Rewrite

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: It's a Wednesday… and I'm updating?! Has hell frozen over? No! I've just gotten some motivation to write and post on time! Here's hoping I can keep it up. Don't forget to tell me what you think and I'll try to update soon!

Chapter 424

"I cannot believe you did this to me," Steve snapped.

Rowan, who was sitting on their bed, just folded her arms over her chest and frowned at him. "I told you why we did it."

She was no longer crying, and he had been forced to spend a good chunk of his very limited time getting to that point. It took a lot of effort to convince her that it didn't matter what they were doing for sex, Steve enjoyed it. He just… happened to have a specific… position that he liked while doing a very specific roleplay. And he happened to like it… like a lot. The only reason she didn't know that was because they had never talked about favourite positions. He'd've told her it was that one had she asked.

So it was her assumption that had caused this problem. And it shouldn't have been a problem because she liked that position as well, both in and out of roleplay. It was just that… when they were roleplaying that specific scene Steve got infinitely more excited.

Now they were on the argument he wanted to have with her originally. About the intervention she and Danny had sprung on him.

"You never listen to Danny! You don't listen to ANYBODY! Why would you now? And why didn't you warn me?"

"If I warned you, you would have run off and I would have listened to Danny bitch and I just… god Steve, I don't have the bandwidth for Danny's bullshit right now, I just don't."

Steve finished buckling his belt and then turned to her. "Are you not feeling well again?"

Rowan's eyes had turned up to him, being sure to trail up from his belt line and up. He was shirtless which was probably distracting her, normally, argument or not, she've gotten up to touch him. She usually did when he was shirtless for prolonged periods of time. She'd place her hands on his chest and then they'd move and then he'd get distracted usually by kissing her, or by his own wandering hands.

But that hadn't happened. He was going to say it probably had something to do with the fact that he had put on a pair of grey cargo pants, mostly to punish her. However, she had literally been sick every day this month at some point, mostly right when she woke up, and he was starting to think she wasn't well right at that moment either.

He was actually super worried about it but, just like he had been when the symptoms of his radiation poisoning showed up, she was stubbornly refusing to go get herself checked out.

"Well… you know I haven't been feeling well recently…"

"No I know, and I'm starting to think him stressing you out with this intervention was contributing to that… hey maybe you need the stress coach more than me, huh?" Steve asked with a bit of a smirk. Rowan just glared at him and he sighed. Yeah he clearly wasn't getting out of this. "What about today? Are you feeling okay today, though?"

"I'm feeling better now, but I wasn't feeling so hot this morning."

Steve frowned right away. He moved closer to her, immediately putting a hand to her forehead. Her temperature felt normal. Maybe it had already passed.

He then crouched down in front of her so she'd look him in the eye. "Why didn't you tell me before I went for my swim?"

"It didn't start up until you were in the water, what was I supposed to do, pop a flare?"

She was joking but now that she mentioned it, it sort of seemed like a good idea. She wasn't using her powers at the moment, the flare would be a good alternative until she was using them again.

"Right… fair," he said softly. "Send a twinge next time, I'll come right back. That's alright, right? Just sending me a twinge?"

Rowan shrugged and Steve moved in to kiss her. One kiss was never just one kiss with them though, the second her arms wrapped around his neck he had his arms around her waist so he could have her pressed against him. They made out for way longer than he intended and it took all his willpower to let her go and put her back onto the bed he had basically pulled her off of.

"Right. Well, I guess I can forgive you, if you promise not to do it again… unless I actually need one," he said and she nodded happily. "Hey did Nahele tell you why he wanted to stay home today? I know you said mental health day, but did he say if something was wrong with him?"

"No, I can tell he's frazzled about something but he won't tell me what. I don't want to push him either, I want him to feel like he can come to us with anything. Either way I figured it'd be better to keep him home today, seeing as he wasn't feeling it today."

He wished all parents felt like that. Rowan was pretty progressive, though Steve was still certain that she was parenting the way she wished someone had parented her.

"Still not sure why you let him stay to support me during the intervention when we agreed we weren't going to tell him about this."

"Yeah, I was going to send him upstairs, but forgot," she admitted.

Right that was fair.

Steve got his shirt on and Rowan stayed quiet. It wasn't until he was reaching for his badge and gun that she spoke up again.

"I'm sorry," Rowan said quietly, tears were brimming in her eyes. "I'm sorry we sprung this on you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I'm sorry, but maybe it'll help and…"

"Ro, you should have just paid the woman and sprung her on me yourself. You know I'm much more resistant if it's Danny, especially since he set up that humiliation meeting…"

"That's not what that was," Rowan said right away. "He just wanted you to see that everyone cares about you and wants you to get better, not just me and him."

"Okay… yeah… that was kind of nice of him."

"And we knew you'd never agree to a meeting. So. We went with surprise…"

"Right… well… that's fair. I definitely would have found a way out of it if I knew it was coming," he admitted with a sigh.

She smiled again, this time the motion a little less weepy. She opened her arms to him and he moved right away to hug her. He wanted nothing more than to stay that way with her for the rest of the day. To tumble back into that bed. To kiss her until—

"You good?" Danny asked and Steve jerked out of the thoughts that had quickly spiraled away from the conversation he had been replaying in his head.

"Yeah, just… worried about Ro is all."

"Yeah? Was she sick again this morning?"

"Yep. Didn't tell me until after the intervention though," Steve whispered.

"I keep telling you…" "—Danny if you want to accuse her of hiding a pregnancy from me you go ahead and do it, but when she comes crying to me because you indirectly called her fat I will punch you."

Danny huffed but said nothing because no way did he want to chance insulting Rowan. Rowan might have been the one having the meltdowns recently, but Steve was just as irritable and willing to jump to her defense when needed.

Steve glanced in the rear-view mirror to Chloe who was sitting quietly in the back. She had been listening to the conversation between Steve and Danny intently, every now and then making notes in her brown notebook.

Steve wanted to know what she was writing.

He didn't call her out though cause that would make everything worse and he didn't want to do that. So he sat silently and stewed. Quite annoyed that this was what he was going to be his day today.

They got to the crime scene and Steve and Danny got out of the Camaro with Chloe following them. As Steve went for his gloves he realized he didn't have a second pair for Chloe.

Great.

"Oh, hey, Chloe. You ever been to a crime scene before?" he asked.

He wasn't entirely surprised when she said: "No."

"Okay, just don't touch anything, alright?"

"Uh… please…" she said quickly, jogging to catch up to Steve.

Steve paused for a moment, realized what it was she wanted and then said: "Uh… don't touch anything, please?"

She smiled right away. "Remember, simple gestures like well-bred social behaviour breeds positive results, which, in turn, reduces stressors."

My god he was getting a lesson in manners. He might as well have been back in kindergarten. Fucking hell, he better be getting laid tonight. That was the only thing keeping him from snapping at this point.

So instead of freaking out, like Danny seemed to think he would—judging by the amused smirk he was wearing, pointed right in Steve's direction—he said: "I'm gonna keep that in mind. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Steve turned right away, desperate to get away from her. "Duke, what do you got?"

He quickly approached the car that Duke was standing beside. A typical four door sedan, dark in colour, just chilling at the side of the road.

Inside there were two dead bodies. One in the driver's seat the other in the passenger, both covered in blood.

"Victims' names are Todd Barris and James Lowe. They're realtors from Nevada. Both shot close range while sitting in their rental car with the engine off. Time of death was around 5am."

Steve and Danny were busy looking over the crime scene like they usually did. Looking for anything out of the ordinary, Or at least Steve was. He had no idea Danny was even watching Chloe until he turned to her and asked: "You okay?"

"I think I'm gonna be sick," she said and then whirled around to run off to vomit.

Steve watched her go, waited for Danny to turn around and then said: "Good job, buddy. You've traumatized the stress lady."

And, not only did they traumatize the stress lady, but they found the victim's phone. It had been recording for 4 hours, they had even got their own murder on film.

They were killed in what seemed to be a routine traffic stop, by a cop, who shot them for absolutely no reason. The cop's name? Mathus. Easy, right?

Wrong. Cause Pat Mathus died three years ago.

Yeah. This was going to be one of those cases.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve and Danny were on the way to the Palace next. Chloe was feeling better and back in the car and Steve had gotten Tani on the phone to discuss what she had found after he gave her the update and told her to research.

He was hoping that this took a long time so he wouldn't have to deal with Chloe and her assessment.

"Patrick Mathus is most certainly dead," she said. Great so they had someone pretending to be him. "He died in 2014 from heart disease."

"Why would somebody wanna impersonate him?" Steve wondered aloud. It made no sense. "It's not gonna help him get away with killing these guys."

"Yeah, I'm not sure. As it happens, the real Mathus wasn't much better than our shooter," she said. Great, it was getting worse. "He was fired from HPD seven years ago for excessive use of force. He was charged with assault and served 18 months."

"Okay, what about family?" Danny asked. Yes, good question.

"Yeah, he left behind his ex, Claudia Nelson, his son, Oliver Mathus, who's now in his thirties. His ex lives in Kapolei. I can send you her address right now."

"Alright, Tani, good work. Thank you," he said.

Before Tani hung up Steve almost asked her what was going on with her and Rowan. He never got a straight answer out of his wife about why she was so mad at Tani. He was hoping that Tani might know but, honestly, he also didn't want to be in the middle. Cause he wouldn't be in the middle, he'd be on Rowan's side.

Even if she wasn't making sense.

And that would just double the stress he was already under, and if he did it in front of Chloe she'd judge him on his reaction, so he just let it go.

So, now he had somewhere else to head instead of the Palace that was going to double the time this trip was going to take and give Chloe more of a chance to bug him.

And his fears were realized because the second he hung up the phone Chloe piped up.

"Look, if we have a few minutes, I'd like to talk about what happened at the crime scene."

Yeah he figured she would.

"Don't worry, alright? I mean, you had a perfectly normal human reaction to what is a horrible thing, a gruesome death, okay? So don't think about it."

He thought he was doing a good job at being comforting so he was entirely surprised when Chloe said: "Oh… yeah… I did, but you barely blinked and… and I'm a little concerned about that."

Aw. No. What? Come on!

"I think it might be a good idea to start talking about how what you see at a crime scene makes you feel."

Dear god I was like being back at the shrink's. He hated their shrink.

He heard chuckling and immediately turned a glare onto Danny. Oh the bastard, he was enjoying this way too much.

"Sorry, just to be clear, you want me to stop down and talk about my feelings every time I see a dead body, is that what you mean?"

Cause if that was a case… well Steve just didn't have the time for that.

She hit him with an uhhh and he knew right away that was what she was going to ask him to do so he cut her off right away.

"First of all, I'll never get any work done. We see dead bodies every day. Second of all, its part of the job, I mean, it's not… it's not… that's not nice but it goes with the territory, right? Danny…"

He was hoping that Danny would back him up, Danny had to understand where he was coming from, right? But before Danny could say anything Chloe was talking again.

"The point is that stress management isn't some new age nonsense. It's mostly checking in with yourself, making small tweaks to your daily life and having outlets from work. So, uh, cam I ask you some questions?"

Steve didn't want her to but he still said: "Yeah."

"What do you like doing in your spare time?"

Oh geeze. Uh…. "I don't know." Steve turned to Danny for help. "What do I do? I mean, I like to swim, I swim a lot. I like to cook, do I not?"

Danny nodded along with him and even added in a: "He's a good cook."

"Thank you," Steve said almost breathing out a sigh of relief, he was ridiculously happy that Danny had backed him up for the first time since that morning.

"Ro does most of the cooking though," Danny added and Steve scowled.

"It's just cause she's home before me, and she's making dinner for Nahele and…"

"How about any other hobbies?" Chloe asked disrupting the burgeoning argument.

Steve huffed but when back to brain storming before coming up with a few more things to add to his surprisingly sparse list of hobbies. "Uh, I got my dad's old Mercury in the garage, I like to tinker with that when I got some time. I uh… throw the football around with my kid… you know… a bunch of stuff."

Chloe, however, did not seem impressed.

"Well, uhm, I mean… how about your wife?"

Steve immediately bristled. "What about my wife?"

"Well, do you spend time with her…" "—Of course I do!" "… So you go on date nights? Or have hobbies you two do together?"

Steve blinked his eyes. "Uh… I mean… we try… date nights, I do try but uh… work, I'm tired when I get home… I usually get called onto a case… we have bad luck with date nights and cases…"

Chloe immediately began scribbling that down and Steve fought the urge to turn around and snatch that book out of her hand and throw it out the window.

"Okay… and how often are you two… intimate?"

Steve balked at that question, mostly because he wasn't sure he believed this girl had the balls to ask him that. "Uh intimate? You mean…"

"Sex," she said right away. So yes, she did have the balls. "It can be a terrific stress reliever. So, uh, are you having regular sex?"

Steve had to chuckle at how ridiculous this conversation had become and it got worse when Danny parroted the question back at him. "Are you having regular sex, Steven?"

"It's a little… I just… I'm sorry, but that's a little personal. Not sure my wife would appreciate…"

"But you talk to Danny about your sex life," she said and Steve frowned. "So much so that he knew your favourite position, instead of your wife. Do you often keep things from her?"

"No!" he said right away and he knew right away if he didn't cut Danny off he'd tell Chloe that that was a lie. "Yes, Ro and I have regular sex. Uh not kink shaming, or anything, that's not what I mean, I mean we do get… we have our own things… kinks… stuff in bed. I just mean, we're having sex regularly, as in frequently."

God why had he rambled like that?

"Oh, good," she said. "No shame here."

Yeah well he felt shamed. All sorts of shame and embarrassment.

They were silent for a bit, Steve shot Danny a proud smile as if to say: "See, I'm playing your game. And into that silence Chloe asked: "Um… how often?"

He knew right away what she was asking and internally he was cursing whatever gods made this happen.

"I don't know," he said through grit teeth.

"You know, just a little ballpark."

"Ballpark? Oh, okay. Uh… five times a week, I guess," he said.

It was a lie. It was totally a lie and Danny better not say shit about it.

"Alright with the five times a week," Danny said with a scoff and Steve scowled at him, hoping the look alone would get Danny to shut up.

He evened added an: "Excuse me?" in warning. Danny should have known to drop it, but no, no he didn't. He just forged on forward.

"That's an inaccurate number," Danny said. "And before you ask me how I know, I know because you fucking tell me. You brag about your sex life, actually. That and I can tell when you two have had sex." He then turned around to Chloe. "See, he likes it when Rowan scratches up his back so if they've had one of their quickies, he'll be wearing a dark shirt to hide the blood. Today is a light shirt, so no quicky before work. I'm guessing she was either sick or because of they were arguing about you."

Danny then turned that smug look onto Steve who honestly felt like he could punch him.

They were arguing about the stress coach, and the favourite sex position so he didn't get a chance to fuck her like he wanted, but he wasn't going to say that though.

"Why are you keeping track of how much sex I'm having with my wife?" Steve asked.

Danny just shook his head. "He and Ro go at it twice a week, three at the most, though that has been a lot less recently cause she's busy with her next premiere and Steve has been working. Recently, though, she's been acting very bipolar. So she'll get mad at him, and then threaten to withhold sex if he doesn't comply or apologize, and sometimes they'll be sex starved for a few days, and sometimes she'll just jump him, and then go back to being mad. He's been complaining about how little sex he's been getting recently."

"Don't write that down, it's not true," Steve said. "Answer my question. Why are you keeping track of my sex life?"

"I'm not keeping track Steve," Danny cried. "I know your habits. You're my partner. I know what clothes you wear after a quicky, I know that stupid goofy I just got laid smile of yours and if I don't ask you what that smile is about you will legitimately TELL ME that you got laid. That's not keeping track!"

Steve just shook his head. "Well it's weird, and I'd like you to stop it."

"You want me to stop noticing patterns in your behaviour?" Danny asked. "Really? That's what you want me to do? I'm a detective, Steven, this is my job! And, while we're at, if you really don't want me to know, don't fucking tell me shit, don't complain, just keep it to yourself."

Steve shook his head and then shot a glance to Chloe. "He's wrong. Four to Five times a week. Ro and I do not have a problem with our sex life."

"I never said you did," Danny snapped but Steve was determined to ignore him. And luckily both he and Chloe were quiet for the rest of the ride to Pat Mathus' ex's house.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

They had found a dead body in the ex's house. Claudia herself, was dead in her bed. Steve was pretty sure it was natural causes, when they found it, and Noelani eventually proved that theory right.

They also found a whole pharmacy of meds in the kitchen, all prescribed to Oliver. The last three days, had not been taken.

The running theory was that his mom was on top of his meds, she died, and he had a mental break down.

The obviously needed more help with this situation, of course, so Steve dropped Danny and Chloe off at the Palace, and while Danny and Tani got Oliver's files, Steve went to go talk to Alicia Brown.

Steve had texted that Oliver had a multi personality disorder, DID, apparently. He had seven alters in total, and unlike Gray, he was not faking it. The thinking was that Oliver was the primary, he spent most of the time out, the two that they've been seeing now is the little boy version of him, Ollie, and the very aggressive alter that's been killing people.

Steve also called, to confirm that the issue was most likely that, after the death of his mother, the violent alter, which was actually his dad Pat Mathus, came out to protect him.

Alicia was coming in to help them catch Oliver, because, in his state as Pat Mathus he actually had no idea what he was doing. He actually thought that he was Mathus, he thought he was a cop, and still does apparently.

After that call Danny realized that Chloe was in Steve's office. Yes Steve said make herself at home, but in his office? No way he meant in his office. That and she had brought Junior in, according to Tani, to ask him about McGarrett's home life.

Absolutely fucking bullshit because if she was going to ask anyone about McGarret's home life it should have been Rowan, his fucking wife.

Danny opened the door to Steve's office just as Junior was heading out, completely scowling at Junior's smug smile and Chloe's happy one.

"What a great kid," she said as Danny approached her.

She sat down in Steve's chair and the desire to rip her out of that chair was strong. "Yeah, he's a great kid. What, uh…"

"Oh, actually, I'm glad you're here," she said interrupting his question. It was going to be why the hell are you in here, and sitting at his desk and asking Junior who barely knows Steve what Steve is like at home? That did not happen though, and Danny figured he should pick his battles. He did, however, watch her eyes flit over all the picture frames Steve had crowding his desk before turning a few towards Danny.

Oh. That wasn't good.

"He really does like showing off his family, doesn't he?"

"Yes he does," Danny said carefully, not sure where that was going.

"I was wondering, do you think Commander McGarrett would, um, consider maybe a treadmill desk or uh… a snake plant?"

Danny blinked his eyes. Well that would eliminate the pictures so. No.

"What's a snake plant?" he asked instead.

"It's an evergreen perennial," she said right away like Danny knew what that was. "Great for small spaces. And plants can be an incredible mood booster. A few adjustments to one's workspace, it can do wonders for stress relief."

"Uh… he's got… he's got something green in that bag he got on his birthday. And uh… okay, let me explain something to you. Ah… you shouldn't be in here," he said as he sat down on the couch beside Steve's chair. "He should not know what you were snooping around in his office at all. Especially the bottom drawer. It should be locked so that doesn't matter, actually is it locked? You know what, it doesn't even matter, don't even try to open it, actually, just leave that one alone."

That was Steve's… Not Safe For Work drawer. Danny thought it was stupid that Steve kept PRINTED nudes of his wife in there but Steve said he needed them for the bad days.

Couldn't just get Rowan to text them to him like a normal person, naw the man had to have a vault. At work. Literally the worst place to have them.

"And as far as him making any changes to his workspace, that's just… it's just not gonna happen. The only reason he's got a plant in here is because Rowan bought him that bag for his birthday and then made him pick a plant to put in it and then made him bring it here. It literally sat in a corner until Ro came in and realized he hadn't put it up and put it up herself. And do not even suggest moving his picture frames, they're in very specific spots that only make sense to him."

She seemed to take that in. "So, not… ever?"

"Never ever, yeah. That's out. Alright, I told you. He's stubborn, very pigheaded. He's like a child. Uh, so getting him to change anything is gonna be difficult… unless we ask Ro. Ro's pretty good at getting him to switch stuff up but even then we have problems."

"Okay," she said looking away for a bit. "Uhm… how about you?"

"How about me what?"

"I just, from what I've seen, between you and his wife, I can't help but notice that some of your behaviour, uhm, can be causing Commander McGarrett some undue stress."

"Why? What am I doing?" Danny asked.

"You two got in a pretty heated argument in the car this morning. How often does that happen? Once or twice a month?"

Like every time they got in the car.

"Sure, something like that."

"Right. And I imagine that he gets pretty worked up, huh?"

Yep they both did. But carguments were their thing. He hated calling them that, but that's what they were and they were their thing.

"Yeah, he gets worked up sometimes… all the time," he admitted. "But you know… it's not just me…"

"Yes, I have noted that he has heated arguments with Rowan as well…"

Shit she had mentioned Rowan at the start of this too, he had kinda of forgotten after she started hitting him with accusations. That wasn't good. And that wasn't who he had meant either. If she thought Steve was worked up with Danny she should see him work with Con or Wo Fat.

"She's my next conversation, actually, there are somethings she could be doing and some that might be antagonizing…" "—yeah, don't do that," Danny said right away. "See, cause if you do that, she's gonna cry and if you make her cry he'll pitch a fit… honestly… wouldn't include her in this. Seriously."

"Okay, well, I'll worry about how to break it to Rowan," she said and Danny sighed. God, he had tried to warn her. "For you, for the time being, if you could keep your conversations centered with your partner around work and be civil and as positive as you can.

"Well, that's gonna be very difficult for a number of reasons. One being that we have a restaurant."

"What… what restaurant?"

"Uh, yeah. Steve and I are opening a restaurant together." Yeah, Chloe did not make a good face after that announcement. "What is that?"

"Uh… it's just, you know, uhm, starting a business, especially one with a 60-80 percent failure rate, can be very stressful."

"Let me ask you something. Why do people feel the need to point out to me that most restaurant fails? I don't need to know that," Danny asked cutting her off entirely.

"I'm sorry, I just…"

"So I gotta change," Danny asked interrupting her again. "Is that what you're getting at?"

"If you could be a little less negative, uh… a little more agreeable in your dealings with Steve, I think… I think that would really help."

Danny nodded. "Just for the record, I am always the one changing. It is always me compromising for him. It's very typical. It's never him doing anything."

And it wasn't just him who was doing it, Rowan was doing all the compromising as well.

"I'm sure that's very frustrating."

"It is beyond frustrating."

"But you're gonna be happy to try, right?"

"Listen, it's gonna make me wanna kill myself but I'll give it a shot," he said and Chloe just smiled in that annoying smirkish way. "Okay, you know what, do it. Go ahead, you tell Rowan that she's the problem or Steve, tell Steve for that matter, I think it'll go great."

It was a complete and utter lie, or course, but now he didn't care. He wanted Chloe the Stress Management Coach to get yelled at. But Steve chose that moment to show up with Alicia.

"Think what will go great?" he asked.

"Uh, Tai-chi," Danny said. There was no way he was going to drop that bomb on Steve now. Instead he smiled a dropped a different bomb. "She thinks you need an elliptical desk and a frog plant for your office. Thinks it'll help you."

"No, no, a treadmill desk and a snake plant," she clarified.

Steve glared at the two of them and then simply said: "No. I like my office the way it is."

"See," he said to Chloe. "She moved your pictures around, by the way."

"What?!" Steve cried. "No! MOVE!"

Chloe jumped to her feet and let Steve shove her aside so he could see what had happened and fix it. As he did Danny chuckled.

"Yeah, if I have to suffer, so do you," he said and then turned to Alicia. "This is Alicia, she's consulting on this case now, I'm guessing."

Chloe turned away from Steve who was painstakingly arranging the picture frames centimeter by centimeter to fix so they were just the way he liked them.

"Hi, I'm Chloe Gordon. Consulting on Steve."

Alicia hit her with a pained look. "Yes, I heard, good luck with that," she said and then turned to Steve. "I'm sure your pictures are still lovely, Steve, but uh, we have to debrief everyone and that might be more important."

Steve tore his eyes away from his picture frames and up to her and then kind of sighed.

"I guess I'll fix it later," he said and then turned to Chloe. "You're not allowed in my office anymore. Everything has a place, and those pictures were…"

"I barely touched them."

"Yes but you touched them and now they're off kilter…"

"Steve?" Alicia called again and he huffed but nodded once more, being sure to push Chloe out of the room and away from his desk.

Danny was just happy to be right and definitely starting to regret bringing on this Stress Management Coach.