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AvalonreeseFanFics

A/N: Happy Saturday my wonderful readers. I'm sorry this post is late. Also, warning! This ends on a cliff hanger! So in this chapter, Rowan's gonna meet her father and Steve's gonna have a little accident. I know! Another exciting chapter. Please leave a review so I know you're still interested and I'll see you guys on Monday!

Chapter 249

Odell was treading on eggshells and he knew it. He hadn't seen Steve in a while, man had let his hair grow wild. None of this high and tight stuff, dude was straight up shaggy. The break up with Rowan and everything that came after had done some damage and he took it out on his hair. But Odell was there now and he had managed to tame the wild mane and get it back to that high and tight do that McGarrett liked so much.

And to keep himself from asking stupid questions about Rowan, he was babbling about anything and everything else.

"Dates all the way back to Ancient Egypt," he said. He knew he sounded like a shmuck. He knew it, McGarrett knew it, and he just couldn't bring himself to stop. "Barbers would make house calls to families of nobility."

"Come on," McGarrett groaned clearly not believing him.

"I'm serious! They found hieroglyphics in the pyramids showing pharaohs getting their hair cut!"

"Okay. And you're carrying the legacy for all barbers?" Steve asked.

"Exactly. Why go out when your hair maintenance man can come to you?" Odell shot back. "Truthfully, the whole thing has been liberating, since I let Dobrian take over the store I'm saving a fortune on rent, electricity, water."

"Yeah, right. Low overhead, right? That must be good for profits."

Yeah and the kickback he took to let Dobrian take over in the first place had helped too, but Odell had gone through that already. "Well, actually, I'm still just barely getting by, go figure. But, uh, I'm not complaining. Catching waves, cutting hair. What else does a man need?"

"You said it pal."

Odell finished up the final touches, brushed away the stray hairs and then grabbed the mirror to present his masterpiece. "Alright, let's take a look."

He held up the mirror for Steve to appraise the work and then waited for the praise. Steve rewarded him with a whistle of appreciation for what he saw. Well at least Rowan hadn't knocked the self-appreciation out of him.

"Buddy," he said appreciatively. "Thank you. It's perfect."

"That's what I wanna hear. Anything else I can do for you?" he asked, slowly putting the mirror away and trying to not appear too cocky.

"Yes. I didn't just call you down here for a haircut. I need a favour."

He had said that with those baby blue eyes of his staring straight down into Odell's soul. But Odell was not weak, that move might have worked on Rowan but it wasn't going to work on him.

"That's my cue to say goodbye."

Steve was absolutely flabbergasted. "Where are you going? You haven't even heard that it is yet!" he complained as Odell snapped the smock up off of McGarrett.

"Yeah, last time I did you a favour, I opened my shop early, I spent the rest of my day dodging bullets and now an Armenian gangster owns my shop. So if you don't mind, I'd like to leave now with my cash for services rendered and a generous tip."

McGarrett had stood for Odell's speech. He had turned to watch as Odell put everything back into his worn and faded messenger bag. He did not seem impressed, but Odell didn't care. But he still adverted his gaze away from McGarrett's disappointed glare.

"And I will see you again when things get unruly upstairs."

His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket. The same text from the same scammer had been coming in every morning round this time. Said the same thing: Blind as a bat. Nothing else. He figured it was a truncated message and it was probably something to do with eye care that he couldn't afford and didn't need.

"Odell, if I had another choice, I wouldn't ask, but I don't," Steve said. Great with the guilt trip. No amount of guilt was gonna change his mind. "My friend needs a lawyer. Right now, you're my only option."

"Well as you can see," he said gesturing with the scissors in his hand. "I am not a lawyer."

"Yeah, but you were a lawyer," Steve said. Goddamn it he had looked him up. Him and that stupid super computer. You know, word on the street was that he was using that computer to track Rowan all the time and that was part of the reason she left. He wasn't stupid enough to say that to Steven though. "You passed the bar when you first moved to the island. Which means technically, you can still practice."

McGarrett must have been some kind of desperate. Wasn't going to change Odell's mind though.

"That was ten years ago, man," he said with a chuckle. "I only took the bar because I needed a loan to open up my shop, and my father wouldn't give me the money unless I did." And then Steve just stared at him, with this wounded puppy dog look and Odell kinda got why Rowan just caved to this man's unrealistic demands all the time. "Just out of curiosity, what's your friend being accused of? What is it, DUI, B&E?"

Steve didn't look like he wanted to admit it but he eventually said: "Murder."

Wow. Just… wow. "I'm really not interested."

Steve's patience was running thing, Odell could tell. "Look, he's innocent. The public defender, he's ready to throw in the towel. They guy, he wants stop take a plea bargain."

"Well then, don't take the deal. Get a better lawyer," Odell said with a shrug.

"We can't. We tried. No one wants to touch this," Steve complained.

"Well, if everybody's saying it's a losing horse, then, uh, maybe you better step away from the window."

"Odell, this guy's a Five-0 asset. If he says he didn't do it then we believe him. Unfortunately we're part of the minority."

Well damn, that was big. Someone from Five-0 was getting pinched? But none of the main people, otherwise he would know. Damn, McGarrett couldn't handle losing more people, Odell knew that.

"He's been in front of this judge before. This guy… he has it in for him," Steven told him, well that wasn't good either, now was it? "He's accelerated the trial."

Mmmm, red flag right there. "Yeah, to when?"

Steve made that face, the same one he made when he didn't want tell him what crime their guy had committed. But he did finally say: "Monday."

Odell scoffed. "That's three days from now."

The guy was fucking crazy. He was absolutely crazy. Steven seemed to realize that too. "I know its three days from now."

Odell couldn't keep it in anymore. "Who the hell is this guy?"

And that was how he ended up in the basement of the Five-0 building in an interrogation room with a man who looked to have a dead animal on his freaking head.

"Oh sorry, dis room's taken," the man said. "You're going to have to interrogate this haloe somewhere else."

Odell turned accusing eyes onto Steven as if Steven were responsible for this guy's behaviour. Steven ignored him though. "Sang Min, this is Odell Martin… your new lawyer."

Sang Min turned a surprised look onto Odell as he appraised him with almost narrowed eyes. He did not seem impressed. "Seriously, McGarrett?" he then pointed at Odell. "Dis is the best you can do? What happened? Pizza delivery guy not available?"

"Hey, Big-Trouble-In-Little-China," Odell snapped. "You want my help ease up on the digs."

"Yeah," Sang Min said though he seemed far from pleased. "You must be some hell of a lawyer. What are you goin' all out for casual Friday?"

And now he was talking about Odell's clothes. God this guy… he just wanted to punch him. And if his own lawyer wanted to punch him, what was the jury going to think?

"Are you sure you don't want this guy locked up for life? Because I do."

Steve looked exasperated but he tried to smile at Odell as he said: "He grows on you. I promise."

"I bet he does, like a bad fungus."

And then Odell remembered that Steven had once called Rowan a mold. The exact words were: She grows on you… like mold.

This could not be a coincidence.

"Fine, if this is going to happen, first thing I'm gonna need to do is cut whatever that that is growing off his head."

It was so sudden, but just mentioning a haircut sent this guy flying at Odell, he was up and out of his seat before Odell had even registered that he was moving.

"You touch my hair, and I'll be going to jail for your murder!"

Steven immediately had his arms between them, holding them apart. He did not look pleased but he still said: "This is going to work out great. I can feel it."

The man was touched in the head. Both of them. McGarrett the most.

Odell was already moving towards the door. "Uh-uh. No. Absolutely no way am I representing that cartoon character," he snapped as he got himself out. "Good luck."

Then he paused. "You didn't pay me for the haircut!"

Steve nodded and shockingly went for his walled. "Maybe your old man was right about you."

And just like that Odell was twice as fired up. He stalked towards McGarrett. "Hey do me a favour. Don't ever bring up my old man, alright?"

"My bad, sensitive subject, I get that," Steve said and Odell scowled because he doubt he did. He made a big show of counting the money in his wallet as he continued with the very obvious guilt trip. "Must have been tough on him too, though. Putting all his hopes and dreams into his son who would one day follow in his footsteps and, you know, reside over the family practice."

Odell stared him down, he was more interested in the bills in Steven McGarrett's hand. "I know what you're doing?"

"Is it working?"

Well at least the man could admit it when he's caught. "It's annoying."

Steven sighed once more. "Odell, I know it doesn't seem like it, but that man in there is innocent of this crime and I need you."

That was one hell of a guilt trip. Goddamn. "I'm trying to free myself from the binds of responsibility and you wanna put a man's life in my hands?" he asked hoping to hit McGarrett with his own guilt trip.

"But if you say no to me, an innocent man goes to prison," McGarrett reminded him blinking his big blue eyes.

There had been a rumor on the street that Rowan was the queen of guilt trips. They said she'd blink her big blue eyes at Wo Fat, remind him he shot her and bam, she got her way. This was clearly something she passed on to McGarrett. And he was using it without mercy.

And Odell caved.

Together they went back into the room where Sang Min was sitting precariously perched on the top of the chair like some acrobat. What the hell was he sitting like that for?

"Oh, let me guess, you couldn't find de elevator. Must be a bitch getting' old," Sang Min said and Steve finally had enough.

"Would you shut up, please? He's taking the case."

But Sang Min wasn't having it. "I like my plan better."

"Your plan has no credibility. No one knows where she is," Steven snapped. But Sang Min shook her head.

"I know you guys got Sanctuary back. Message went out loud and clear when dat app took down Waincroft. So I don't see why I can't use it call X-men. I get that you two ended tings but I feel like if we give her a call she'd be more dan generous wit helpin' me," Sang Min said.

"Who the hell is X-men?"

But Steve ignored him and turned a glare onto Sang Min. "I already told you, the app is one way. She's tracking the others, we can't track her. There's no way for us to contact her through it we tried."

It sounded like they were talking about Rowan. But… they couldn't be. He would have heard if her and her app had reappeared again. And from his understanding the Waincroft this was residual from his part in Rowan's torture.

"Then I say I give one of em call…"

Steve jumped on that immediately. "Are you telling me that you know how to get a hold of Rowan?" he asked and Sang Min paused.

"Well uh… no… but I know I can get a hold of Fat… at least I tink I can. To be honest, since all that shit went down in Colombia, no one's seen him."

Odell turned to Steven. "X-men is Rowan? What happened to Rowan?"

"Rowan's fine," Steve said thought he looked far from believing it.

"There are conflicting accounts of what went down. Some say da other guys got it. Some say X-men got involved and tings got spicy. All we know is dat a lot of bodies dropped dat day and Wo Fat and X-men are missing…"

"She's fine, I know she's fine," Steve snapped clearly needing to be off this topic. "Look you want to try and call him you go ahead but we both know he's not going to help you, and if he does it's not going to look good. We want you a free man not a fugitive. Now he's agreed to take the case, that's one step in the right direction."

Sang Min sucked his teeth as he thought about it. "And what if I decide I don't want him?"

"You go to prison for the rest of your life," Steven snapped. "Or hey, at least until Wo Fat and Rowan come to break you out."

It took all of two seconds for Sang Min to respond. "Okay, he can represent me."

Wow how gracious of him. "Well your gratitude is appreciated," he shot back drily. Steve beamed happily at the two of them while Odell just shook his head. God what had he gotten himself into? "Okay, great. We only got three days to prepare so we can't afford to waste anymore time."

"Okay, Perry Mason. Not. But I draw the line at cutting my hair," he said. Great another dig. Damn Odell might help them put this guy away. "It took me almost a year to grow it back after skippin' out of Halawa."

HE DID WHAT?!

Odell immediately turned to Steven. "Can I talk to you for a second?" Steve nodded and followed him the few feet away to where the door was. It wasn't much privacy but it was enough for Odell given the circumstances. "You do know that a defendant who escaped from prison is probably gonna be someone that a jury finds had to trust, you know?"

"Yep."

Well at least he knew right? "that kind of destroys his credibility a bit."

"Yes," Steve said patronizingly. "That's why it's important that you make sure it doesn't get brought up in court."

"Only way for that to happen is to keep him off the stand."

Well that seemed to strike a nerve because his whole forehead furrowed at the comment. "Okay, well can you do me a favour and tell him that, please?"

Odell sighed, turning back to Sang Min. He had a feeling that Sang Min and McGarrett had been arguing about this, but he might as well try. "Uhm… look, if you don't testify the jury will only hear facts pertaining to this case. As far as a court of law is concerned, any crime you committed in the past has no relevance."

Sang Min immediately shook his hand and his hands at that suggestion. "Oh, no, no, no, I have to testify."

"No you don't," both him and McGarrett cried together.

"Yes I do!" Sang Min argued.

"No you don't!" they said together again. But it was Steven who added: "Okay? You get on that stand and they're going to attack your character. Everything you've ever done, ever done, is admissible, okay? And it's a long, long list!"

Sang Min shook his head and for a second he got real serious. "I didn't shoot dat guy but dere are no witnesses who can back up my story. The jury has to hear the truth from me."

Steve turned to Odell as if he was going to be able to fix this. Instead he said: "Hey, it ain't my life on the line. You want on the stand, have at it. But don't say I didn't wan you, okay?" Sang Min nodded. "Okay, have we got that cleared up?" Both Sang Min and McGarrett nodded that time. "Okay, let's start at the beginning. Tell me exactly what happened. Step by step."

As Sang Min walked him through the house of horrors that was this situation Odell realized something. This was mostly definitely a set up. But there were no witnesses to corroborate, the murder weapon was found, freshly fired, in Sang Min's hands, and Five-0 couldn't find the guy who was working with their murdered human trafficker. All they had was the word of a man who spent half of his life in jail and the other half being pursued by the cops.

Piece of cake… right?

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Trenton finished up his lecture on the expansion of the universe and dismissed the large auditorium of students who were all mostly failing his class. It wasn't that the tests or assignments were hard, it was more a commentary on how lazy and useless the upcoming generation was. If it wasn't spoon-fed to them they didn't get it. They were all about bare minimum effort and staring at their phones, so this was not the class for them. He also, every semester got a few girls who thought this was all about horoscopes. They usually dropped the class quite quickly.

So he wasn't surprised when one of the girly-girls approached him after class. She had two boys… well… she had two men with her. Both varying degrees of dangerous. She had one who looked like a biker and another in a nice suit as if he were about to go to court.

The girl herself, looked nice enough. She had chin-length dark brown hair, she was wearing a nice blouse and a pair of tall, already salt stained, black boots. But it was her eyes. It was her eyes that took his breath away. Because they were Piercing Pierce blue.

"Hello, Uhm… Dr. Pierce?" she asked.

"I don't do extra credit," he said stiffly. He wasn't going to change his mind, and her two goons weren't going to convince him otherwise.

The girl blinked those big blue eyes at him and then frowned. "No… yeah, no I know that, but uh… I'm not actually in this class… not even a student actually…"

Then why was she here? "Whatever it is you're selling I'm not interested."

"No…" she said quickly but he cut her off. Heading towards the exit of the lecture hall so he could get back to his office. She followed after him and he found that to be quite annoying.

"And I'm not interested in helping you write a thesis, no matter how much it pertains to my work. Nor can you use me as a reference, or reference any new work I might be working on at this time."

They got out onto the quad. The girl practically running to keep up with him. "Wait a second, that's not…"

"I'm not taking on anymore interns either!"

"JUST STOP!" she cried and he finally came to the halt. He turned back to look at her. She seemed frantic, like she might start crying. He wasn't certain what it was he did to upset her but he didn't like the look of that at all. "Please, I need you to help you. You're the only one who can."

Trenton narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Look, you specialize in travelling, right? The theories about travelling from one universe to another… right?"

"Yes," he answered carefully.

"Okay, well… I need help travelling. Travelling back to my universe."

And then she stood there, obviously attempting to gauge his reaction. She nibbled her lips lightly as if that would make her seem more innocent. Except her was onto her now.

He laughed harshly causing her to frown. "Very funny," he said. "Did Wayne Lee put you up to this?"

He turned to head into the building that held his lab. He could go there but he had been terribly uninspired since the failure of the Hawaii experiment. Something the grant people had been very upset about. So he turned towards his office, wanting to lock the door between him and this crazy girl who seemed hell-bent to reminding him about his dead daughter who may or may not be here and being kept away from him by a deranged special tactics unit leader.

"We both know that Wayne Lee doesn't not have the imagination to think of something like this," she said as she trailed after him. The fact that she knew Wayne Lee enough to make such an accurate statement was enough to tell him who this girl really was.

"Well you can tell him that this was a sick joke and I'm going to get him back," he said. "Have a nice day, now if you don't mind…"

And then he slammed the door in her face. He quickly locked the door before she could try to open it and then with a heavy sigh he headed towards his desk. He wanted to call his son. But bringing up the Rowan in Hawaii only made Trevor more obsessed with the possibility of that being the Rowan he attempted to pull in all those years ago. Yes she looked like them, but her DNA didn't match them. That meant she wasn't their Rowan. Simple as that.

Also Trevor had been unreachable as of late. It occurred to him to be concerned but Trevor was a grown man and was allowed to have spans of time where he wouldn't contact his father. Though if he didn't hear from him soon Trenton might bite the bullet and call Rosie… just to see if Trevor was okay… not because he missed his ex-wife or anything stupid like that.

He had been staring at the phone when it happened. Most of the testing equipment he had brought to Hawaii was still packed in its cases, he hadn't brought himself to unpack them. And it was the boson reader that was crazy.

Trenton watched it read out a major spike in boson energy and then the door to his office slammed opened.

"Okay, listen here, buddy. I didn't fly all the way down here for nothing… so you're going to…"

"How did you do that?" he asked cutting her off. The girl blinked her eyes.

"Do what?"

Trenton stood up. He looked from the reader which was no longer reacting to the girl who looked very confused. "I locked the door, how did you get it open?"

"Oh… uhm… I picked the lock."

She was lying. He could tell instantly. He wasn't sure how, but there was something shifty in her eyes as she lowered them, the way her lips twitched back and forth.

"No, you didn't," he said and she blanked. Being called out so quickly after the lie had clearly startled her. "You did something… the boson reader registered an event. What did you do?"

"A… what reader?"

"Boson reader, the particles that create the different strings of the universe," he explained but the girl just looked confused. She glanced back to the door where her two friends were standing and staring at them taking in the interaction with concern and confusion on their faces. "This reader picks up the energy created with the strings are plucked…"

The girl went back to the door, took the doorknob in her hand and said: "Like this?"

The reader in his hand suddenly went haywire, he swore he heard the sound of a static shock and then out of nowhere the lock engaged on the door, the bar swinging out.

Trenton looked from the reader in his hand, which, now that the lock was engaged, had gone silent then back to the girl who had dropped her hold on the doorknob and was now staring at him.

"Look. This is crazy. I know this is crazy. But I had something kinda… crazy happen to me, and now I've got all these side effects that I'm having trouble dealing with," she said and then glanced at the door. "That trick is the smallest more normal one in my bag. I need help either getting back to the right… string… or at least being able to control what's going on with me. Can you help me or not?"

She was right. It was crazy. But the reader in his hand had sensed some sort of event involving the string matter that he believed created all the universes and connected theirs to all the others. It was crazy, but he believed.

He looked back at her, this girl who would be able to prove all of his theories right. He grinned widely at her and said: "Well… I can certainly try."

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

All Steve had to do was find the guy, Graham Clark, and prove that he killed the guy. But Graham Clark had gone and disappeared. That meant Odell had to take Sang Min into that court. Odell wasn't ready for this. He wasn't ready to turn exactly into his father, the worst thing he could possibly be in his eyes.

The text messages had doubled. He was getting them once in the morning, once at lunch and once at night. They all said the same thing, Blind as a bat. In fact, he got one just before the went into court. On top of that, while Steve gave him a wonderful pep talk, confessed his own drama with his father, slightly, he noticed that the man was rubbing his chest. Small twinges he said, nothing big, stuff that happened sometimes. Odell figured it was something to do the stress of his job and high blood pressure.

Either way Steve had convinced Odell to go in and then he was struggling to keep his composure and win this case. The first half of it was just the prosecuting lawyer pulling up all the witnesses and making Sang Min look unreliable. And it was working.

The problem came when it got to be Steven's. Steven was forced to admit that he had never given Sang Min a wire and that meant that Sang Min was out of his sight. It was then that Steven started to… have trouble.

Steve went to get up, and then faltered. A hand going to his chest. The prosecutor paused.

"Commander, are you okay?"

Steve half nodded. He forced himself up, practically pulling himself up out of the chair. He thought he was okay, he thought he was fine , just like the other twinges he had gotten that morning, this would go away. But suddenly it fired up again even worse than before and he knew exactly what was happening to him.

It was a void twinge. Rowan was using her powers.

Steve stumbled to a stop and couldn't stop himself from crying out. His chest… it felt like he was on fire. His heart felt like it was in a vice grip and nothing would let go. He collapsed back against the witness stand as Odell got up and came towards him. The twinges weren't this long before, they were twinges this, this was a full out attack. The twinge let go and Steve caught his breathe. He looked up to his friends who were all on their feet and calling his name, staring at him as if wondering if he was going to be okay.

"Sorry… got a little dizzy there," Steve murmured as if that would make this better, but he knew, all the of them were concerned and there was no getting away from the questions after this.

He regained his composure, got back up and was immediately stopped once more. The twinge started up again. Firing up in his chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs again.

But that wasn't where the pain stopped. There was a secondary pulse, and the pain in his chest managed to tighten and Steve dropped to his knees. He had never felt a void twinge this strong, this painful. She was either in some terrible, terrible danger or she was really trying to leave.

Steve closed his eyes to the pain.

He knew what it was. She was trying to travel. That's all this could be. She was literally forcing the void open to go home. He could just let her go, he knew it. He could almost envision it, all the strings coiled around her. All he had to do was let go of her. But he couldn't. He didn't want Rowan to leave. He selfishly wanted her to come back to Hawaii he just couldn't bring himself to give up on her. His friends were scrambling towards him. He could hear them coming for him, someone had his hand on his back, Odell maybe. Steve didn't know, he was lost to the world, lost to the pain.

He didn't realized when he had started shouting, one primal urgent cry of "NO!". He only knew when the pain in his chest came to a violent sudden stop and then all knew was darkness.