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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Happy Monday my wonderful readers and happy Early Valentine's Day. I know we've gotten to Valentine's Day early in the Five-0 world, but I promise the next two chapters are going to be really cute. The first one is going to focus mostly on the Five-0's and then he second one will be more about what Rowan is doing over in Colombia. I had to update two chapters. 238 was missing the ending, and in 241, for some reason, I forgot to take out the direction tag I wrote up so I knew what part I wanted to go where. So for those of you who were confused about why 238 ended where it ended, that's cause I didn't have the ending. It's there now. And 241 will read better now. Anyway, onto a happier note. We're almost there, guys! As of chapter 247 we are officially in the midway of the season, or at least the stuff I want to write for this season. I'm so excited, I can't wait to see what I've got in store! Don't forget to leave me a review and I'll see you guys on Wednesday!

Chapter 244

There had been no traction in the search for Wo Fat and Rowan. Colombia was a big and corrupt place, and despite Steve calling once weekly for update, neither Interpol, the FBI nor the Colombian authorities could tell him where Rowan and Wo Fat were. Though they could tell him that there was a turf war going on between Armando and some other drug dealer. A turf war they swore Wo Fat was spear heading.

They couldn't tell him if Rowan was involved with that, as Rowan had not been seen since she landed. There was chatter about the rival drug dealer either attempting or successfully managing to grab Rowan, but nothing had been confirmed.

Like that didn't worry him.

When he brought this concern to Danny, his friend had reminded him that this was just chatter. All they had was a pattern and that was, Wo Fat had a tendency to get really violent when Rowan was threatened and there had been several incidents where he had been more violent than before, coincidentally around the time the chatter hit. Danny spent an hour talking him down, to stop him from flying to Colombia to hack up the jungle and confirm she was okay. Wo Fat had gone down to Colombia fully swinging, he was going through waves of violence, it didn't necessarily mean that Rowan was in danger, and it wasn't like he'd let something happen to Rowan.

To distract himself for the crushing disappointment from the failure, Steve had continued to date other people. But mainly Lynn. The night previous to the current morning she and him had gone out. It had ended with sex, which was standard, he was in his nicest outfit he had turned on the charm, but it had been a hollow victory. Because that morning, when he woke up, it was Valentine's Day, and he didn't want to ring in Valentine's Day with someone else. He wanted Rowan.

So he woke up, already in a bad mood. Which was terrible because Lynn kept trying to work him up into some kind of frenzy, but it wasn't working. With each kiss she pressed to him, each movement of her hands, every time she pressed her body against his, he found himself counting the ways that she wasn't Rowan. Eventually she gave up and excused herself for the washroom, not bothering to put on a stitch of clothing leaving Steve in the bed.

Lynn and Steve had plans for Valentine's Day. So he was expecting everything to go well. There was nothing he could think of, short of Rowan coming back or him catching a case, that could derail his night.

Then Lynn came out of the bathroom.

Still Completely Naked.

"You mind if I borrow a shirt?" she asked, a knowing smirk on her face.

Steve couldn't help but appreciate the view with his own wolfish grin. Sure it wasn't the girl he wanted to see coming naked out of his washroom, but he was a guy and he could more than appreciate the naked beauty before him.

So he responded with: "What do you want a shirt for?" She shot him a playful smile while he continued to smirk at her. "Yes, you can borrow a shirt, second drawer down."

He watched her, the way her spine moved as she reached into the drawer for a shirt to pick and he was suddenly fraught with memories.

Of a red-head doing the same thing. Reaching for her favourite sweater to wrap herself into it. Steve had closed his eyes, against the pain of the memory, wishing them to go away, to not ruin this moment. And when he opened them he was shocked by what he found. Because Lynn was wearing a familiar grey sweater and was holding something in her hand, looking quite upset.

But that wasn't what had him frozen to his bed in shock.

"Steve what is this?" she asked showing him the ring box that had been for Catherine. He had forgotten that was in the drawer but what he was focusing on was the grey sweater she was wearing. Rowan's grey sweater.

Steve blanked almost immediately. "What are you wearing?"

"Steven… don't deflect…"

"No… is that… did you get that from…" he stuttered sitting up in bed. No, she couldn't be wearing that it wouldn't smell like her anymore! "Take it off!"

Already he was reaching for the hem of it ready to take it off of her before Rowan's smell disappeared like she did.

"Steven! I'm not interested in sleeping with you until you explain what this is!" she snapped pushing his hands away and then shoving the ring box into his face.

"That's an engagement ring I was going to give to Catherine but she left me before I could propose," Steve shouted at her, slapping the ring box out of her hand and away from his face. Poor Lynn looked horrified but Steven wasn't done. "But I don't give a shit about that. Just TAKE THE SWEATER OFF!"

He was standing now, the blankets falling from his bare form as he took a hold of the edge of it and practically ripped it off of her. Lynn stumbled back and away from him, completely naked again and not happy while Steve sat back the sweater shaking in his hands.

Lynn hurriedly went about trying to get her clothes back on going on a mile a minute about how she didn't realize that Steve had been that serious about Catherine and that she felt he had purposely hidden that from her. She said something about how she didn't want to be a rebound and Steve's head clearly wasn't in the game. And to be fair at that moment he was so far removed from the game, from even that conversation, that he hadn't heard a single word she had said.

He could only sit there as she argued at him, as he couldn't find the words to talk, looking at the sweater in his hands, knowing even before he tried that it probably wouldn't smell the same and being too afraid to actually find out if it was true. It wasn't until she left that Steve put the sweater to his nose.

It no longer smelt of Rowan.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Grover was having a great day. He was out in his natural habitat, out on the fairway of his favourite gold course. He was currently about to throttle Masaharu Morimoto, the famous Sushi Chef, all he had to do was sink this ball and the chef was never going to catch up to him.

He was surprised that they even managed to get an appointment to golf, usually they were booked on weekends. But he wasn't about to argue if it got him golfing, and if he won it would make his day just that little bit sweeter.

Morimoto on the other hand was very antsy today and Lou chalked that up to him not wanting to loose.

Grover had been trying to measure out his shot, trying to use some of that math Rowan had used for her hole in one magic but he was interrupted by the very impatient Chef. "You take any longer and they'll need to cut the grass!" he cried.

Lou rolled his eyes at him and went back to the shot he needed to make. "You got somewhere you gotta be?"

"It's the busiest night of the year, tonight."

"Yeah and why is that?"

Morimoto paused as if he didn't understand the question. "It's Valentine's Day!"

"What?" Grover asked, dread streaking through his system.

"It's Valentine's day," he repeated. "It's the busiest night."

Oh good god he had forgotten Valentine's Day.

"WHAT?!" he screamed, his putter hitting the ball in his panic sending it off kilter and missing the ball. Morimoto watched to roll away completely unconcerned.

"You can still save a par here," Morimoto said as if he wasn't phased at all by what he had said, and why would he be he didn't know he had dropped a bomb on Grover's life.

"Forget par, Chef, I forgot Valentine's day!" he cried and then paused and put a large smile on his face. "Listen, chef, I need a favor! You can use your influence and get a table for me and Renee tonight, right?"

He had the nerve to laugh at him. "No, impossible. We have been booked solid for months."

Goddamn useless his golfing buddy was. USELESS! Though he had a feeling it was more because the Chef had just about to be thoroughly beaten by him not moments prior to that request.

"I'm a dead man," he groaned and then ran for the golf cart.

"What about your par?"

"You win!" he shouted back. God he was in so much trouble. He rushed out of the golf club with a plan. There was a tux in the back of the family SUV that he could change into. It was his crushed navy blue tux from his disco days, but Renee had always liked him in it, so this would do.

He got to the convenience store and bought all that they had left. A heart shaped box of chocolates and the only flowers left, three fancy daisies, which he happened to know were flowers that Renee liked. Not her absolute favourite but she had bought them before. He changed into the suit in the convenience store washroom and while he did that he came up with a cover story he figured he could sell quite easily. It was just whether or not Renee believed him, whether or not she was too mad to see reason.

He had rushed home and then decided to ring the doorbell. When Renee opened the door she looked amazing. In this low cut stylized wine red dress and a low hanging gold necklace. She had definitely dressed up to drive the point home, to make him suffer.

He smiled in that debonair way that had always made her heart melt, but not today, which was not a good sign. She looked him up and down with a scoff before asking: "Can I help you?"

He was clearly in so much shit. So he tried to play it cool. "Hey, happy Valentine's day, Baby!" This won a dry mhmm from her. "Oh, okay. Okay, I see. You… you thought I forgot but you got played because I wanted to be able to get you a real genuine Valentine's Day surprise, baby!"

With a giant grin he showed her the measly gifts he had purchased not moments before and hoped if he talked them up, made them out to be more than they were that she wouldn't realize that he had forgotten and buy the story he was about to try and sell her.

"Oh!" she said sounding absolutely surprised. Damn this might actually work, but it might not, her tone was not that supportive "So you… you didn't forget?"

"Hell, no!"

"Oh," she said again in that same taunting tone. Uh-oh this wasn't going well. "Like you didn't forget my birthday last year?" Grover frowned. Why was she bringing that up again? "And you didn't forget our wedding anniversary the year before that?"

Grover frowned. "See why you gotta bring up old stuff?" but when she just huffed at him, he brought out the whine. Maybe he could annoy her into conceding. "Babe, come on now. Why can't you see this for what it is? Your man is home standing in front of his beautiful wife, offering you these flowers and these… these chocolates as a token of my love."

"Oh, oh, no, I see," she said with a smile and nod as she gestured to all of him. "You know, I see what this is."

"I knew you would." Yes! It was working!

"Oh, yeah. No. no. I see… I see a man…" "—Yes you do." "Who ran out, mm-hm," "I sure did." "And bought the last sorry bunch of gerbera daisies from the convenience story over on Durely street."

What was she surveilling him? Did she get one of those phantom messages from Ro, cause fucking hell gurl, she wasn't supposed to snitch on him like that. "How you know that?"

"You didn't even take the sticker off!" she snapped flicking the plastic that was around the flowers. "And I see the suit that I brought to the dry cleaners last week because I was going to donate it to the Salvation Army…" "—WHAT?" "And I see… oooh… I see a man still wearing his golf shoes."

He looked down. Aw damn it. He knew he forgot something. "Oh… oh yeah. Well, I taught you well. You really are a cop's wife," he said.

"And you, Louis Purnell Grover…" she said in that sultry tone that usually got him all hot and bothered but this time she was saying his full name it was worrying him. "You are in the dog house. Twenty-four hours, no parole."

Grover's mouth dropped in shock, he knew he wasn't going to be able to argue with her. She quickly snatched he gifts he had to offer out of her hands and then she slammed the door shut in his face. God, could this day get any worse?

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Chin had balled out to impress Abby this Valentine's Day. He had made a last minute reservation at Morimoto because Abby wanted to try the braised black cod and to top it off, to end their night they had a nice suit at the Kahala hotel to retire to. Which was where they were now.

He was in bed, he was ready to go, pouring the champagne, waiting for Abby to finish making herself beautiful in the bathroom. Not that she needed any time at all to do that, he thought she was beautiful no matter what, but she wanted to put in the extra effort and he didn't want to bother her so he let her do it.

He was waiting for her, almost on pins and needles, when she came out of the washroom, still in that orange lacy dress she had gone in. But it was the look on her face that had Chin nervous. He didn't know what had happened behind the closed door of that washroom but it had clearly upset her.

He put on his most comforting smile and tried for humour. "Well, that's not quite the entrance I was imagining."

Abby didn't return the smile, nor did she chuckle like he hoped she would. Instead she shook her head at him and whispered: "I… I can't."

She can't? She can't what? Chin straightened in the bed. "What do you mean? What's going on?"

"I'm sorry," she said as she lurched forward to grab her white jacket and the purse she had left by the foot of the bed. She made a mad dash for the floor while Chin made a mad dash to follow her..

"Wait a minute!" he called as he paused to wrap the blanket around him "Are you leav…. ABBY?!"

The door banged shut behind her, and Chin realized he didn't have to put on pants or boxers. He grabbed one of those small towels from the washroom, wrapped it around his waist best he could and then gave chase. Running out into the hallway calling her name and asking her to stop, hoping to catch her before she got to the elevator.

But it was too late. As the elevator doors shut she called out: "Look I made a mistake, I can't," as if that explained what had happened or why she had changed her mind and run out and then Chin was alone in the hallway… realizing that he had left the key to the hotel room in the room and he was in nothing but a towel.

Well… didn't that just fucking suck?

Chin had no choice, he had to go down to the front desk in nothing but a goddamn towel to get a new room key so he could get back into the room he was now going to be alone in. His plan was the get down there as quickly as possible, and hopefully there wouldn't be a line at the front desk. If there was he was hoping his state would get him up to the front so he could hide in that room and drink away the embarrassment and the confusion as to what the hell he had done to chase Abby out of the room.

He was definitely counting on not meeting anyone he knew, and, of course, at his lowest moment he bumped into someone he worked with.

"Lieutenant Kelly," someone asked as he dashed past the sitting area. Chin knew that voice, and he was not happy, but at least it wasn't someone from Five-0. Chin came to a stop.

"Duke?" he asked turning around. He plastered a fake smile on his face and attempted to pretend that he wasn't standing in a fancy hotel lobby in just a towel. "What's going on?"

Duke was sitting beside his wife. Both were dressed up and drinking champagne. They were staring at him in surprise, Duke was trying not to smile, his wife's eyes were wandering up and down Chin's abs.

Duke recovered a little more quickly than either Chin or his wife. "Do you remember my wife, Nalani."

"Yes, of course. It is lovely to see you again, Nalani," he said trying to act as casual as he could when wearing only a towel. There was a beat of awkward silence and then Chin said: "Well… uh… having a lovely evening."

He turned tail and practically sprinted his way. God he just wanted to curl up and die. His Five-0 friends were going to find out about this and NEVER let it go.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Danny, unlike everyone else, opted to wow his date at home, instead of to take her out. He had slaved over dinner, he had folded pink napkins into cute little bunnies. He had the fancy china out, candle light, champagne, roses, it was the epitome of romance and he couldn't wait for Melissa to see it.

When she got to his place, he was struck dumb by the skin tight white dress she had on. Damn his girl looked hot. Her blonde hair was smoothly straightened, her make up was shimmery but subtle. It was perfect. He lead her to the living room where all the romantic things were waiting for her. He was so proud of what he did that he could help it. he presented it all to her with a happy: "Huh?" which loosely translated to "look at all the stuff I did just for you cause I wanted to make you smile."

She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at it all with shock and absolutely happy awe on her face.

"You did this for me?" she asked.

"Yeah. Who else am I gonna do it for? Come on," he said

He helped her to her seat, being sure to pull out the chair for her and everything. They undid the bunnies together before he went to get the food plated.

"Danny these are so adorable," she cooed as she made hers hop around the plate before unfolding it.

He made sure she opened her gift, she loved the perfume, so you know, score a million for Danny. She tried it on immediately and then let him smell her neck. Which might have landed them straight in the bedroom had he not had food waiting to be eaten.

He did his best to plate the Risotto Alla Milanese as best he could, it wasn't perfect but she didn't care. She loved the home-made meal that he had made specially for her. Everything was going great, everything was wonderful and then they exchanged cards. Valentine's that were specifically purchased for one another. He got her a beautiful card, he had no idea it would cause a problem.

And it was something so stupid.

All because her card was signed with, love Melissa and his was signed just, from Danny. Which apparently translated to him not feeling the same way about her the same way as she did about him. Which was ridiculous. Danny just wanted all of this to go away, why couldn't they go back to before, when they were fine and having a good time?

"I need you to tell me that you want me to stay," Melissa ordered.

Well that was easy. "Okay, I want you to stay!"

But she didn't like his tone, but of course she was gonna get attitude they were arguing over something stupid.

"Not just tonight," she translated falsely with a scoff.

And this kept going. On and on. It was like it was never ending. Like she just wasn't gong to think reasonably.

Danny, propped up against a chair, sighed again. "Look, look, I… I… I care about you very, very much, okay? I… I love spending time with you. I don't understand what the problem is."

"You can't say it, can you?" she asked, her arms folded over her chest.

"I can say it," he told her. "People say it all the time. They say it a million times a day, and it doesn't mean anything. I say it, it means something."

She nodded like she understood. "Ah. Right. Okay, well, you've never said it to me."

"That is not true. Does that…? That's actually true? Is that true?"

Had he not? Really? He thought he had, he thought she knew. But then again, Steve had said the same thing about Rowan, when he was refusing to give her the label she wanted, and look how that had worked out for his best friend.

But, just like his best friend, he was too afraid to tell Melissa he loved her. So he immediately changed the topic. "Is this about Rachel?"

"No! This is about how much time you make for me! About whether or not I'm a priority!" she cried. Great it was the work conversation, also something Steve and Rowan argued about. How work was more important to him.

He didn't want to end up like Steve. Granted Melissa didn't have a criminal brother who could help her disappear but that didn't mean he wanted to break up with her over a card on Valentine's Day.

"You are a priority!" he said and then repeated it two more time so she got it. "You are! Okay?"

But she didn't get it. So, she shook her head and shouted: "You're not listening!"

"YES I AM!" he shouted back.

And from there it all down hill and, despite his shrink telling him never to do so, they went to bed angry, though luckily together even though he didn't get laid. God, who would have thought that it would be a card that got them in the end. In all his pessimistic wondering about the future ending with Melissa, at no point did he think a Valentine's Day card was going to be what did them in.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve and Lynn crashed into his house, attached by the mouth. The good-night kiss clearly about to turn into something else.

To make up for his freak out about Rowan's sweater he had pulled out all the stops. A private room at Morimoto's. He had amped up the romance, and they had had a lovely evening. Thus leading him to this very moment, where the two of them were making out and trying to navigate his living room.

She got him to the couch, straddled him for a bit, before she decided to make up for that morning's argument.

She put on the song: "Nothing but the Hat" and gave him a bit of a strip tease, or at least, the beginning part.

She only got to take off her jacket and one shoe. She kicked the first one at him which he caught easily but the second one, yeah, that one wasn't so easy to catch.

Instead, Steve got a 4 to 5 inch heel to the face, knocking stars into his eyes and turning his world fuzzy and black. Steve groaned, Lynn yelped, she rushed to his side to help him. She kept apologizing over and over again, and Steve kept saying it was fine. Except it wasn't cause he couldn't see out of one eye and it hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

Then she was trying to help him. Trying to pry his hand away from his face so she could see the damage. He wanted her off him, he wanted her to just stop for a second so he could get a hold of himself again.

He blamed the shoe to the head. Because instead of asking Lynn to just let him be for a minute he said: "For fuck sake just stop it, Rowan!"

Silence hit the living room. He heard her name and his heart fractured. He knew what was coming next.

"Who's Rowan?"

God. Steve didn't want to have this conversation. He just didn't. "She's… she's just…" he started and then she sighed. "She's someone I used to work with alright?"

It wasn't a full lie. She did used to help him with cases, all of the time. So you know. But Lynn didn't like being called Ro, she sure as hell didn't like being called Rowan. So she huffed away to get him ice, but Steve knew the night was already ruined.

Yeah, he wasn't getting laid tonight, he was going to get some ice and go straight to fucking bed.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Rowan woke up to find herself already on the floor of her washroom. Wonderful, cause she was about to vomit.

She lurched over to the toilet, expelled all the hateful poison in her stomach and then watch the swirling vortex take the entirely green vomit away from her.

Great. Just great.

What did she do last night? She went to a bar. She went to get drunk and she must have succeeded in her quest to do so, because she didn't remember a fucking thing past getting there. She knew she had started out drinking tequila, which was not her drink of choice but she was drinking away a broken, lonely heart last night. But she clearly didn't stop at tequila because she had severe memory loss and green vomit coming out of hr.

"CON!" she shouted on the top of her lungs and somewhere in her room there was a thump. Good. She hoped he fell right off her bed. The idiot.

"What?" came at her from the door. "What are you screaming about so early in the morning?"

Rowan turned a dark glare to him. "My puke is green!" she cried accusingly. "It's green and I can't remember last night!"

Conejo blinked his bleary eyes at her and then his face settled into a glare. "For fuck sake, Rowan. How the hell is that my problem!"

"Did you give me Absinthe again?"

"No. You demanded it Rowan," he snapped. Rowan groaned at him and threw herself back to the floor. "Don't you get all dramatic with me. You demanded I give you something to make you forget and then, when I wasn't looking, you climbed up onto the bar, started a bar wide chant and chugged the bottle down. Honestly I'm surprised your quest to forget didn't fucking kill you."

Yeah. So was she.

"Forget what?!" she cried even though she knew the answer.

Conejo didn't have to tell her but he must have been highly annoyed because he quickly snapped: "Steven fucking McGarrett."

Of course. Of course. Her first Valentine's Day without him. Her first Valentine's Day mourning his presence. She didn't want to be single. She didn't want to be away from him. She just wanted him back. Was that so much to ask for?

"Did you drink with me?" she asked. When he nodded, she scowled and tsked at him. "Oh my god, and you're not even hung over. You disgust me!"

"It's not my fault I can hold my liquor better than you," he said with a shrug. When Rowan glared at him a smirk donned his face. "Would you like some breakfast? I'm thinking extra greasy bacon and eggs fried up in the left over bacon grease…"

At the mention of greasy food her stomach churned and protested. Rowan groaned again and lurched up and scrambled to the toilet.

"Alright, I'll leave you to it," he said as he moved away from the doorway. He paused and even hunched over the toilet she could feel his smirk on her. "Oh and by the way, I think we slept together last night."

Rowan groaned once more. A brief flash of what had happened last night flashed through her mind. A frenzied stripping, hands where they shouldn't be, tongues dueling, her attempting to climb someone like a tree.

Kay, well out of everyone in the compound at least she ended up sleeping with the one person she was most comfortable with. She didn't even want to know how it would have gone if the person waking up in her room with her was one of the guards, or worse JC.

"I hope you had a happy Valentine's Day!" he called as he left her room. The bang of the door echoing behind him.

Worst. Valentine's Day ever. But at least she didn't remember it. She could just pretend it didn't happen.