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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: It's another late chapter you guys. Yesterday (and today) have been complete shit shows. I had this chapter ready to go but I didn't get a chance to deal with anything other than work. So this one is a bit of a shorter chapter, but everything's resolved and it does not end on a cliff-hanger. Aren't you proud of me? We have one filler chapter in between the end of this episode and then we'll be going to the next episode! As always don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you guys on Friday.

Chapter 346

Steve had crumpled the second the fake Rowan had waved its hand. Wo Fat probably should have moved to grab him but he didn't. He just let him drop to the ground.

Wo Fat stared at him and then back up to the fake Rowan. "You know… if you actually let him die, she'll be very angry."

Con left his post at the door to come forward. He knelt down beside Steve to take his pulse. "Well, he's still alive," he said and then looked up to Fate. "Seriously though, isn't there a way where everyone lives?"

"Not everything is a happy ending."

Okay that was true, but didn't he want Rowan to have a happy ending, wasn't that why he was there?

Sin Nombre jumped back as the red strings began to coil around Steve, much like the pink strings had been around Nahele, bringing him back to his feet and dangling him six inches off of the ground. The two of them exchanged glances.

The red strings had healed Rowan once, would they heal Steve?

"I can feel your worry shaking the strings," fake Rowan said. "It's annoying."

"We're allowed to be worried, this is our family…"

"That man should be your enemy."

"Alright, fine, but he married my sister and we're sort of getting along right now," Wo argued. "And you have my nephew somewhere, also getting healed… I'm allowed to be worried."

"Yeah!" Con seconded jumping to his feet. "So you better start explaining what's going on right now!"

The fake Rowan stared at him, those galaxy swirled eyes of her boring into his very soul, but Con was angry so he held the gaze even when it began to hurt.

"Fine," fake Rowan said after a while. "It's a test, if you must know. If he can prove himself unselfish and worthy of her I will give him his family back."

Both men collective let out their breaths, in one heavy sigh of relief. "If he doesn't, can you keep him and give us our family back, please?" Con asked and Wo Fat had to lift a hand to cover his mouth to hide the smile that he was trying to not allow to stretch across his face.

Rowan would be livid to find out that the two of them had picked her over Steven, but to be fair, the two of them liked Rowan more than they liked Steven. They tolerated Steven because she loved him, simple as that.

"We shall see," the fake Rowan said and then it closed her eyes.

That left them alone in the great white space that used to be a ballroom, with a floating Rowan. Steve had been wrapped in strings and taken elsewhere, Nahele was god knows where. Now they just had to wait.

Which was problematic because neither man was patient, which was ironic considering their line of work and how patient they usually were when it came to work matters.

Matters that involved their sister however, was a completely different story.

So to keep themselves from bugging the creature that was trying to save their family, Wo Fat brought out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and the two of them began to chain smoke.

He was going to get lung cancer and it was one hundred percent going to be Rowan's fault. For stressing him out until he smoked as much as he did.

Then they heard the scream.

The agonizing, terrified, horrified shriek that they knew belonged to Rowan but hadn't come from the Rowan beside them.

There was a pulsing explosion, that had the two men dropping their cigarettes to hold onto one another so they wouldn't be blown away, and in that explosion Nahele was thrown out of the void and to the ground.

Con let go of Wo Fat to go to the kid. Wo Fat went to Rowan, to see that her eyebrows were creased with worry. He put his hands to her shoulders and shook her but her eyes didn't open.

"Kid's breathing and fully intact. Small cut to the forehead, but he's not shot," Con told him and while that was great Rowan had not woken up.

So he slapped her.

Right away her eyes snapped open. But he wasn't looking at Rowan's impossibly blue eyes. It was still the other Rowan. The thing called Fate.

"It is exceedingly hard to do my work when you are this…" it started, in Rowan's voice, and then it stopped. "Something's wrong…"

Well that wasn't good.

"What kind of wrong?" Wo Fat asked but it wasn't looking at him anymore.

On the ground Nahele began to stir, opening his eyes to find his uncle Con above him. In front of him the other Rowan waved her hand and Steve became visible with all these red strings pulsing around his body. There was something wrong with this face, it kept blinking between shot and not.

"What… what the hell is that…" came from Nahele.

"Get him out of here," Wo Fat ordered. Con tried to pull the kid up but he wouldn't leave.

"Mom, what's happening to dad?!" he asked her and when she turned, those purple galaxy eyes on him he took a step back. "Who the hell are you? Where's my mom?"

"Nahele, I'm dealing with this if you could…"

"My lord, the idiot left… what is she doing now…"

Wo Fat turned to the thing wearing Rowan's face, just long enough to see Steve's red strings lurch out and grab her.

In that moment Wo Fat saw two things.

Firstly, the strings ripped Rowan from his side and to Steve. Secondly, the thing inside Rowan had been left behind. And for a second before it flickered out of view, Wo Fat saw a man, a man that looked like Steve, except had flowing black hair and purple eyes, and then he watched that man blink into an owl roughly his size, if not taller all gossamer black and grey. Then it was gone.

"What is happening?" Nahele asked again, this time in a high-pitched sort of scream.

But the strings were acting weird. Covering Steve and Rowan, turning into a writhing ball of mass until they couldn't see them anymore, and the crackle of the energy of the void was getting louder.

And in the white noise he heard Rowan's voice.

Run.

Yeah, that sounded like a really good idea.

"Run," he told Con and Nahele. "Run now."

"But…" Nahele started but Con didn't give him a chance, he practically yanked Nahele off of his feet as they turned and abandoned the white room and their sister and her husband.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

The white was blinding.

The sound was gone.

And in the nothingness the strings continued to writhe, all wanting to be the one that came to fruition.

Two hands gripped one string, golden hot against it's skin and pulled.

Reality after reality jumbled to play but this was the one that won.

A mother went to the dance with her child, only to be separated when chaos struck.

A wife ran to her husband for help. And this time he went with her.

Two brothers with darkness in their hearts, came to the rescue at the request of their sister through tunnels carved out of the lines of the universe. And it was the eldest of the brothers who led the attack.

The chaos itself was dispelled with ease. Bad guys kills, powers used, the husband and wife worked together to save their child, and the family was reunited.

When the last bad guy, the bodyguard with a grudge made himself known, his gun trained on the happily reunited family, it wasn't any of them that ended his vengeful streak.

It was the eldest brother, whose dark heart always beat a light lighter when he was with his family, who would do but anything to keep everyone in his family safe, who dealt with the threat.

The bullet meant for the child, wife, husband, was given to the person who fired it in the first place.

Straight from the gun of the eldest brother. Cool, detached, unfeeling, just like the person who had pulled the trigger.

And that's when the white stopped being the white and the strings let go of the people they were protecting, finally on a path that lead to living.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Nahele hadn't wanted to leave the banquet hall without first knowing what was going on with his mom and his dad.

But for the first time since meeting his uncles, the two of them looked afraid. Like, they had no idea what was happening, they were clearly not in control, and they were scared. Absolutely terrified.

So when they told him to run, he had.

Only because if they were scared he should be scared, and because as he ran, he knew his uncles were following him, and because Uncle Oz had him by the collar, and his Uncle Con had him by the arm and both were forcing him forward.

When he got outside the Five-0 adults were there in a flash. Danny came to check him over, Grover gave him a fist bump for protecting Will, Chin gave him a hug and then Kono threw herself at him hugging him tightly asking if he was okay.

He was, of course, but he got a little weepy as they all crowded around him, because less than two years ago he had been a street kid all alone and now he was covered in caring adults to the point of being smothered.

And that would have been when his head started bleeding or at least when people noticed it was bleeding.

He didn't remember getting hit, he didn't fall at any point, so he didn't know what happened. But he was once again frog marched over to an ambulance even though he wanted to wait for his parents.

Especially since, while they were running, another explosion had gone off.

His Auntie Kono and Grace had stayed with him by the ambulance, as had his Uncle Oz who literally put his Auntie Jian on speaker and then narrated everything the EMTs were doing for him and to him to ensure that Nahele was getting the proper care he deserved.

The others, Grover, Danny, Chin and his Uncle Con, had all gone back into the building, no doubt to find Rowan and Steve.

Cue to the most agonising fifteen minutes of his life.

But they all came out, with Rowan and Steve, both of them looked perfectly fine except for blood leaking down their faces.

"Mom!" Nahele had near sobbed. "Dad!"

And their protective instincts had kicked in once again, sending both of them rushing to his side, to make sure he was okay. Both completely looking over the fact that they should probably get checked out themselves.

His mother had been crying, holding his face in her hands and saying how scared she was, and how this was all Wo's fault for not checking that she was with him in that banquet hall. Steve had to yank Rowan off of him just so Nahele could breathe.

Then Steve, too, pulled him in for a hug, being sure to whisper that he too had been afraid, afraid he was going to lose him and Nahele had found himself clinging to his father figure, with the distinct feeling that, for some reason, he had been afraid that he'd lose Steve too.

Though he couldn't remember why that was.

"Mom, what were all those strings? And what was happening to you and dad, you guys were floating and you had weird eyes and… and… and… it think I remember a shield… and… just… what is happening? Maybe I did hit my head. Maybe I was dreaming it up but it felt so… real…"

Steve and Rowan exchanged glances. The two of them look scared, and Nahele knew then that he had stumbled upon a secret he wasn't supposed to know about.

"It's been a long night," Rowan said after a moment of charged staring at her husband. "Steve and I need to get checked out and then we're all going home to rest. We'll talk about everything tomorrow morning. Okay?"

Nahele nodded.

And as the EMTs went to his parents he realized that they all had the exact same head wound in the exact same place.