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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Hello my wonderful readers! I'm sorry this update is late. I started work again and I was exhausted and passed out when I got home. Well, As Daydreamer987 has requested today is the start of our Marathon! We're going to have 8 updates in the row ending on next Monday and then we'll go back to the regular schedule updates. Don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you guys tomorrow.

Chapter 304

Steve went after this vigilante serial killer like a man unhinged. He chased down every lead personally all while arguing with Danny who kept trying to bench him and was threatening to tell Rowan he was over exerting himself. If only Danny knew how Steve had popped his stitches to begin with, he'd be lecturing Rowan who should have known better than to pull out that move when she knew what it did to him.

During their search they actual found something of interest. See, the bodies of the serial killers were all left with a little souvenir in their mouths. Little pieces of ivory, which turned out to be chess pieces from an 11th century chess board. A chessboard just like that one had gone missing a few years ago, with the same little pieces that they had been finding all made of walrus ivory. This chess board had gone missing after the owners of a house just up and vanished. Husband and wife, just gone, and a couple of things in their house had gone missing too. The case was still open and everything, no one had ever been able to find their couple's bodies.

There had been one suspect in the case, a man named Pierre Shaw. He had gone in for possession of stolen items and had just recently paroled. So that meant Steve and Danny were going to go look for him. They got to his apartment and Steve let Danny knock. They had called his Parole officer on the way out to see if they had a location on him, and they were pretty sure he was at home. So, they were expecting him to answer, even though he seemed to be taking forever.

"That's interesting, Steve," Danny said pointing up to where a camera was placed on the wall. That was weird but Shaw answered on the second knock.

"Sorry, I was on the phone. Can I, uh, help you guys?"

"Yeah, Five-0, Mr. Shaw. Just wondering if we could ask you a couple of questions."

"Now's not really a good time. I was just on my way out."

Danny stepped up to bat next. "Actually, it won't take long at all. A couple questions."

"I'm kind of in a rush. Maybe we can do this later?"

Why the hell was he acting so squirrely? "The conditions of your parole allow us to drop in whenever we want. We wanna drop in right now. Is that gonna be a problem?"

Though he didn't want to he shook his head and finally let them into the small apartment. "Anybody else here except you?"

"No, sir. Live alone. Look, I really don't know why you guys are here. I've been clean since I got out."

Steve and Danny exchanged glances. "Steven and Marissa Blake, a young couple went missing about eight years ago. You were a suspect in the case."

The man nodded and for some reason smiled, like the memory was fond or something. "Yeah, that's right. HPD accused me of ripping them off and making them disappear. But it was crap. And they never found no bodies or any of the stuff that went missing."

Danny pointed at him as he went for his phone. "Yeah, until now."

Steve nodded as Danny showed him the phone. "Yeah, one of the things that went missing was an ivory chess set and that right there is one of the pieces."

Shaw opened his mouth to say something but from a different room came pounding and a cry of: "Help me, I'm here!"

Okay that didn't sound good. Shaw immediately sprinted at his balcony, ran through the glass door and then hopped off. Danny went after the crying girl, while Steve went after Shaw. He was doing some Parkour move, where he was hopping from balcony to balcony going down. Well, if he thought that was going to lose Steve that easily he had another thing coming, if that kid could do it so could he.

So, he followed after him, jumping down flight after flight, only a few balconies behind Shaw. He missed one balcony and slipped a little but the kid had already jumped onto one of the roofs and was about to make it to the road. Steve managed to get down, he sent Chin after him one way and while he used a tree to get down to Shaw's level and chased him out into the street.

Then they were hopping over cars, jumping off of car roofs, with Steve only a few paces behind. Chin cut him off and the kid went down an ally way filled with machineries that Steve had to dodge. Chin almost caught him but he jumped up some narrow steps, and Steve had to follow. This led to another roof that the kid jumped off of and into a window. Steve just followed him.

They were on the roof now, the kid running towards another. He leapt into the air, heading down to the roof below, and Steve was following, but before the kid could land this big black portal opened up under his feet, swallowing him up and closing.

Steve had so much momentum he didn't even get a chance to slow down. He leapt after him, and as soon as he was in the air another portal opened up and he fell right into that one.

Steve landed feet first in the surf off of Waikiki and ended up completely submerged. He hit the sand and for a while he just floated there. He had a lot of emotions running through him at that point, but shocked panic seemed to be the chief emotion. He resurfaced got his bearing and then swam to shore. Once he got out, he checked his phone, waterlogged and dead. He tried to get a hold of Danny but his earpiece had also gone underwater so that wasn't working either.

At least he still had his badge.

He got to shore, found a girl taking a selfie and then commandeered her phone. He dialed Danny and hoped to god he wouldn't get a lecture.

It took a while for Danny to pick up. He didn't know if that was because he was busy or because he was calling from a number that Danny didn't recognize. But eventually he did and Steve interrupted his greeting to say: "Hey, it's me…"

"Where the hell did you go? I found a girl in an egg carton lined room, chained to the wall. She said she had been there for five days. Did you get him?"

That was a lot, but clearly this was the next killer that their vigilante was after.

"You're not going to believe this, but uh… I'm in Waikiki."

For a moment Danny paused. "How the hell did you run there that fast?"

"I didn't run. Look I can't explain this right now, but I lost the guy and it's not my fault. Can you please just come and get me?"

"Lost him? Well shit do you know where he's going?"

"No, but you're gonna take me to who would know."

"Yeah, and who's that?"

"Rowan, you're going to take me home."

He then hung up the phone, handed it back to the girl and then walked away. He had a feeling he knew what happened but he wasn't certain. All he knew was that he was angry. Very, very angry. And it was about time they had another talk about some of the things she might have brought back from her year with Wo Fat.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve explained everything that happened to Danny on the ride back to his house. He had described the portal in great detail and Danny confirmed that what Steve had fallen into sounded a lot like the thing that Rowan had opened up on a Street in Chinatown the day she destroyed an entire theater and the street it was on.

So, you know, he was more than 100% certain that what happened was Rowan's fault. What freaked him out was that at no point did he actually go into the void. He hit that portal and bam he was in the ocean. He literally had no idea what happened and it was nothing like what he was used to. He needed an explanation like… asap.

So when he got back to his house he was ready to argue with her, or fight, or whatever he had to do to get her to tell him what she had done and why. But when he got in the door, he found that she was standing there in the kitchen painting herbs and sauces all over a chicken, her hair braided back in a braid crown in that grey sweater he liked so much and that angry fire left him.

He wasn't angry anymore. He didn't want to argue with her. Hell, he'd even bet she had a good reason for dropping him in the middle of the ocean.

"Oh baby!" she cried when she noticed him. Smiling that smile that only belonged to him. "I wasn't expecting you so soon. I'd run at you but my hands are busy with dinner for when Nahele gets home."

She did still try to jump on him when he got home, because he did like that, but she was usually too busy being the perfect housewife to actually do it most of the time. Or he got home too late and she was already in bed. But when the time lined up, she'd run at him like back in those younger days. Getting to infrequently made it all the more sweet and special when the times lined up.

"That's alright," he said as he kicked off his shoes. He'd have to change before he left, he couldn't spend the rest of the day in wet clothes.

"Are you wet?"

"Yep."

"What? How did that happen? It's not raining is it? I'll have to pick 'Hele up if it is."

"Nope not raining." At that point he had made it into the kitchen and he still wasn't sure how he was going to approach this. She was acting like she had no idea what had happened, but she must have, right? Though, to be fair, her lying skills were on point since getting back. Another thing he could thank Wo Fat for.

"But uh… something happened Rowan. Something happened at work," he said coming towards hers. Rowan turned back to him abandoning dinner immediately and wiping her hands free of any grease or sauce before she went to him, concern written all over her features.

"Are you alright?"

"No, I'm fine," he whispered. She started first by putting a hand to where his incision was as if merely putting her fingertips to it would tell her if he was injured or not. She looked him all over, from his toes back up to his face before she wrapped her arms around his neck, it already soothed him to have her hands on him. "But I did jump off a building and end up in the ocean."

"You jumped off a building? Steven you're supposed to be on light duties! You promised…"

"Rowan, that's not the point," he interrupted. "Rowan, I jumped off a building and ended up in the ocean…"

"Well unless the building was on fire, I have no idea why you would do that…"

"No. Rowan. You're not listening. I jumped off a building that was nowhere near the ocean and ended up, not on the other building I was jumping to, but in the surf off of Waikiki."

Rowan blinked her eyes. "Well that's… odd…"

"Rowan, I went through some kind of portal." Her hold of him dropped and he frowned. He hadn't wanted her to let him go. She opened her mouth and Steve cut it off. "I happen to have several people who would swear on their moms and their children that you have the power to open portals. People who saw you do it in Chinatown…"

Rowan looked quite panicked. In fact, she actually took a step away from him. His hands immediately darted out and grabbed her to keep her from going far. When her eyes turned up to him he saw fear shining there. And he had a feeling he could guess why.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm not mad at you, I just want to know what happened and why."

Rowan blinked her eyes and actually took a few deep breaths like she was trying to calm herself down. When she looked back up to him that fear was still in her eyes and he actually regretted doing this because he hadn't ever wanted her to look at him and be afraid.

"If we talk about this now, we're going to argue. I don't want to argue."

"Okay. Okay. Can you just… tell me. Was that you? You popped open a portal and…"

"Nonsense I was at home."

"Rowan please…"

He understood why she was upset, why she would want to hide this from him. He never took any of her void tricks well before and this was one hell of a trick. He was trying really hard not to show her just how much this new little trick was worrying him. He knew she had portal abilities but he hadn't had a single bit of warning before that portal swallowed him up and spit him out on Waikiki beach. What was stopping her from just leaving, opening up a portal and taking her and Nahele. Was that the new contingency plan? And if she was stating that she hadn't left home, had she opened a portal across the island?

At this point he just wanted a straight answer.

"I want to tell you, but this stuff worries you, and I just… it's a lot of changes and we're struggling with the ones we have right now…"

Ah, so he was right. It was his past behaviour with the void that had her afraid. Alright, fine, that was fair. He hadn't shown her that he had changed, now was the time to show her that he had changed too while she was gone. Steve nodded, he didn't want her to be afraid, he wanted her to want to open up to him. And when she did he wanted to be supportive so she didn't have to be afraid of him anymore. She was right about one thing thought, was struggling with the smallest of changes to her, and this one might blow things wide open.

"Can I tell you when I think you're ready?"

It was a fair question. She obviously had the plan to tell him eventually just when things were probably a bit more cemented between them.

"Yes, you can, but… you have to tell me soon cause getting sucked up and spit out elsewhere kind of… it freaked me out Rowan."

"Yes, I promise. I just need time to word it." she said before stepping up on tippy toe to kiss him.

"Okay so… could I maybe ask for one thing?" she nodded and he said: "Could you maybe not use this little… trick of yours until you're ready to tell me about it? Cause you know how I am with getting answers…"

She jumped up and kissed him again and he found himself grinning. He was worried his request would upset her but it seemed to be quite the opposite.

"I supposed that's fair," she whispered to him and he swooped her up for another kiss. He never could get enough of her kisses. "Now, I'm sure you have a bad guy to interrogate?"

"No, he went into a different portal and I don't know where he is."

"Hmmm, are you sure?" she asked heading back to the stove. She shot him a coy glance over her shoulder. "I could have sworn he was at the Palace."

Steve took that as a hint, and sent Kono to look for him. Sure enough, Pierre Shaw was in one of their interrogation rooms. They were going to interrogate him, but he told them that he had fallen and his leg was probably broken. He hammed it up so much that Kono and Chin actually believed him. So they called the ambulance, and planned to follow it to the hospital to question him once he was taken care of. But then he pulled a Steve and took out his EMTs to escape the ambulance. When Steve had finished changing and making out with his girlfriend, he finally reached out to his team. He found out that they had managed to chase him down, and though they did lose him, they did have a location on him. He was hiding somewhere in the Pua Lei hotel.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Though Rowan was insistent that he stay, and then insistent that he not jump off of another building, Steve still left to meet his team. Steve met them just past the barricade outside of the hotel that they had locked down and had HPD combing through it.

Danny was on him immediately wanting to know why he was there and what Rowan had said.

"Okay, let's, let's explain this to me… someone… and Rowan hasn't confirmed it was her…" "—I'm pretty sure it was her, Danny." "…opened up a portal to catch you…"

"Yeah…"

"A portal you needed, because you, the idiot, jumped off a roof…"

"Okay, Danny, what is this about?"

"Are you out of your mind?"

Steve sighed and there it was. The argument they were going to have for the rest of time. "Danny, stop panicking. I'm fine!"

"You're fine? That's good. I'm gonna put that on your tombstone. He said he was fine. He was wrong," Danny cried. "Babe, the only reason you're fine is because your girlfriend, at least we're pretty sure it's your girlfriend because she wouldn't confirm or deny it was her this time, worked magic to catch your ass before you hurt yourself. What's the matter with you?"

Steve looked at Danny long and hard. "I love you," he blurted out.

Danny nodded. He hadn't been expecting it but he would accept it. "Okay. I love you too."

"Okay, then give me a break. Would you give me a break?"

"You want a break? Alright, I'll step aside, watch while you get yourself killed, is that what you want? What do you want me to tell Rowan? Sorry, I know you two just got back together, but Steve wanted to be a hero and now he's dead. Go move back in with Wo Fat, take the kid with you. Bye!"

Steve literally just got Rowan back from Wo Fat why the hell would Danny say any of that to him, was he trying to give him nightmares?

"Why do you have to go there?" Steve asked with a groan. "Seriously. I'm not trying to get myself killed."

"No? Are you sure? Because it's a… it's a relief because it seems like for the last five or six years, that's, that's been the goal."

"Again, I think you're being a little, uh, overdramatic."

"Okay," Danny said he put a hand to Steve's shoulder and pat it. "You know what? Forget about it. Good luck. You're an idiot. I'm done."

The others looked back forth. They hated it when Steve and Danny fought and they had been doing a lot of that recently and the arguments had steadfast gotten worse and worse. But Danny actually walked a way and Steve actually just went about putting his gear on as if an intervention from his portal wielding girlfriend wasn't a sign that maybe he was taking things a little bit too far.

"Wait, wait, wait, before you suit up, we have more than enough…" Grover started but Danny waved him off walking back to them so he could lecture Steve by lecturing someone else.

"Don't waste your breath cause he's determined to have my Nobel sacrifice be in vain," but Steve was basically just ignoring him. "Okay, you know what. if you need anybody else' organs, talk to Chin cause I'm done."

Steve had already walked away. He didn't get to see how Chin was so not down to give Steve any of his organs. Steve went to the control room to see what Duke had for him. The HPD units they had brought in had started going to rooms, but Duke let him know that they had heard from every Elevator except the service one which they had shut down between the eighteenth and nineteenth floor.

Well, that was probably where Shaw was. So, they all went after him, but he must have figured that they were coming because he got out of the elevator and up the shaft to the nineteenth floor. Steve was already in the stairwell giving chase. He was ahead of the whole team, hot on Shaw's heels. He chased the boy up onto the roof, then chased him across the roof.

Shaw was so desperate to get away that he went for one really big jump, he launched himself right out into the air. Steve went to follow but something stopped him. A niggling reminder that he was still injured and he didn't think Rowan would intervene twice in one day if he were to jump into thin air. That and he had just promised her he wouldn't jump off of another building today.

And it was a good thing too, because a portal did not open up for Shaw and he didn't make it to the other side. He hit the edge of the other building he had been aiming for, tried to grapple on but eventually fell to his death. And Steve could do nothing but watch.

There went his answers. He wouldn't be able to find out who this guy was working with, their vigilante would go free.

Danny congratulated him on making a good decision and Danny let him think that he had done it for him and no the girlfriend and kid who were both waiting for him to come home. They headed back down to the ground floor giving the hotel the a-okay to open up again. They briefly discussed going out, drinks on Chin for the first round but for the next two months both Danny and Steve were not allowed to drink which made sense since both of them only had half a liver.

Then Steve teasingly announced to them all that he was going to take a few days off. Not that he really needed a few days off since he had taken almost a week and half off once Rowan had come home and she had adopted Nahele. They all laughed at the joke and Steve left the group behind, hoping they didn't sense that what he really wanted was to go home to Rowan. To have her there waiting for him with a tea or a hot cocoa in her hand and a kiss to land on him

And when Steve got home, Rowan was standing at in front of the door waiting for him. She didn't have a drink in her hand for him but she did have a chess piece. This one was bigger than the others he had found. A Knight maybe?

She told him not to panic but Steve couldn't help it. Nahele had found the chess piece on the kitchen island after thinking he heard the backdoor close. He had known the serial killer was still out there, but this guy had been in his house, with his girlfriend and the kid she had adopted who was much like his kid too even if it wasn't on paper yet. Anything could have happened to them, that chess piece could have been found in one of their mouths. He was just lucky that this guy wanted to leave a message not another victim. But if this was the serial killer throwing down the gauntlet… well… they weren't going to like the challenger who just picked it up.