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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Guess who's getting another chapter today? You guys are! That's right I'm updating semi-close to on time today. I'm hoping to be fully on time for Friday and everything after that but I make no promises. I'm a literal disaster right now when it comes to my writing. We're going to see a lot of McGarrett domestic not-so-bliss in this chapter, it's meant to be cute-ish so I hope you guys enjoy it. As always don't forget to review or drop a fav or a follow and I will see you guys on Friday.

Chapter 359

The following morning Steve left the comfort of his home and the arms of his wife to do some unpacking at the Palace. He told his wife and his kid that it wouldn't take long. He'd unpack the supplies and weapons they had taken down to Colombia to rescue Sara and then he'd come back so they could go to lunch together.

Rowan had immediately asked why that hadn't been done when all of that had been dropped off at the Palace in the first place.

Easy, everyone had wanted to go home, so Kono dropped everything off and now it was waiting to be unpacked.

Okay, but then why did it have to be Steve?

His wife asked good questions. But it was easy. Grover had something he needed to take care of for Duke. Danny was spending quality time with his kids and Steve just didn't want him to bitch by asking him to help. Kono was with Adam, Chin was dealing with Sara so that left Steve.

And yes, Steve had children, or well, child, and a wife and what not, but he was team leader, and with that accolade came responsibilities and sacrifices.

Rowan was livid. Said if he wasn't home by lunch, which was when they were supposed to all go down to the beach together as a family lunch, boardwalking and snow cones, then he could stay at Danny's that night.

Steve had promised he wouldn't be late and then went straight to the Palace to get it all done as quickly as possible.

He was part way finished when Grover came in. Which was surprising because the man had said he was busy. It was why he couldn't come there in the first place.

"Hey man, I don't pay you enough to come in on a Saturday. What are you doing here?"

"Well, hell, I could ask you the same thing. No way our little Ro is happy you're here when you're supposed to be home with her."

Steve shot him a smile. "I'm just unpacking from the Colombia trip, then I'm heading straight home. Wife's orders. Don't want her popping a portal under my feet to get me home," he said. Which wasn't true, Rowan knew that usually the void didn't affect him right and would never just portal him unless she thought him unsafe.

But Grover didn't need to know that. "How about you?"

"Well, I promised Duke I'd help him get together some, uh, SWAT seminar for the cop convention next…" he started and then trailed off. "What he hell?"

Steve looked up to him. Grover had come to stand beside him, and other than being in a blinding fluorescent pink shirt, Steve couldn't see what was wrong. But Grover wasn't staring at his reflection, or at Steve, he was staring at Steve's office.

Steve turned his eyes towards it and then saw very clearly what cause the exclamation.

Jerry was in his office, in his pjs asleep on the floor. What… what the hell.

Steve dropped the rifle he was playing with down to the table and stripped himself of the backpack he had brought with him.

Together they watched Jerry stretch and roll around. By the time he was up on his feet, Steve had opened the door.

"Hey," he said which was followed closely by Grover's: "What's up?"

Jerry looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "Oh hey! You're back!"

No fucking shit.

"How was your trip?"

Really. Casual, he was going for casual?

"Good," Steve said as he came into his own office, which clearly now seemed to be Jerry's living space. "What's uh… what's goin' on?"

He gestured to the sleeping bag and the pillow and the monster pjs he was wearing and Jerry winced.

"Okay, here's the deal. Ever since I moved out of Chin's place, I've been sort of homeless," he admitted without looking at them. "So, on occasion, I come and sleep in your office, but it's only when I can't find a couch to crash on."

"Jerry, you moved out of Chin's place months ago," Steve reminded him. Mainly because he was shaken that this was happening. Because he thought his buddy had a place to stay and live and just… how long had he been sleeping in this office and had he gone snooping? And if so, did he find the file of racy photos of Rowan he kept hidden in his office for when the days got hard and he needed a pick me up?

"Why didn't you say something?" Steve asked, instead of shouting: "Did you find the photos?" like he wanted to.

"Yeah, Jerry, you don't have to sleep in an office."

"No. Yeah I know. But I can't keep letting Rowan buy me hotel rooms," Jerry said and Steve shook his head. That… that wasn't what Grover meant at all.

"Hold on. Wait a second. My wife has been paying for your hotel rooms?"

"She offered to buy me a condo too but that was too generous."

Fucking hell Rowan! What the hell, was she trying to burn through her money? Fuck, he was going to have to consolidate their finances or some shit before she spent it all on their friends and funding Wo Fat criminal lifestyle.

"It's okay though," Jerry said even though it really wasn't. "I'm kind of digging the whole nomad thing."

Yeah, cause Steve's wife was partially funding it.

"Look, I would sleep down in my bunker, but there are no windows, and I like to wake up to the natural light so as to not mess with my circadian rhythms."

"You do realize it's almost ten o'clock in the morning?" Grover asked dryly and Jerry blinked his eyes. Yeah he had no idea.

God Steve wanted to punch him. "You been going through my shit?" he asked. A narrowed look on his face.

"Nope, just set up shop and go to sleep."

Steve shook his head. "Jerry, you got to get a place. I mean, you need somewhere to live. And no, my wife should not be buying you a condo. You don't wanna know what it's like to owe her money. Jian's brother owes her money and she has him working a full-service maid café in a red light district of Tokyo. Yeah. You want that happening to you?"

Jerry shook his head. "I've been trying to get a place, but its hard when you don't have a credit history."

"I'll vouch for you. Okay?" Steve said clocking a pink box on his desk that hadn't been there when he left. "What's this?"

He picked up the card on the box that was addressed to him. Grover immediately wanted to see, mainly cause the box was from a bakery.

"Those were here when I showed up. Figured they were left for you."

Steve opened the box and found four missing. Yeah, and he hadn't been going through Steve's shit?

"Why is there four missing?"

Behind him Grover laughed but Jerry hit him with a low: "Oh no!" like he was horrified.

"Oh no, what?"

Jerry then looked down to his fingers which were covered in sugar and glaze and then back to Steve. "I did it again."

"What'd you do?"

"I was sleep eating."

Oh Christ on a cracker. That… really? Oh my god, what was this day becoming?

"Oh, that explains that dream," Jerry said, mostly to himself.

Grover looked down to the card that Steve had handed him. "Commander McGarrett, please say yes. Dr. G. Kimbo."

Yeah, Steve didn't know who that was. "Who's Dr. Kimbo?"

Well, he was about to find out.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

The donuts were a damn bribe.

A bribe to get a job.

A coroner's job.

Which was great, except they had a coroner.

Why they hell was Max looking for a coroner?

Well that was something Steve and Grover immediately went to the morgue to find out.

Steve dropped the half-eaten box of donuts, he and Grover had one on the way down there, on Max's portable work station and then dropped the card onto the box.

Max picked up the card and as he read it over, Steve said: "You, uh… you wanna tell us something, Max?"

And then he stared at him. Waiting to see what that boy had to say.

"Oh. Well, it appears that Dr. Kimbo was under the mistaken impression that you were in charge of all the hiring decisions," Max said. Wow, so that was what people were going to do to him today? They were going to frustrate him? "Quite unfortunate because he was actually a really strong candidate."

And then he turned around and just dropped the card and the donuts into the garbage. What the hell, they would have wanted to eat those.

Beside him Grover let out a squawk of dismay. "You're not even going to offer us some?" he asked with his eyes still on that box in the garbage. "You know, some cops I know consider that an arrestable offence?"

Yeah and Grover was one of them.

Steve, however, was focused more on Max. Strong candidate for what? "Max, why are you hiring a new coroner?"

"Well, even with Noelani on board, the ME's office is still short-staffed. Case in point, I had to come in on a Saturday to do an autopsy on a body."

"Alright, Well, who is he?" Grover asked. Which was not where Steve wanted the conversation to go. No, because Max was acting weird. Shifty even. Which was not like Max. Max was usually pretty truthful with them, mainly because he was terrible at lying. Hence why Steve was getting a major vibe that he was lying to them right now.

But the topic was changed now so Steve was going to have to go with it.

"Mitch Lawson. He's 39 years old. HPD found his abandoned car along Halawa drive. When they inspected his vehicle, they found the fuel gauge at empty, then they noticed blood on the trunk's lid. Mr. Lawson's body was discovered inside the trunk."

Right so a standard body dump with the vic's car. Sounded normal, nothing Five-0 needed to be involved in.

"We got a COD?"

"COD was blunt force trauma to the head resulting in several skull fractures. Time of death was between eight and nine pm, which is actually interesting because when HPD did their preliminary investigations, according to their notes, the victim's keycard was swiped in the place of work at 9:37pm."

"Okay, so somebody kills him at work and then uses the card to get the body out of the building," Steve summed up.

Grover nodded. "And then they dump the body into the victim's truck and they drive off…."

"…And then shortly thereafter, they run out of gas," Steve finished.

They all took that in and then Grover said: "Well, this definitely sounds like none of this was planned. You know, this is more of a, uh, improvised-learn-as-you-go kind of thing then."

Yeah, and it sounded pretty clear cut. Like he could sit this one out and just send everyone else to do the work. Or, he could just go to wherever this guy worked and scare a confession out of the killer. He'd be done before he was expected home for lunch.

"Max, where does this guy work? I'm thinking that's our primary crime scene."

"He was a car salesman at Pacific Motor Sales in Honolulu."

"Okay. Let's call Duke, have him take CSU down there to process, then we'll have to question everybody there. I'm thinking our killer probably worked with our vic here."

"Yeah you might wanna pump your brakes there, Chief," Grover said and internally Steve groaned. No, no he wanted to be done with this case so he could go home. "You're talking about car salesmen here."

"So what?"

"They are masters of psychological warfare. Couple with the fact hat they're all born liars. You never bought a car before? They'll lie to you just to make conversation."

God he was describing Wo Fat. So was that the play here. Call Rowan and ask her to bring her psychopath of a brother back to Hawaii to deal with this. Cause if it got him home faster, he would do it.

"You can question them till you're blue in the face. They're never gonna give you a straight answer."

Max and Steve were exchanging glances. Steve had tried talking but Grover wouldn't let him. He let Max though.

"You seem to have quite an insight into the profession, Captain."

"You damn right I do. And I'll tell you why!"

Great they were going to get one of Lou Grover's stories. This was going to be good.

"I spent every summer of my teenage years washing Chevys at my uncle's dealership back in Chicago. To this day, my Uncle Kenny is the crookedest bird I ever met," he said and then turned to Steve. "You go a head and march HPD and them crime lab people in there if you want to, all you gonna do is end up raising the perp's antenna."

Great, so this sounded a lot like Five-0 was getting hella involved. And Steve was going to be late for lunch.

"Okay. So, uh, what do you have in mind?" Steve asked. Almost dreading the answer.

Which he had every right to, because what Grover had in mind was a little undercover sting operation, which had all of Five-0, except for Danny in on the planning and surveilling.

Screw being late for lunch, he was going to miss lunch entirely.

God. Rowan was going to kill him.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Despite Steve leaving for the palace, Rowan still got herself all dolled up for their lunch date. Then she and Nahele put the finishing touches on their Christmas decorations. They hung the family's stockings. She placed the already wrapped Christmas gifts either under the tree on into the correct stockings and then when that was done, she realized that Steve still hadn't come back.

She had told herself that Steve had promised, promised he wouldn't bail on her again. That he'd come back and they'd go out as a family. He was only unpacking from the Colombia trip, so that everything was where it needed to be in the event that something happened. And she got that, she did, the need to be prepared, of course, but she also wanted him to stay home with her. She wanted him to want to stay.

They were an hour away from lunch and Rowan went upstairs for touch ups. When she came back down Nahele was playing some videogame that included a lot of shooting.

"Don't get too comfortable, I'm sure your dad is going to be home soon so we can go to lunch."

Nahele paused his game, whipped his head phones off and turned to her. "Steve's not coming back," he said. "He's gone to work, he'll be back for dinner if we're lucky."

"No, he's just unpacking. No case. He'll be back very soon… he promised…"

"Steve never keeps his promises," Nahele said with a scoff. "Bet you ten bucks he calls you in the next twenty minutes and says he's caught a case and can't come home."

"Bet you fifty he calls and says he's on his way."

Nahele smiled at him. "Yeah, you're on."

They shook hands. Rowan went into the kitchen to make herself a snack because she was hungry and not ten minutes after that conversation her phone rang.

She smiled immediately because it was Steve's name flashing on her screen.

"Hey babe, I hope you're on your way home because Nahale and I have a bet and if I lose because of you you're staying at Danny's tonight."

For a moment Steve was silent. "Oh god, uh… babe, please… please don't be mad."

Rowan immediately groaned and in the living room she heard Nahele cry: "Called it! You owe me Fifty bucks!"

"Steven…" "—I know I said I'd come back but I caught a case…" "—Steven!" "I know! I know babe but… I can't help it. I'm Grover's back up. Maybe… I unno, maybe you can bring lunch and come to the office?"

"Why? Are you just staying at the office to run point?"

"No… I have leads to run down but I'm sure I'll get down time…"

"Ugh. You're a piece of shit you know that!" Rowan cried and then hung up on him. Shoving her phone into her pocket, she swallowed down a lump of frustrated tears. She went into the living room where Nahele was playing with his videogames, too intent to really pay attention to her.

"Did you hang up on him?"

"I did," she said as she went into her purse for her wallet.

"That's not nice."

Bailing on them when he promised he'd take them out for a family lunch wasn't nice either. In her pocket her phone rang and she ignored it. She fished out the fifty she rightfully lost in that bet and handed it to him.

She should have never bet on McGarrett and never would again.

Nahele paused him game and took it from her. "You uh… you gonna pick that up?"

"No."

Nahele half smiled at her. "But it's dad. He's gonna panic if you don't pick up."

"Good. He deserves a little panic right now."

Rowan's phone stopped ringing and as Nahele was putting his new fifty away his phone rang. He picked it up right away with a: "Hi Steve, thanks for the fifty bucks."

He listened for a little bit and then handed Rowan the phone. "It's for you."

And then he went straight back to his video games.

"What do you want?" Rowan said.

"Come on babe, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you," he said right away and Rowan rolled her eyes.

"I want Rainbows."

"Yes, okay, I will bring home your favourite from Rainbows."

"And I want to throw out a pair of your cargo pants."

"What the hell do you have against my cargo pants?"

"You look better in jeans and you know it. I'm upping it to two pairs now."

"Okay, no. I need them for work. How about this. When I get home, I'll put on any outfit you want and wear it for the rest of the night. How about that?"

Already she was picturing him in the navy-blue suit of his and her traitorous heart kicked up a notch just thinking about how fine he'd look. Ohh she might jump him wherever he stood.

"I suppose that's an acceptable trade."

"Great, am I forgiven now?"

"Your apology is noted and your acceptance is pending. If that's all?"

"No wait, don't hang up," he said quickly. "I just… I've been having a weird day and I just wanted to talk to you for a bit before I have to go. Can we do that? Have a normal conversation or are you still mad at me?"

"I'm still mad at you Steven. I got all dressed up for our date, and our kid is all upset that you chose work over him again…" "—No I'm not I knew we weren't going for lunch the second he left for the Palace!"

Rowan leant in and cuffed Nahele who simply shot her a little small smile as he was still mostly distracted with his game.

"I said I was sorry babe, I'm sorry. I was only going to put things away, I was going to come back. Come on, I'm wearing jeans and that light blue shirt you like so much, I clearly meant to come back."

Rowan rolled her eyes. She had believed him when he left, pressing kisses to her in this insistent way that made her believe that he didn't really want to leave, that it hurt him to leave her. He still left though.

"Whatever," she said with a huff. "You said you're having a weird day, why don't you tell me about that, hmm?"

Steve was clearly torn but with a weary sigh he started his tale.

"I, uh, well I found out that Jerry's been sleeping in my office."

"Mmm, I told him to stop doing that, I said I'd pay for hotels until he got back on his feet," she said absently and she almost heard Steve's scowl through the phone.

"Yeah, and you apparently offered to buy him a condo, what the hell Rowan?"

"Jerry needs the help, and I have the money."

"Or… you know.. you could just save it," he argued and Rowan rolled her eyes.

"I don't want to get taxed on it. My taxes are through the roof as is."

"Don't forget that you're also banking with an illegal banking ring. I know half your paycheques go to it, don't think I forgot about that Rowan," Steve said. She knew where this was going. He had brought this up when they got married, he was going to do it again, just watch. "I know you don't want to do this, but maybe… maybe we should put our names on each other's banking…"

"No Steve, because you're a control freak," Rowan said right away. "And I don't want you to have control of my money. My money is my freedom, I don't want anyone to control that but me."

"Rowan you can literally teleport. How much more freedom do you need?"

"We're keeping our banking stuff separate. You want to open up a joint account together and we transfer funds into on a monthly bases, fine. But we're keeping our banking separate. We are not going to be that couple that argues constantly over money," she snapped and that was going to be the end of that, and to prove it to him and herself she said: "Is that all that made your day weird?"

"No," he said right away. "Max is acting weird. I got a donut bribe…" "—Oh what kind?" "…Leonard's…" "—They're good but not like, that good. What was the bribe for?" "… for the coroner position, but he says he's just hiring extra staff. He's just acting shifty and I wish I knew why."

"Oh that's easy. He's going to Africa,"

"How do you know?"

"I was his reference. I gave him a glowing review. Regretting that now though. I'm going to be sad to see him go."

"You were his reference? You don't work with him."

"I pretended to be you. Stephanie McGarrett at your service."

"Rowan so help me."

"What?" she asked playfully smirking into the phone she didn't have to be there to know that Steve was shaking his head.

"We'll talk about it when I get home, okay?" he said. "I, I gotta go. This murder just turned into a smuggling case and I have to go arrest a smuggler."

A beat of irrationally worry flashed through her. "It's not my smuggler is it?"

"No. Wo's in Japan. … Isn't he?"

"Yeah, that's where I sent him. I don't think he's moved."

"Then it's definitely not your smuggler," Steve said. "Listen babe I really gotta go. I… I love you."

"Love you too."

"And tell the kid I love him too."

In the background she could hear Chin calling for him and Rowan sighed. "I will. Be safe Steve."

"Always."

And then he had hung up. Rowan put her phone in her pocket again and then sat down on the couch beside her son who had logged off of his video game, or turned it off.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah just disappointed," she said. "But that's the life of the cop's wife. You always come second to work."

Nahele immediately moved to give her a hug. "I'm going to go get changed and then me and you will go for lunch without him. It'll be just as fun."

"Course it will," Rowan said, letting him go so he could get up. He scampered right up the stairs and as he went, she called out: "And since you've got money you can treat me," which just made him laugh.

He wasn't gone for two minutes when her phone rang again. She was hoping it was Steve calling her back saying that he felt bad and he was coming home after all, but it was just Wo calling her.

"Speak of the Devil, I was just talking about you," she said instead of hello.

For a moment Wo was quiet. "Were you and Steve arguing about me again?"

"No. But you came up in casual conversation."

"That's weird, Ro. You and Steve shouldn't talk about me as much as you two do."

Rowan shook her head. "What's up, why you calling? You miss me already."

"Always, but uh… actually I need a favour…." "Okay…" "—I need you to pull me to Hawaii."

"What why?"

"I've lost something very important to me and I need to get it back."

Rowan's eyes narrowed. Why did she get the feeling that this was all tied up in Steve's case? God she really hoped she was wrong, because if she was right, then he wouldn't even be home for dinner.