reaching up to pinch her chin in that loving way. "I'll be back for Christmas."
"You better be or I'll never forgive you," she warned. Heavy words from his favourite little imouto.
"Can I come?" Sin Nombre asked and Wo Fat pinned him with a dry look. The man sighed and slipped lower in his chair. "I never get to do anything fun."
"If you shut up I'll let you lick the bowl."
"The dough tastes as bad as the cookies."
"I mean the bowl for the icing, you twit."
"Oh! Down then!"
Wo Fat watched her hand a bowl over to him. "Here, take that, I need to make a new batch anyway," she said. While she wasn't looking Wo Fat snatched up three more cookies to put in his pocket, and then two more for the road.
"You two keep me posted," he said as he took a hold of Rowan and pulled her into a tight hug. "Both of you. On everything, big and small."
Rowan held him back, no doubt covering him in flour, but he didn't care. From his place at the table Conejo just nodded, too busy using one of Rowan's cookies as a spoon to get the most amount of icing into his face.
"Okay, and be safe okay?"
"Rowan, the most amount of damage that man has sustained since coming to Colombia was when you blew him up with a flash bang," Kong reminded her. Immediately Rowan whirled around, disengaging the hug with Wo Fat so quickly that for a second he thought she teleported. But that wasn't what had him laughing.
No what had him laughing was that as she whirled around onto Conejo she had thrown her cookie cutter at him. The metal snowflake hit Conejo between the eyes with such force that it took him out of his chair. Conejo groaned from where he was on the floor while Wo Fat wheezed he was laughing so hard. He knew it was going to start an argument, but he didn't care.
Wo Fat had never seen that before and he couldn't wait to tell everyone that would listen that he just watched Sin Nombre get taken down by a cookie cutter. No one was going to believe him
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Conejo had been so mad about the cookie cutter to the forehead that he refused to talk to her for a full twenty-four hours. He literally just stood there, glaring at her, the whole time. Just because he was angry at her and wasn't going to talk to her, it didn't mean that he wasn't going to do his job.
But it was annoying, because Rowan wanted someone to talk to, and he refused to respond to her. It was a fitting punishment, as one glare from him got everyone else she could talk to skittering away from her. So she went on babbling to him for hours as he was the only one there and no one else would talk to her. She had apologized over and over but he hadn't accepted it until the morning after.
And it was only a half acceptance. He was still mad. She knew that. But at least he was talking to her, even if it was in clipped gruff responses. She had managed to convince him to go shopping, mainly by saying that she was going and he could either come with her, or send JC.
He had come, stating that JC was off with Armando and Wo Fat, and he didn't trust anyone else but him with her safety. That may have been true but it made her believe that maybe he was closer to fully forgiving her than he was letting on.
When she got to the square she was immediately bombarded with children, all of them rushing forward to chirrup happy hellos and to ask which one of them she wanted to help her that day.
"Maria, Juan and Lupita," she said. "I haven't used you three in a while, so you'll be mine for the day, everyone else fan out and find a tourist to help, don't forget to smile politely. Don't badger anyone, if they say no, thank them for their time and walk away. If they have questions send them to me."
The three children she called stayed with her and the others scattered. Once they were gone the smallest girl, Lupita, who was coincidentally her favourite asked: "Is it true you made cookies for Christmas."
"Yes I did but…"
"Enough for everyone?"
"Yes enough for everyone, but they're not as sweet as I wanted them to be…" Lupita seemed to not be listening, at the mention of everyone getting cookies her smile had grown, revealing that she had lost that wiggly tooth after all.
"Ohh, did someone get a visit from the tooth fairy?" she asked.
"Yes! I got a whole five pesos!"
She should have. Rowan had given her parents money specifically for the tooth fairy. It was her fault for mentioning it when Lupita's family was too poor to be able to afford to pretend a tooth fairy existed.
"How wonderful!" Rowan intoned pulling her own money out. "And what did you spend it on."
"Something special," Lupita answered. "For your gi…."
The other two kids standing with her shushed her loudly and Rowan straightened. They were getting her a Christmas gift, she knew it. Damn she didn't want them to spend their hard earned money on her.
"Okay…" she said softly. "You know I don't need anything right? You can save your money for things that you guys want."
All the children nodded but Rowan had feeling that none of them were listening.
"Okay, fine, topic change. Maria, get me the best snow cone in the place and an ice cold beverage for me and grumpy gills over there, you know what flavours I like," she said handing her the money. She then turned to Juan. "Juan, three sweet things, I wanna try new things today, so surprise me." Once Juan had his money she turned to Lupita. "And from you I want three salty things. No fish and no onions!"
Lupita nodded and ran off and then that left Rowan to go into the shops to top herself up on Christmas wrapping paper, tissue paper for the bag and more Christmas cards. She also needed more cardboard boxes to put the cookies in.
As she walked, every now and then a tourist would come up and ask if she actually knew and recommended the child offering their services to them. Rowan would smile and nod, show off the items the kids had already got for her and be sure to tell them how wonderful each and every child was. Most of the tourists would take them up on their offer, some would turn it down. Sometimes Rowan would have to explain better how it worked. That they would give them the money, they'd bring back three things, and they could choose what they wanted to keep. The rest of the money stayed with the kid. If they didn't like anything, kid gave them their money back. Simple.
The kids had all loved this new job. They had quit their pickpocketing and were thinking of setting up a stall. They had asked Rowan for help but Rowan wasn't going to be staying. She could set it up, she told them, but sooner or later she'd have to leave, and then they'd be on their own. They needed someone who knew the area and knew them, someone Rowan could train while she was still there. But so far they couldn't give her anyone who fit that bill.
Maria came back with her snow cone, and an Aguapanela which was just what Rowan needed. She also sent her off with the order to get her and Conejo a Chocolate Santafereño for the incoming treats.
Juan eventually came back with Cocada in a flavour she had never tried before, special Christmas churros, the filling was caramel and coconut, and Brevas en dulce, which were just candied figs. Those were put aside for dessert.
Conejo and Rowan sat themselves down at a table in the middle of the square and waited for Lupita to come back. Conejo was still ignoring Rowan, both opting to play on their phones instead of conversing.
When she did come back she had two street corn, two tamales and two Arepa de huevo. The two chowed down on their lunches, and eventually ate their desserts.
When they were done, they headed back to the car to be taken back to their Cartagena house, and neither of them noticed that someone was watching them. Calculating their routine so they'd be ready for the next time they come back to the square.