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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Happy Friday my wonderful readers! Not only is it another on time update but it's another cute one. We do have some of Steve dealing with a case but Rowan's not really going to get involved with this one. She will get involved in the next chapter though, but not too heavily I don't think. We're are finally making some headway through the season and I'm hoping to be out of it before we hit 400 chapters. I hope everyone's still enjoying the story, please let me know in the reviews and I'll see you guys on Monday!

Chapter 363

It was the day before.

That shouldn't mean anything to him because he wasn't supposed to know what Rowan and Nahele had been whispering about behind his back. But it did. And to help him get over the nerves that were tingling up and down his spine and twisting knots in his stomach, he agreed to go to a briefing at the HPD precinct about the Cop Expo with Grover.

Now the Cop Expo was basically spring break for cops. And they wanted their fellow comrades in blue to have a good time, but not too much of a good time.

Since Steve had been nervous, he had stopped to get malasada's for Rowan and Nahele on his run that morning. They were well received but they still wouldn't tell him what it was that they were planning. And that made the nervousness worse.

When Grover called him to join him, he had offered to bring Steve a coffee. Steve had very stupidly offered up a Malasada to go with that coffee.

Now he wished he hadn't because now he was stuck in this conversation.

"You're kidding me, right?" Grover asked.

"No, I'm not kidding you," Steve replied trying not to be frustrated but he couldn't help it. Because he didn't know how he got into a heated discussion about malasadas and he didn't know how to make it stop either.

"You've been here three-quarters of your life and you never once, not even once, dipped your malasada into your cup of coffee?"

No and why was that such a big deal?

"Why's that so strange?"

Yeah, it wasn't an Oreo. It wasn't one of Rowan's chocolate chip cookies. It wasn't like he was holding a glass of milk. Who the hell dunks a donut? Grover apparently.

"I mean, I'm not saying it's strange as much as it is just sad."

Oh, here we go.

"I mean, you're on this island which is sitting on the best coffee in the entire world, a hundred percent Kona coffee. Now how do you expect to enjoy the fusion of flavors the sweetness of the dough up against the bitterness of the coffee? It's just… it's heaven, man."

No, no, heaven was waking up to his wife draped across him and his kid calling for him from downstairs, but calling him dad. Heaven was coming home to his wife in a skimpy outfit with a bottle of beer for him in one hand and that personal massager Jian had given him for Christmas in the other. Heaven was at home with his wife and his kid, not in a dunked donut.

"You know what? I'll tell you what. Just observe," Grover said and then made a big show of dunking his donut, an even bigger show of taking a bite, and basically put on a whole musical, satisfied groaning included, as he chewed.

Whoopee, he ate a donut dunked in coffee. How was that a big deal?

But he also knew that if he didn't do this, Grover would be on his ass for the rest of the day and he didn't need that.

"Alright, I'm gonna do it. Okay?"

And then he too dunked his donut into his coffee. He too took a bite and was… actually mildly surprised. It was pretty good. In fact it was very good. How had he not done this before?

Grover already knew he had won cause he was staring at Steve with a smug smile. "That's pretty good," he admitted.

"You're damn right, it's pretty good!"

"You were right. It's pretty good."

"Yeah, I told you."

And he had. On repeat for the last twenty minutes. He figured the conversation over, Grover had proved his point they could move on.

And then Steve made the mistake of going for the double dunk.

"Hey, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second, what are you doing?"

He was going to dunk the damn donut like Grover had been talking about for the last twenty minutes. What… was there an etiquette he didn't know about?

"Are you double dunking?"

Uh obviously.

"I'm gonna let that slide cause I know you didn't know, okay?" he said and then very seriously added: "But you never double dunk."

Right so it was an etiquette he didn't know about."

"Never double dunk, okay," Steve repeated and then hoped that was the end of it.

It was not.

"You double dunk, now you're messing with the coffee to cake ratio."

Oh god this starting to sound like some math thing that only Rowan could compute if she was gambling or about to do something she wasn't supposed to do.

"You're risking oversaturation. And that can lead to the dreaded… free dive."

He said free dive like it was the most disgusting thing on this planet. What the hell did that even mean? It was a fucking donut.

Steve made the mistake asking for clarification.

"You don't want no parts of the free dive," Grover said even though that didn't explain what the hell he was talking about. "That's where a chunk of your malasada breaks off and just sinks right to the bottom of your cup of coffee."

Oh. Ew. Yeah he didn't want that.

"And then you don't see that nasty soggy thing again until you're down to the last sip. And let me tell you something, soggy malasada, nobody's friend."

See, Steve liked his coffee simple. Black. A little cream, a little sugar. This, this was making everything so much more complicated. Couldn't he just go back to regular coffee?

"Nobody's friend, copy. Got it. Got it."

Steve tried to walk away, except Grover was still talking. About Malasadas. How?!

"I got to tell you the truth, man. I mean, I don't know who it was that invented this damn thing, but in addition to being a genius, the man had to love coffee." Why was Grover still talking about this? How did Steve get him to stop? "I mean look at it. These babies are the perfect size for dunking. The circumference is spot on. This thing is engineered to fit into a coffee cup."

Grover was staring at that malasada like it was the love of his life. Steve immediately wondered if that was how he looked like when he talked about guns. Or his wife. Or his kid. God he hoped he learned to love something, to be that passionate about something the way Lou Grover was passionate about dunking a malasada into his coffee.

"You've spent a lot of time thinking about his, haven't you?"

Grover just motioned to his paunch as if that answered the question. Steve just smiled and hoped to god that this meant that they were done with this conversation. Though he would admit, it was a good distraction from what he was actually nervous about.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Last night there had been an explosion.

It took out the office of Hadley and Becker which had been a law firm. The office and the whole block. Decimated.

Steve had immediately woken up Rowan to ask what she knew.

She didn't know a lot but she definitely knew the answers to the more important questions.

So his nervousness that morning had absolutely nothing to do with the explosion that had gone off last night.

No he was nervous because it was today. Today was the day. Today was whatever Rowan and Nahele had planned that they were leaving him out of.

Though he had a feeling that the only reason Rowan was involved was because Nahele needed an adult and apparently that was going to be Rowan. Yeah. Rowan. The adult.

Steve had never been so insulted that Rowan was chosen to be the responsible adult over him. Like he couldn't even put it in the words.

Steve was starting to think that Nahele wasn't talking to him about it because he was worried that Steve would be upset. So, he was going to do what Rowan did. Do the thing and then tell Steve later. Well. He was hoping that was what it was, because if that kid actually thought Rowan was more responsible than him… well… well that just hurt.

Danny had picked him up in the Camaro and the two of them drove to the site to see what they had figured out during the night. Steve had filled Danny in on everything that Rowan had told him when he asked her on the way. When they got there, and had gotten out of the car, Chin was there to greet them.

"DHS just left. No sign of radioactivity," Chin said as he climbed over rubble to get to them.

"Yeah we already knew that," Danny said and then turned to Steve. "Because Ro said so, right? Rowan said it's not Uranium, so we know it's not the Uranium."

Chin took that in and then nodded. "Well, alright. Did she say when the bomb was set then? Or by who?"

"Not a bomb," Danny said again and then turned to Steve.

"Uh… Sandy has a bomb detector protocol. It would have told her if a bomb was being set somewhere in her vicinity."

"But this wasn't in her vicinity."

"No, I know, but uh… it logs all strange activity, so even if she wasn't in the vicinity it would have logged a bomb being set and just not alerted her. So we got no alert, and nothing logged in Sandy so… not a bomb."

That had been a relief. "Does she know anything about this?"

"Uh no… she was pretty distracted today. She and Nahele were going over some paperwork they won't let me look at."

"You figure out what they're being so secretive about?" Chin asked.

No but he had a hunch. "Tell us about the body they found," he said instead to get off of the topic of him not knowing. He had been trying to give them the space they want, to show that he can be supportive and not in the know at the same time.

And it was killing him.

This was the last time he was going to let them do this. After this no more secrets.

Chin turned around right away to lead them to it. "Our rescue and recovery team had dogs scouring the rubble looking for survivors. They actually picked up a scent. Except that the body that they found wasn't actually someone who was caught in the explosion."

"Who was it then?" Danny asked.

"He's a police sergeant from Milwaukee by the name of Miles Barton. He was in town for the convention. And according to HPD, there were over a dozen out of town cops in from all different cities here to help search for survivors. Barton was one of them. Except his COD was a deep stab wound."

"No such thing as an off-duty cop," Danny said with a sigh.

Chin nodded. "Yeah. The body's actually down there. CSU found gravitational blood spatter on the ground. So the thinking is he was knifed up here and then tossed into that hole."

Wow, rough.

"To stall discovery of the body," Steve summed up. And he was probably right.

"All these volunteers and no one saw anything?"

"No one yet."

Yeah, time to go down in the hole. They all took their turns climbing down the ladder to the darkened hole where Noelani was still examining the body. She confirmed with him that the COD was the stab wound and all other injuries were from the fall into the hole.

Right so nothing they already didn't know.

Steve began looking around for more clues to see if anything else was down there. Anything that could help him figure out what happened here. And he found footprints. Fresh footprints heading towards where the body had ended up.

That was weird, where had these people come from and why were they down there?

"Noelani, anybody from you team been down here yet?" he asked her.

"Not yet."

Steve called Danny over and together they followed the footprints. Those footprints led them to a door that was open for some reason. That door brought them to a room full of case like boxes and a safe that had been clearly forced open.

Someone had come down there after the building came down. This wasn't just an explosion. This was a theft.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

After establishing that Rowan was right.

After establishing that the explosion had been because someone had hit a gas line while tunneling into that room to get to the safe.

After establishing that this was a heist and that their vic had interrupted the robbers coming out of the explosion, no doubt with their stolen loot.

After realizing that there wasn't any witnesses and their best shot was finding a news crew with footage of the scene, and after figuring out who they were looking for, Steve, with Kono went to track down someone who could help them.

They had found Hirsch at the Cop Expo where he was trying to market his crime scene clean up business. They had confirmed that he did know a stringer named G Stealth. A stringer was just someone who hoped from scene to scene and sold his footage to the highest bidder. They had realized that he was the one who was on that scene first and he would have what they were looking for. But no one could give them his name.

Hirsch had said that he knew him well, except he didn't know his real name, or how to get a hold of him. But he knew where he lived and he would only help them if they gave him an exclusive to clean up all of Five-0's crime scenes. Steve was already in a bad mood so he was thinking he'd just beat it out of Hirsch but Kono had a better idea. She threatened to close down his sales booth or report him for operating without a permit.

Hirsch decided that he'd help them out of the goodness of his heart, but Steve was starting to think that Hirsch had lied straight to his face.

"Oh, okay. You wanna take a right up here," he said. "This definitely looks familiar."

Yeah Steve had heard that before. Hirsch had yet to be right. Steve was already grumpy because he had been forced to take his truck when Danny disappeared on his own lead with his Camaro. He was very close to hitting the end of his tether.

"You said that an hour ago," Kono reminded him.

"Well, I'm quite confident that this the general area… maybe."

Oh my god, Steve was not in the mood for this today.

"Let me tell you something. There's going to be a crime scene clean-up in this truck if you don't remember which house it is, alright?" he snapped and then sat back. He thought he muttered: "I should have just called Rowan," under his breath but he must not have because Kono immediately turned to him.

"Well… why didn't you?"

"She's got something with Nahele today and I didn't want to bother them."

"Nahele's at school."

"Yeah but… she's going to pick him up after and it's a whole thing and… yeah."

"Boss is something going on?"

Kono was obviously concerned, but Steve figured, as Rowan's best girlfriend, she would know more than Steve if something was wrong. He also knew that Kono wouldn't tell him the things Rowan said were a secret anymore, especially if they pertained to their relationship.

"Wait, that's it. The one with the hula girl mailbox!" Hirsch said eliminating the need for Steve to answer that question. "I'm sure that's where I dropped him off."

Steve immediately pulled up to the curb and put his truck in park right in front of the house and the mailbox in question.

"Okay. How sure?" Kono asked.

"Eight… nine… ninety-five percent."

Steve immediately went about unbuckling his seatbelt. "Works for me." He then turned to Hirsch and said: "Oh, by the way, this should go without saying, but you do not leave this vehicle, you understand?"

They were almost out of the car when Hirsch stopped them. "Oh, I should warn you, uh, Stealthy has a couple of, uh, outstanding warrants on his head. Just trespassing and whatnot. He might not be so happy to see you."

"Okay. And you wait until now to mention this?"

Hirsch just shrugged. "Sorry, small oversight."

Yeah Steve was like about to hit him, he needed to put space between him and Hirsch like right away.

They left Hirsch in the truck. Steve had started off by knocking and announcing himself but there was no answer, and he couldn't see movement in the house, so he broke down the door.

They were going through the house when he heard the horn from his truck blaring. That was… why? He got to the door in time to see Hirsch behind the wheel of his truck with who had to be G Stealth in the passenger seat.

Was Hirsch trying to steal his truck? Did he really think that was a good idea? Did he not know who his wife was?

But luckily for him, Hirsch put the truck in the wrong gear and instead of reversing he went forward. And then crashed right into the car in front of him.

He crashed so hard the airbags went off. Great.

Both he and Kono rushed over. As Steve looked at the damage done to his brand-new truck, Kono was paying more attention to the people in the truck.

"Nice going Hirsch," Kono said and he gave her a thumbs up.

Steve however, was looking at his poor truck. "Yeah, you're telling my wife how this happened."

"Aw… no… not Rowan…"

Yeah that's how Steve felt too, because he really didn't want to tell his lovely wife that he had crashed his truck on today of all days.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Rowan had just pulled up to Nahele's school when she got the call from her man. Normally she worried when Steve called, but she had things to do that day, so she wasn't going to be helping him with any of his cases.

That was why she answered all his questions that morning, so she could give Nahele all the attention and support he needed today.

But she answered her phone with a happy: "Hey babe," because she did actually like hearing from her husband and there was a fifty-fifty chance that maybe he just wanted to talk to her.

"Hey babe," he said quickly. "Uh… you love me, right?"

"Well that's a silly question, Steven. Of course, I love you."

"Good, please remember that," he said and her heart dropped.

"What's the matter… what happened? Are you okay? Was I wrong? Was it the Uranium? You don't need me to pull Wo again do you?"

"No, none of that. I mean, something happened but, it's not bad… that bad," he said. Right he was stumbling over his words, he had done something that she wouldn't be happy about. "I just… I crashed the truck."

Whoa? Steve had been in a car accident. Hold up.

"Oh my god!"

"Oh no, it's okay, cosmetic damage at best. Airbags went off. I wasn't even in the car when it happened. I just didn't want you to see it tonight and freak out and I figured this wasn't a text conversation."

Well he was right about that one. Nahele chose that moment to come running up to the car. He threw his bag into the back through the open window and then went about opening the door so he could get in.

"Okay but are you, okay?" Rowan asked him just as Nahele got into the car. He had just sat down and the second she asked that question Nahele turned to her, panic clear on his face.

"What happened? Is dad okay?" Nahele asked.

Rowan nodded to him. "So you weren't in the truck? Then who crashed it?"

"He crashed the truck? Is he okay? Is the truck?"

Rowan turned a patient smile onto Nahele. "One second babe," she said to the phone. "Both your dad and the truck are okay. Your dad wasn't driving and it's just cosmetic damage."

"But what happened?" Nahele asked with a worried whine to his voice. Behind her people were honking trying to get

"Okay you know what, talk to your son," she said into the phone and then handed him her phone as she pulled out of the

"Hey dad, school was fine," he said. "You crashed the truck?"

He then shot Rowan a smile as Steve no doubt complained. "Yes, I did hear mom say that it wasn't you driving, I was just teasing."

He listened to his dad for a bit, a smile on his face. "No Mom's driving, yeah I'll tell her. Yeah, I'll see you tonight. Yes, I know it's Max's good-bye party. Okay. Yeah, I'll keep you posted. Bye dad."

Once he had hung up the phone and put it back in her purse Nahele turned to her and said: "Dad said to say that he loves you."

Aww that was sweet. She smiled happily at him and decided to move on before she got even more emotional than she already was.

It was a pretty big day today.

"So, did you decide, on a name, I mean?" she asked.

When this started she had let him take control as he wanted to do this on his own. But as time went on, though the paperwork was ready to be filled out She had let him take the paperwork to school because he wanted to do this on his own. He just needed her present as his guardian and to pay the fees.

When he told her what he wanted to do, she had done her best not to pressure him. He wanted it to be a surprise, mostly for Steve, wanted this to mean something. A new name for a new beginning. She had given her opinion when asked but mostly she was there to sign off as a guardian for the paperwork and pay for it.

He reached into the back for his backpack where he then took the papers out to show her. She looked them over and then turned a smile to him. It was absolutely perfect, even Steve would agree. She couldn't wait to show him.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Once they figured out it was a heist, and they got the evidence they were looking for, it was pretty easy to figure out what was going on.

For starters, the video evidence from G Stealth gave them a truck. From that truck they got a licence plate which got them someone on the heist team. And from there everything had fallen into place.

This is all about Edward Gabler, a weatherman who was accused of killing his girlfriend Heather Mayfield. He had gotten off because the jury had deadlocked. So far that day he had withdrawn two million dollars in cash from four different banks and had been trading calls with Hadley all day.

Their Vic, Barton had been stabbed, and the murder weapon from Heather's case had never been found and their new vic, Barton had been stabbed. Steve had been certain that it was done with the knife that had killed Heather Mayfield, and he had Noelani and Max prove that. Armed with that evidence Steve had confronted Hadley and he had crumbled. Admitted it all, including that Edward had gone to make the exchange, two million for the incriminating knife.

But Steve had extra piece of information that Hadley and Gabler didn't know about. Their third robber was Heather's brother. He wasn't in it for money, he was in it for revenge.

Steve and Danny had gone to rescue Edward, which they managed to do. With the knife now in hand they arrested him for the murder of Heather, and then had to arrest Edward for a slew of other things, like blackmail and assault, and accessory to the murder of Miles Barton.

Chin had gone after the other man in charge of this robbery who was only in it for the money. Chin had run him off the road and then when he went to arrests him he had to shoot him, only because he pulled a gun.

Then it was time to get ready for Max's farewell party. Rowan and Nahele were still at City hall and in line, so Steve had gotten ready and gone off with them with the promise that she would meet him there.

And he didn't like it.

Now he knew how she felt when she had to go to places without him because he was at work. It sucked.

Rowan had shown up at Kamekona's more than half way through Hirsch's nonsensical speech, which was great timing on her part because that speech was a disaster.

Steve had turned the second he felt her presence. And then he stayed turned, ignoring Hirsch's drunken rambling to watch his wife and son walk toward the party.

Rowan had changed into one of her nice navy blue summer dresses and she was wearing cute little white flip-flops. Nahele was in jean and a green button up shirt looking very much like a mini Steve. His son kept trying to offer his mom his arm so she wouldn't be uneven on the sand, like Steve would have if he were walking beside her, but she kept turning him down. He was just happy to see them.

As soon as they got close Steve had an arm out. He got half a hug from Nahele and as in the process of hugging his wife when Nahele started talking to him in a hushed voice.

"I did something big today," he said to Steve and Steve turned to him right away. "I gave myself a new name."

"Oh yeah?" he asked like he had no idea that that was what they were going to do after school that day.

"Yeah that's where me and mom were. We were filing all the paperwork. That's why we're late. That and mom took forever to pick an outfit."

"Hey! Mom paid for everything today. She gets to take all the time she wants to change, thank you very much," Rowan said.

Steve just rolled his eyes. Rowan had refused to sit, instead choosing to stand on Steve's other side. He kept an arm around his wife but was focused on his son. "What did you end up going with?"

"I went with a hyphen," he said as he sat down beside his dad.

"Yeah? Huikala-McGarrett?" he asked but Nahele shook his head. Oh, oh, maybe he was being secretive about this because he wasn't going to take Steve's name at all and he was worried that Steve would be upset. But then again, he was already Huikala-Pierce why would he need to change his name if he already had the name he wanted?

"I gave myself a middle name," he said as if that answered the question but it didn't. "My new, full name, is Nahele Huikala McGarrett-Pierce. Just plain Nahele McGarrett-Pierce, please don't full name me all the time."

For a moment Steve just stared at his son, because he hadn't expected it. He had figured that this was all revolving around what Nahele was picking for his last name, but neither he nor Rowan were pressuring him. Whatever he chose they'd be okay with. Even if he decided to just be Nahele Huikala.

"Uh, it's all legal and everything," he said but he must have misinterpreted Steve's silence because he added: "But I mean, I could change it if you don't like it."

How could this kid not realize that he loved it?

"It's perfect kid," he said slinging an arm around his shoulder as his wife ruffled their kid's hair.

"It really suits him, don't you think? I mean look at him, he's the spitting imagine of a McGarrett-Pierce."

Steve smiled up to his wife and she leant into to kiss him. Steve took it greedily while Nahele groaned. "Come on, please, we're in public."

"Why don't you go tell our friends your new name, huh?" Rowan said and Nahele jumped up to do just that, which left Rowan to take his seat.

"Hey guys, guess what? I got my new name today!" they heard him call to the awaiting Five-0's and Steve and Rowan shared a brief little smile.

Then his eyes fell down to her shoes. "See how come you get to wear flip-flops and I don't?"

Rowan pointed her toes and then turned to him. "Well for starters I take care of my feet. And they always have nice polish on them. And they're cute."

"That's true you do have cute toes," he said and she dropped her head to his shoulder briefly.

"So… you get a quote on the damage on the truck?" Rowan asked and Steve shook his head, he hadn't even taken the truck into a garage yet. "I'm assuming that I'm paying for it, though."

Steve shot her a scowl but she knew that she would. She didn't even care.

"I'm just glad you're okay," she said already moving to play with his hair.

"Babe I wasn't even in the truck when it happened," he reminded her and then he swooped in to kiss her again because he could never resist kissing his wife.

There came a sudden cheer and chant from everyone for Max to give a speech that pulled them out of that kiss. Max tried to tell them that he didn't have anything prepared but they wouldn't let him get away with that. So they ended up peer pressuring him up onto the stage where he just stared at them for a moment.

"Well, uh, thank you everyone for coming out tonight and a very special mahalo to Kamekona for hosting tonight's festivities. Also I wanted to reassure my now former colleagues that the ME's office will be in very capable hands," he then gestured to Noelani. "Dr. Noelani Kunha is more than up to the task."

He paused to allow them to clap and congratulate Noelani. Then he looked at all of their faces clearly faltering before settling on Rowan's face who was shooting him an encouraging smile.

"However, if you ever need counsel on open or prior investigations, of course I am available by email or text. So please contact me at any time." He took a long look at them and said: "So with that, uh, I just wanted to say mahalo. It's been an honor and a privilege to be working with the HPD and the Five-0 Task Force."

They all clapped thinking it was done, but he had clapped eyes with Jerry and apparently they shared a moment because Max was talking again.

"But what I will miss the most is… is my adopted family. And by that, I mean you," he said to all of them and then focused in on Steve. "Commander McGarrett, as you know, I grew up as an only child and I always wanted a big brother. And when I started working with the Five-0, I finally got one."

Rowan glanced to her husband and found him smiling as he lifted his beer to Max.

Max then turned to Danny. "Detective Williams. This might be a surprise to you, but I always considered you as something of a role model."

Danny nodded. "That does… that does surprise me," he admitted as a few people chuckled.

"It surprises us all, Max, but go on!" Steve called.

"I've always been on the receiving end of your sarcasm, but truth be told, it never bothered me. I always took them as a token of affection. I'm going to miss your little quips. I hope that you would consider texting me one of those from time to time."

Danny too raised his beer in agreeance before Max turned to Chin.

"Lieutenant Kelly. Nobody understands the meaning of ohana more than you. And for that reason, among many others, you are going to make an amazing father to little Sara. And from what I've already seen, you already are."

"Mahalo brother."

"Kono," Max said softly after a moment's pause. "Without you, I would have never married my beautiful Sabrina. Detective Williams is my role model as an individual. But your loving relationship with Adam is something that Sabrina and I hope to emulate."

"Love you, Max."

Max then turned his attention onto Grover. "Sergeant Grover, I'll miss your smile," which just made Grover grin. "Yes, that one. I know a part of you will always belong to Chicago. But Hawaii has claimed you as one of its sons, and I truly believe that the islands are a better place because you are here."

"Oh damn it, Max," Grover said as he went about wiping away his own manly shed tears.

"Jerry! Thank you for being a friend and for all your counsel. You've changed me in many ways, you allowed me to grown in ways that I never could've imagined."

Jerry smiled at him and then it was Rowan's turn to get nice words directed at her.

"Rowan, you've literally stood by me whenever needed. Sometimes even when I didn't deserve it, or sometimes without asking and sometimes even illegally. Does Steve know you impersonated him to give me a reference?" he asked and everyone laughed as both Rowan and Steve nodded. "You have always had this way of making me feel welcome and loved and I can only hope that I can be even a fraction as loving and loyal as you are to all you hold dear. Not to mention, I can't wait to brag to everyone that I am friends with the person who wrote all of Alex and the Doctor's hits."

"If you ever need more bragging rights, hit me up," she said and his smile got a little weepier.

"All of you will be ohana to me. Forever. I love you."

They all called out their own I love yous to Max as they all went up to hug him. Taking turns to hold him close and tell him they were rooting for him, until he got to Rowan.

"I was wondering," he said softly as she pulled away from the hug. "If I could maybe get one more song before I go?"

"Why of course you can, have you picked one out?"

"I do," he said as she headed for the stage. As soon as she got there Saturday Night, her first big hit started playing.

And from then on in it wasn't a sad good-bye, it was a party. Celebrating all the good times they had together and all the good things yet to come.