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AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: It's another Wednesday and another update. We're onto episode 8 now, and at the end of this episode we're going to learn something new about one of our favourite characters. Anyone wanna guess what? Don't forget to drop a fav, a follow or a review and I'll see you guys next week!

Chapter 433

For the fifth night in a row Rowan woke up screaming.

It started off as a strangled moan but she quickly bolted up and out of bed with a shuddering yelp and Steve followed, lurching out after her.

He wrapped her up in his arms and held her tightly, his eyes barely open. He knew what to do, he had been doing this every night all week. It was practically second nature now.

"No, no, it's okay, it's okay," he said pulled her head down to his shoulder and petting her hair. "It was just a dream, just a dream."

No matter how tightly he held her, every day for the past week, his wife had woken up screaming. The same nightmare every time.

Him crashing a plane.

He kept telling her he already did that. He got shot and Danny crashed the plane they were in cause he didn't know how to land it. She shouldn't be dreaming about it again.

But no.

No.

This one was different.

This was Steve alone in a plane. It was some kind of race, she kept saying. He was going to clip a massive inflatable pylon, and then go down. The blunt force trauma was never what killed him, no he got stuck in the plane and would drown.

Rowan would be a widow. His son would loose a second father, the better father.

She wouldn't even have a body to bury, he'd be lost at sea, which made no sense, but that was what she'd say was going to happen.

Her dreams had kicked up when she saw the exact course he was going to die on. Last weekend, they had gone to Ala Moana Beach Park so he and Nahele could surf and found the whole course set up in the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor. It was the Hammerade Air Races.

But Steve would have to be invited into that race. It was for a certain circuit and professional racing pilots. Steve was not a part of that so there was literally no way for it to happen. None. Not even a little bit.

"It was awful…" she sobbed into his shoulder.

"Yes, I know, but it was just a dream. It didn't happen," he said again his voice monotone and flat. "It's okay, I'm here."

Honestly he was getting tired of having to do this, over and over again, but he didn't want Rowan to know that though. He was sure it was probably obvious, but he was trying to keep it from her.

"You…" "—I know," he said right away. "I promise. No plane, no plane races, I promise Rowan, I promise, I won't go up in a plane until this passes. Okay. I promise."

He lay back down, taking Rowan with him, pillowing her against his chest so she could hear his heart beat. She was clinging to him, tightly. Her nails digging into his skin. He had to pry a hand away to get the clawed grip off of him before carefully putting it back onto him.

She understood what that meant though, so as she settled her hands back at his side, it was a soft touch.

They were quiet a moment before she whispered: "It's going to happen soon."

Yes, that's what it meant when her dreams came that frequently, but he didn't want to believe it. He just didn't.

"No it's not. Because I'm not going to be flying any planes. I promise."

He kissed the top of her head and felt her softly smile against his chest. He figured her sufficiently soothed which meant he could go back to sleep.

Not entirely realizing that the very events she was worried about were about to be kicked into motion by a single phone call he'd be getting in just a few hours.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

The call in question was from an old Navy friend of Steve's. He had gotten it while he was out with Danny looking at place settings for their restaurant. Shockingly, or not, they couldn't quite decide on a pattern.

Steve had been grateful to get the call because it got him out of that shop and it got him distracted. Danny even agreed to come along, to go and meet his friend.

They had gone to Kamekona's shrimp truck, and Steve was happy to see that his friend was already there waiting for them.

"Look at that. Is that Rockin' Ronnie Turner right there? Dude!"

He turned around when he heard Steve a smile on his face. "Ensign McGarrett."

Oh damn, it had been a long time since Steve had been an Ensign. Internally he cringed.

"Ensign McGarrett," he echoed. "What's it been, 15 years?"

"Give or take, give or take," he said as he pulled Steve in for a hug.

"Buddy, you look good, man."

"Thank you, you too."

Steve then turned back to Danny. "Danny Williams, my partner."

"Hey. Nice to meet you," Danny said offering him a hand to shake.

"Same here."

"I was telling Danny on the way over. This guy was the best mechanic we ever had on base, and probably the best mechanic I ever met. I learned a lot from this man."

It was true he had, and Danny had nodded along, listening to Steve talk, because it kept them from arguing about their restaurant, which was all they ever seemed to do. If he wasn't arguing with him about Rowan's weird symptoms, that is.

They all sat down at the picnic table before continuing though.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, you and your dad ever get that old Mercury up and on the road?" Ronnie asked.

"Naw, man, we never really got there," he said.

"Oh that's a shame."

"But uh… me and… me and my kid we've been working on it together. So it's kinda been… handed down sort of. First it was me and my dad now it's me and my kid…"

"Kid huh…" Ronnie said with a bit of a smirk. "And did I hear you got married too?"

"I did," Steve said immediately going for both his wallet and his phone. He took the printed picture he had of Rowan, Nahele and him on his wedding night and handed it to him before going for his phone for the rest of the pictures. "That's uh… that's my Ro… Rowan. And Nahele, he's in between us."

Ronnie took the picture in and then turned to see the pictures that Steve was showing him. "That's… uh… that's her… I have a lot of pictures of her…"

"You sure do," he said as he took them in. "And uh… you… you somehow got this very pretty, very much out of your league girl to marry you? She blind?"

"No," Steve said with a scoff. "But I'm still shocked she agreed, to this day."

"We all were," Danny said and Steve shot him a glare.

"You must've known her awhile," Ronnie said carefully as he continued to flip through the album of pictures on Steve's phone.

"No, oh… you mean cause of Nahele," he said. "'Hele's adopted. Uh, still my son, but adopted. I've known her for five years, been married for one."

"Well it looks good on you man," Ronnie said and Steve just smiled.

"So what brings you to the island?" Danny asked desperate to get off the topic of Steve and his lovey-dovey marriage.

"I'm here for the Hammerade Air Races," he said and right away Steve felt Danny's eyes on him. "Uh, I've been one of their chief mechanics for the last ten years."

Steve nodded, ignoring Danny's stare. "Hey, I heard one of your pilots crashed the other days, is that right?"

It better be right because he had been planning on using that as why Rowan was having the dreams. Except she was putting him in the pilot seat instead of the actual person who died.

"Yeah, that's actually why I asked you here," Ronnie said and Steve once again ignored Danny's look cause Rowan had predicted this too. "I need your help. That pilot was my pilot. His plane nose-dived into the water during a training session, and, uh, he was killed on impact."

"I'm sorry, Ronnie. What was his name?"

"Jason Sachs, but the public knew him as The Shadow Baron."

Now that caught Danny's attention. "Shadow Baron, huh?"

"It was his alter ego," Ronnie explained. "The races are like, uh, pro wrestling. All the pilots have fake personas. You know, the Crimson Ace, uh, Midnight Flyer, Amelia Sweetheart. A lot of showmanship, but the flying's all legit. Jason's angle was anonymity. Always wore a helmet. Never showed his face. Didn't talk much. Figured, uh, the more mysterious he was, the more interesting he'd be."

"So what do you need from us?"

Ronnie immediately got serious again, more serious than he was before. "I'd like for you to look into the crash."

"That's… uhm… that's a NTSB's thing," Danny said interrupting Steve before he could just agree.

"Yeah, and they've been investigating, but they only just fished Jason's plane out of the water yesterday and I'm already hearing they're gonna declare this thing pilot error."

"You don't agree with that, obviously."

"Not for a second. Could have been anything, you know, a defective part, a design flaw, hell, sabotage, for all I know."

"Well, you got any evidence to back these theories up?"

"NTSB won't let me near the wreckage," Ronnie said. Right so that was big fat no.

"If they've seen the plane and you have not, why, uh, why not just take their word for it?" Danny asked, which was a fair question.

"Jason was the best pilot I've ever seen. This guy came out of nowhere five years ago. No military background, never flew any commercial aircraft, but he could do anything in the sky. Up there, he was ice cold, you know, no mistakes. There's no way this was pilot error."

Steve took that in with a nod. "Ronnie, I got to ask you something. Is it possible this could've been mechanic?"

He thought Ronnie might be upset, or offended but the man just scoffed and smirked. "You know me, Steve. There's no way I would ever let anything leave the ground I wouldn't fly myself."

"I know," Steve said cause it was true.

"Hammerade and the pilot do one final inspection the day of. But I looked that plane over myself the night before, nose to rudder. That thing was clean," he said and Steve nodded. He took in both of their stares and sort of sighed. "Look, I know you guys don't normally do stuff like this. But Jason was a good guy, with a wife and a little boy. If NTSB declares this crash pilot error, insurance won't pay his family a dime. Neither will Hammerade. They'll be left with nothing."

Steve glanced to Danny who was clearly not impressed, but honestly it was a no brainer.

So even though Steve knew he shouldn't have, though he knew that this was going to set Rowan off, he agreed to help.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

After promising Ronnie he'd look into it, Steve placed a call.

He figured out where the crash was being investigated, who was in charge and got them to agree to meet.

Well, he called the Governor and had her pressure them to meet with Five-0 but he still got it done.

He then drove all the way over to that hanger, listening to Danny call him stupid in every way he could think of. This was obviously the start of Rowan's dream, this was the road that led them down the path to Steve dying in a plane crash.

When Rowan found out she was going to freak, in fact Danny was threatening to text her himself.

So Steve wasn't entirely in a good mood when they got the hanger and he got to meet the agent in charge.

The man introduced himself as Agent Callaghan and for some reason, Steve just didn't like him. There was something about his face that made Steve want to punch him.

He wasn't sure what it was yet and he was willing to give this man a chance to prove him wrong, but the fact of the matter was that Steve just didn't like him.

At all.

He met them at their car, and then began to lead them back to the hanger where the plane was being kept.

"It's tragic. Really. If this had happened closer to shore during the actual race, there could've been dozens of casualties," he said as they walked.

"Where are you guys at with the investigation?"

"Our preliminary investigation should be wrapping up soon, but at this point, all indications are this was pilot error."

"Okay, it's a little early to make a call like that though, right?" Danny asked. Yes, yes, thank you Danny Williams. Steve whole heartedly agreed with that.

"This wasn't a 747 that just dropped off the radar," he said. "It's a little more cut and dry when you're dealing with an aircraft like this. Believe me. I've been covering these races for NTSB since '06. When you've seen as many of these incidents as I have, you recognize when it's the plane and when it's the pilot. Now we're gonna ship the wreckage back to DC for further analysis but otherwise, we should be done in the next day or two."

Yeah, that was bullshit.

Steve literally walked away mid-sentence to get a closer look at that plane. Poor Agent Callaghan was not expecting it, which meant he had to jog after Steve to catch up. He might have tried to stop him, but that wouldn't have gone well and one glare from Steve convinced him not to try.

Instead he let Steve looking everything over. The plane, the pieces that had fallen off and were now displayed on the ground to be photographed and examined.

"Have all the pieces been recovered?"

"There are a few components that are still unaccounted for. A couple of left wing bolts, uh part of the landing gear, the trim tab…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Steve said cutting him off. "Trim tab? You don't have the trim tab?"

"We're confident the conclusion will be the same with or without it."

At that Danny lifted his good hand, the one that wasn't in the sling. "I don't know too much about planes. What's a trim tab?"

"Trim tab is a rudder of the plane," Steve said. And then pointed to the empty part of the tail where it was missing from. "It goes right there. If anything would've happened mechanically to this thing up in the air, the pilot would lose control of the plane, isn't that right?"

He then turned his stare back onto Callaghan, daring him to lie to him again. Cause that's what Steve felt this man was doing.

Lying to them.

He was covering something up. Steve just didn't know what yet.

Danny took in the heavy sigh from Callaghan like it was admittance that Steve was right. "So without that piece, it's pretty hard to come to a real conclusion, right?"

"I'm sure you gentlemen have closed plenty of cases despite not having access to every piece of potential evidence. We work with the clues that we have."

"Okay. Maybe you can do something else for us. We'd like to see the cock pit video, if that's not too much trouble."

"You're welcome to put in a request to review any footage after the investigation is complete."

Yeah. That was a fancy way of saying no.

"You're in charge of this investigation, right?"

Callaghan was clearly confused about why Steve had asked that. "Yes."

"Okay. All I'm asking is for you to cut through a little red tape and let us see that video as a professional courtesy."

"Look, don't take this the wrong way, Commander, Detective. But unless a crime has been committed, we're the sole investigators on this case. That means that we don't have to share anything with anyone, especially if you're gonna come in here and question my team's work."

For a moment the two of them stared at each other until Callaghan added: "But I would be more than happy to keep you guys in the loop from here on out as a professional courtesy."

Steve continued to stare at him, sizing him up. Not liking how defensive this guy was. Not liking that he wasn't getting his way.

"Now, unless there's something else, I've got to get back to work," he said.

Steve just turned on heel letting Danny say good bye for the both of them, not entirely impressed that he also thanked the man for his time. Steve was not thankful and didn't plan on speaking to that man kindly if he had to cross his path again.

By the time Danny caught up he already had his phone out he just hadn't noticed yet.

"You know what I think? I think that you being exposed to that radiation was the best thing that ever happened to you."

"This should be good."

"No, look at this, Peter Parker, right? He gets bit by a radioactive spider and turns into a superhero. You, a superhero, you getting hooked up with some radiation and you turn into a human being, huh?"

Danny laughed at his joke for all of two seconds before he noticed the phone in Steve's and frowned. "Oh no. What are you doing?"

"What's your point?" Steve said instead as he pulled up Wo's contact.

"I… okay. I was just saying pre-radioactive Steve would've punched that guy right in the mouth. I was also going to say I'm proud of you, but now you have your phone and I'm distinctly less proud. What are you doing?"

"You think I didn't wanna punch him in the mouth? Let me tell you something. This guy, making a call like that without a crucial piece of evidence, is one of two things: either he's a complete idiot or he's hiding something."

"Please don't be calling your wife," Danny said. "I don't wanna deal with any of her brothers. It's bad for your stress, it's bad for mine, it's bad for theirs. It's just not good, don't do it."

"I'm not calling Ro," he said. "But I am going to cut through that red tape myself."

And then he pressed dial. The phone rang once before Wo picked up with a: "What."

"Hey, yeah, she's fine," Steve said and got nothing but silence back from Wo Fat. A silence Steve knew Wo Fat was using to judge him. "Actually you're right, I don't know if she's fine, I haven't heard from her in a while… have uh..."

"You haven't heard from her because you're ignoring her," Wo Fat snapped. "Probably because you don't want to tell her that you've gotten yourself embroiled with a case that's going to get you killed."

"Who told you that?"

"She did," Wo Fat cried. "She knows what you're doing!"

"Well who told her!" Steve cried and then turned to Danny. "Did you tell Rowan?"

Danny shook his head but Steve wasn't sure he believed him.

"She's baking," Wo Fat said interrupting Steve's interrogation and Steve almost winced cause Rowan did most of her baking when she was upset. "And not happy, this is a gift for someone, baking. The crying into the batter, Con is very concerned, kind of baking."

"Okay so she's not as fine as I'd like her to be…"

"Are you in the plane about to crash right now? Because your last call should have been to her."

"Okay, how many people did she tell about this? Steve snarled. "For the love of god, I'm not I'm just… I wanted to ask a favour."

"Don't know how I can save you from a plane crash, Steven."

"I'm not in the fucking plane!" he thundered and then immediately took a deep breath. He smiled first at Danny and then at the other NTSB agents that were milling around all staring at him like he was crazy and then turned back to his phone. "I'm investigating a crash and getting push back from the NTSB, I want access to files and they're saying no."

"You must hate that."

"I do. Can you get one of your guys in the CIA to call and I unno… gently suggest…"

"Steven, do you ever solve any of your cases on your own?"

Steve's mouth dropped. "I… yes!" he cried. "But sometimes it's nice to use all the resources you have."

"You use me and Con a lot, you know."

Steve bit back the groan that threatened to rumble through his teeth. "Okay, Wo. You owe me. Remember?"

Wo Fat sighed heavily. "Yeah didn't take long for that to come up. Alright give me some time, I'll see what I can do..."

Then before he could even thank him, Wo Fat hung up. Steve pocketed his phone and caught Danny's smug smile. "Shut up. And you better not have been the one who fucking told her."

And luckily, he didn't say anything else. So Steve and Danny got into the Camaro and drove away, ready to tackle this case from a different angle.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

They decided to go with the research angle, while Wo Fat was negotiating a release of info with the NSTB.

They learned that Jason's model of plane had been having trouble with their Trim Tabs, they had been malfunctioning on other planes. For a moment that seemed to be the most likely cause, seeing as how cagey the NTSB was being.

Hammerade could be paying someone, say Agent Callaghan, to look out for their best interests and keep that on the down low.

Someone from Hammerade, also could have gone down to get the trim tab themselves, seeing as NTSB took forever to get the plane out of the ocean.

But then it also could have been sabotage. Those races were pretty competitive after all. One of the other contestants could have sabotaged the plane to keep Jason from participating.

But then things started getting weird. They had found tapes of someone accosting Jason, and when they found the guy who did it, he told them that he thought Jason was the man who swindled him out of his savings.

He had the same name, and the same face. But it wasn't the same guy, the height was different.

They might have investigated that more if Ronnie hadn't called to say he found the Trim tab, that one of the Hammerade techs had fished it out of the ocean. Steve was confused, had they just given it to him?

And the answer was no.

Ronnie had kinda commandeered the trim tab and duct taped up the guy who had it.

By the time Steve got to him though the NTSB people had confiscated it, but not the guy that Ronnie had found.

Though, to be fair, they might not have known he was there. He was duct taped and hidden in a crate by that point.

Still they pulled him out, put him in one of the cells in the Palace and got him to talk.

He admitted that he knew that the way the plane spun out of control it had to be one of the tabs.

He couldn't have a third crash on his record, especially one that took a life, with something he had missed. So he had gone to get it.

It wasn't a malfunction though, because Jason's tabs weren't made of the same material as the faulty tabs. No, to him it looked like somebody messed with it.

He thought it was sabotage.

Then, to make things worse, the NTSB went on air and declared the crash to have been caused by pilot error and Steve was livid of course. He wanted proof. All the proof, right then and there.

So he told his team to keep digging while he left. Heading straight home to get assistance.

When he got there, one of Rowan's favourite rom-coms was on the TV and she was sitting next to Con, in a position very similar to how they usually sat and watched TV.

Con's feet resting on the coffee table, arm on the back of the couch with Rowan curled into his side.

Con had a bowl of popcorn on his lap and Rowan was eating some strange bar looking thing. It might have been a brownie except it seemed to be jam packed with god, he couldn't even tell what was in it.

"Uh… what the fuck is happening right now?" Steve asked as both his wife and his brother-in-law stared back at him.

"We're watching The Holiday," Con said as if that answered his question.

Well it kind of did, but it didn't explain why he was in Steve's house cuddling with Steve's wife.

"Why the hell are you two cuddling?"

"We're not."

"We literally sit just like that, Ro," Steve said and Rowan huffed.

"And so what if we are?" she snapped. "It's not like you're never home, at least I get to cuddle with someone."

Yeah Steve didn't want to argue with her right now. He really didn't.

He focused in on the strange looking bar in Rowan's hand, noting that her plate held two more of those bars, some chips and what seemed to be pickles.

"Uh… what are you eating?"

When Wo had said that Rowan was baking, Steve had been hoping it was the Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chip cookies she had made before, seeing as they seemed to be everyone's favourites. But no, she had seemingly made something else.

"Garbage brownies. Want one?" she said offering him a bite of the one she had in her hands.

Steve stared at the concoction in her hand not sure if he wanted to chance it. "Uh… what are Garbage brownies?"

"It has everything she's craving in it," Con said dryly. "So it's half brownie batter, half cookie dough, mixed with pretzel bits, crushed potato chips, caramel, white chocolate chips, drizzled with chocolate sauce and melted peanut butter with Oreo crumbles sprinkled on the top. The only thing that's missing is the pickles, because that would be weird to put in something called a garbage brownie so she's eating them on the side."

Steve took that in briefly before turning to Rowan in horror. "Ro… have you been eating these a lot?" She sort of half nodded and he was like: "Fuck no wonder you've been throwing up. Maybe you're diabetic…"

Rowan had been just about to take a bite of that confectionary monstrosity but she dropped the bar to her plate, a scowl pointed in Steve's direction. "Fuck off! How about instead of ruining the one thing I'm enjoying today, you go and crash your stupid fucking plane!"

"I'm not going to be flying a plane today, Ro!" Steve cried. "I'm just… I'm trying to figure out if this guy was murdered… which is literally my job!"

Yes he had technically been offered this job unofficially, but he had made it official. Rowan just huffed and turned away from him. Yeah Steve didn't have time to fix that either. Instead he turned onto Con.

"Right, look, I need your help," he said to him, earning a scoff from assassin.

"I'm not helping you," Con spat out. "Why would I? She legit told you to steer clear of this shit and here you are all mixed up int. The fucking audacity to think I'd help you fly off to your death."

"I'm not flying the fucking plane!" Steve screamed. "Goddamn it Con. I just need you to get the fucking trim tab…"

"That plane is at the bottom of the ocean and I don't do water, so I don't know what you want me to fucking do."

"That plane got salvaged yesterday, trim tab was missing, then we found it, and it got repossessed by the NTSB and we'd like you to go and get it from them. Unless that would be too hard."

"Oh, a heist? That actually sounds like fun, can I go? Can I?" he asked Rowan.

"Fine, do what you want you traitor."

"Aw come on mami, don't be like that."

Immediately there were tears in her eyes, but she wasn't sad crying, she was fucking seething.

"The two of you deserve one another," she hissed, standing up and throwing her plate to the coffee table. "Go ahead do whatever you want, you always do anyway! Who cares what I say? Right? No one has to listen to Rowan… who's always right!"

"Baby…" Steve said trying to stop her from storming away but she threw his hands away from her.

"Both of you go to hell!" she shouted and then she stomped up those steps and to their bedroom where she then slammed the door.

Con got up with a heavy sigh. "Yo, I can't keep up with these mood swings man. You gotta figure some shit out."

"What do you mean? It's not like I can stop them…"

"Dude, your wife is sick," Con said. "And I don't just mean in the head. Something is literally wrong with her. Both Wo and I have been trying to get her to a doctor but she won't go. So if you don't do something and this continues… man… I've been told to get her there by any means necessary… which includes drugging her and taking her to a mob doc, so… figure some shit out before I have to get involved, okay?"

Con was heading for the door while Steve was trying to digest what the hell had been said to him. So it was fine for her brothers to drug her and take her to the doctor but Steve couldn't drug her and take her to Japan to help find out what happened to one of his team members?

Sounded like they had some double standards there.

"Wait… where are you going?"

"To my place to get my gear," he said. "I'll text you when I get the… what do you need me to get?"

"It's called a trim tab…"

"Right, that thing. I'll text you when I have it."

Yeah Steve was going to have to text him more information on what a trim tab was.

At that moment, though, he was going to have to do something about his wife. So he headed up the stairs to their room.

He cautiously opened the door to his own room and glanced in. Rowan was curled up in their bed, the blanket tightly wrapped around her and he could hear her teeth chattering as if she were freezing.

"You sound cold," Steve said as he got into the bed behind her. He quickly wrapped his arms around and pulled her close. "Here, steal my warmth."

Rowan turned right away and snuggled into him. "It's not that I'm cold it's that… I don't feel so good right now…"

"Well you ate how many of those garbage brownies?" he asked and unsurprisingly Rowan just burst out into tears. "Aw baby… come on…"

"I'm not feeling well, Steven, couldn't you just comfort me instead of saying I told you so?"

Steve softened right away. "You're right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair. He waited, listening to her shuddering breaths as she got her crying under control.

"Do you need to go to the washroom maybe?" he asked and she shook her head. Right so she wasn't that sick yet. "Ro… baby… I know you don't want to hear this but I'm worried about you."

She groaned loudly and Steve had to tighten his arms around her to keep her from trying to roll away. "I know," he said. "I know, but I am. Oh baby… I really am."

"Steven… I'm fine… I'm sure it's just… a bug or something?"

"You think you've had the same bug for three months?" he asked and she tucked her head into his chest a little tighter. "Baby… remember when I was sick and you said I had to go to the doctor and I wouldn't listen…"

"That was different, I knew you had radiation poisoning."

"Okay, well I may not know the exact diagnosis, Ro, but I can tell something's wrong. Do you think… maybe… for me… you could go to the doctor? Huh?"

Rowan rolled away from him and this time Steve let her. She settled in on her back so he could see the exact face she was making. It was her worried one, all furrowed brows and twitching frowning lips.

"What if something's really wrong?"

"You mean like I have something really wrong?" he asked and she shot him a dark glare.

"Men are 21 percent more likely to leave their wives when they get sick then women are to leave their husbands," she whispered and Steve scowled.

"Are you shitting me right now?" he asked. "You think I'm going to leave you if you're really sick?"

Rowan's lips twitched back and forth and Steve realized that she did very much think that.

"Baby, that's stupid," he said. "If I was really going to shy away from medical shit, I'd've run at the first concussion… or stabbing for that matter."

"This is different and you know it."

"Fine… but it's still stupid," he said. "I love you, I'm not going to leave you if you're sick. But I'd like to know sooner rather than later. We gotta get in front of this, you know? And if it's what I have, I reserve the right to call that stress coach back and force her to shadow you around."

Rowan giggled a bit at that and then rolled over to look at him. Those big blue eyes of her shining hopefully up at him, just stealing his breath away.

"Will you come with me?"

"Course," he said right away. He agreed to everything when Rowan looked at him like that, he couldn't stop himself. He'd agreed to anything so long as she always looked at him, just like that. "Just try to schedule it during a time when I don't work."

"You could take some time off… Danny could cover for you…"

"You're right, he could. Fine, you schedule it, I'll figure out how to get there, okay?" he said reaching out so he could pull her to him again. "And don't you worry, I won't leave you, even if you're super sick and you lose all your hair. I'm gonna be right here with a wig to cheer you up."

He pressed a quick kiss to Rowan as she started to giggle at him. And after that they devolved into kisses, giggles and that quickly lead to passionate, make up melting, soul branding sex.