Rewrite

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Longer update today to make up for the fact that this will be the last update for this month! As always hope you enjoy!

Chapter 454

Con tumbled out of the void, literally, and right into a potted palm tree.

For a moment he lay there on his back mentally cursing out Rowan, who no doubt did that on purpose. Lord knows why, though, because he hadn't done anything to her.

After catching his breath and getting his bearings he quickly stood up. She had popped him outside of the pretzel place.

At first, he thought she sent him there because it was close to the food court, as if she expected him to get the slushie and the smoothie first. Then he heard voices.

He quickly hopped the counter of the pretzel place in case the voices were getting closer. After a moment where he was pretty sure no one had spotted him, or was coming closer, he slowly stood back up. He wasn't close enough to see who belonged to the voices, but it was clear that people were in the food court and they did not sound happy.

There seemed to be raised voices, and arguing, though he couldn't quite figure out what they were saying. He'd have to get closer.

He waited again, standing very still, to see if anyone could see him behind the counter of the pretzel place. When he figured himself safe, he vaulted over the counter again and quickly and easily snuck over to the nearest column.

From his vantage point he could see three men in black, masks still on, bags sitting on an empty food court table, guns still in hands.

They had a group of ten people sitting on the floor all huddled together. He could hear their heavy breathing and the sniffles of their tears. So those would be the hostages.

On top of that he could finally make out the argument.

"Sooner or later they're going to call…" one of the men, the leader said.

"Call who? What phone? We're in a food court!" another man said. There was always one doubter in the crew.

It looked like those two were doing the arguing. The third man was just standing there, arms cross over his chest watching the play-by-play.

"Just shut up. They'll reach out. And when they reach out, we'll ask for a plane…"

"A plane?!"

"Yes, in return for not hurting the hostages."

"Has that ever worked, in any movie you've ever watched, has it ever worked?"

"I say we ask for a car or a bus, so we can run off…"

"I say we set up a bomb… escape out the back while they're distracted by it," the third man said, finally speaking up.

"A bomb. A bomb, and where are we going to get one of those, jackass?"

"It doesn't have to be a real bomb, they just need to think it's real."

Wow.

These guys were fucking idiots. They had no back up plan for if they were to get trapped in the mall? Talk about amateur hour.

He could take them out no problem. He just needed a plan of attack.

It took all of two minutes for him to figure out what he should do.

The best bet was to retreat to a different part of the food court – probably the pretzel making kiosk. Make a noise in there, loud enough for one of those masked idiots to come and investigate. Once there, he'd knock the guy out, take the mask and the gun and then move in. From there he'd blend in enough to close enough to shoot the other two. Easy-peasy, done in ten minutes flat and he, Rowan and Jian would be home before dinner.

There came a heavy click behind his head and Con winced knowing exactly what that was.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye and found a fourth masked man behind him, his gun by Con's ear.

"Thought you'd be a hero, huh?" he asked, and Con fought the urge to roll his eyes.

Great.

Now he was going to need a new plan.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve would have rather been anywhere then where he was at that moment.

It wasn't that he wasn't glad he was there, because Grover was in trouble and he wanted to be there for him, but he could help but feel like… he wasn't really all that needed.

Grover was in a car talking with the suspect. Brad was supposed to be turning himself in, they had enough to charge him with the murder of his wife, he was supposed to cooperate, instead he had gone on the run, crashed his car and was threatening to kill himself. G4rover had found the man basically ready to kill himself. And had wanted to help.

He hadn't really gotten to have a heart to heart with Grover yet, but he had a feeling that this was a chance to redeem himself for the failed hostage situation in Chicago that sent him to Hawaii. Steve figure it was pretty stupid to put himself into the car with the suicidal man with a gun, but Steve had done stupider shit over his lifetime, so he wasn't really in a place to judge.

He hadn't really done much since he had gotten on the scene. By that point HPD had put up barriers and created a perimeter around the scene. Grover wasn't in the car yet, but was still trying to talk down Brad.

Brad was adamant he was innocent, and while Steve wasn't sure he believed him, Grover seemed to. So he had sent Tani and Junior out to try and see if they could prove him innocent or prove him guilty.

He had then spent the rest of his time pacing the width of the perimeter, trying to get all the best angles on Grover to make sure he was still okay. Asking Danny for updates whenever he went past him, there wasn't really ever any that Steve didn't already know about. And, of course, warding of the new head of SWAT who really wanted to move in on the suspect, even if Grover was in the car with him.

In fact he had been pretty judgmental about all of Grover's choices since he had gotten there which basically just rubbed Steve the wrong way.

On top of that he was deal with the victim's father as well. He was furious that they were pandering to the man who he believed killed his daughter. Steve had Danny on him, trying to keep him at bay, trying help him understand that they were trying to minimize the damage this man could do, but Steve could tell that he was not impressed.

That could, very well, end up being a problem later on.

This was taking longer than he wanted to at this point. If he didn't get back before the mall closed Rowan was going to kill him. Hell, if he hadn't come in, he and Rowan would have been done at the mall by now and he'd've been putting together a crib. Only because he knew if he didn't do it then he might not have time before the baby came. With his luck he'd get slammed with cases and have no time. Or Con would put it together for him and it would just feel… tainted.

The longer this was taking, the antsier Steve got. So he practically jumped for his phone when Tani called him

"Hey, what do you got?" he asked.

"He didn't kill his wife. We can prove it," Tani cried, her happiness clear in her voice. "We found an ATM, video proof that he left the building, with a shot of him getting into a car and driving away before she jumped. He couldn't have pushed her."

Steve thanked them, relayed the news to Danny and then went to tell Duke. His phone rang again, he saw that it was Wo Fat, but decided not to pick that up. He was almost done here, once he got the news out and Grover out of the car he could leave. He'd deal with Wo's lecture then.

Before he got to Duke though, he was intercepted by the pizza Grover and Brad had asked for so he paused. The plan was to relay the news of Brad's evidence and where the proof of it was to Duke before heading over to deliver the pizza.

Once he handed it over, he could tell Grover and Brad the good news as well.

The problem was, once he got the pizza, Duke came up to him, his personal cellphone in his hand and a strange look at him.

"What's up Duke? Is Grover okay?"

"Yeah… it's just… Wo Fat's called my phone…"

"Oh, come on, I didn't pick up once. Tell him I'll call him back once I'm done here."

"He's not calling for you. He's calling about a something else… wanted my help with it."

Steve couldn't help but be a little insulted. Wo Fat was outsourcing his request to HPD? That's a pretty petty thing to do just cause Steve didn't pick up once.

"Alright, well if he wants help give it to him," Steve muttered bitterly.

"That's not the problem… the problem is… well... it involves Rowan…"

Steve snatched the phone out of Duke's hand and shoved the pizza into his now empty hand instantly.

"What's going on, what's wrong with Rowan?"

"Oh, now you care?"

"Look, I'm dealing with a hostage situation, I didn't know you were calling me because my wife…"

"Which hostage situation? Is the one our girls are in or a different one?"

Steve felt his heart go still in his chest. "My… my wife is in a hostage situation?"

"I'm pretty sure, yeah."

"Pretty sure?" Steve echoed. "What the fuck Wo?"

"Look, Con took the girls to the mall," Wo said. Steve grimace at that. He didn't doubt that Rowan had decided that waiting for him was not an option anymore. She had gone there to buy everything without him. "Now, I haven't heard anything from Con or Rowan, but I have heard from Jian."

Wo's calmness soothed Steve. If it were a more serious affair Wo would have been a bit more frantic. Still he checked his phone, there wasn't a single thing from Rowan. Was she really that mad at him that she hadn't told him she was in fucking peril?

My god were Wo Fat and Rowan petty people.

"Jian says that Rowan and her and locked up in the Pottery Barn. Sounds like it's typical lock down procedures, except no one's heard anything. Con said he wanted to go out there and deal with it, so Rowan sent him out and now neither girl has heard from him."

"He could be dealing with it…"

"Yes he could be. But I can't get a hold of him and Jian says he left more than an hour ago. He'd've dealt with it by now if he wasn't in some kind of trouble. But I also have no idea if he's actually in trouble because I can't get a hold of him either."

"Alright. I'm enroute. I'll keep you posted, okay?"

"Yes, thank you. And when you get them out take them straight home."

"Will do. I'll call you when I get there."

He then hung up the phone and tossed it to Duke.

"Can you tell me anything about the situation?"

"Four masked men with guns tried to rob the jewelry store in the mall in broad daylight. SWAT is on scene, and HPD has the mall surrounded. The masked men are said to have around ten people in the food court as hostages. No head count on the people still locked in the stores, but they're expecting a lot of people stuck in there until they get them out."

"Let me guess, they want a plane?"

"A van actually. Unmarked and to not be followed."

Steve shook his head. "Thanks Duke! I'll keep you guys posted on when I get her out." As he turned to run for his truck he called out: "Danny, you're in charge."

God he wished had gone to the mall with his wife today.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Rowan had gotten a text from Steve saying that he had heard from Wo. He was on his way but he wanted to know if she and the baby were okay. When she said she was he had sent a text that said they'd be talking about why she hadn't bothered to text him about what had happened once they were home.

But what was the point of texting him? He was on a case and she wasn't in that much danger, after all. She figured he wouldn't be available or would care much. But that also could have been her hormones making her extra petty.

She stopped texting him after that.

She knew he was on his way over, that he was probably going to sort the situation out from outside. That was good because they hadn't heard from Con yet and nothing had been done really to get them out. From what they had heard from the others in the store, the news was saying they were still negotiating with the hostage takers.

She was hoping Con was okay, but she knew deep down he had to be, she would have been warned if he had gotten injured. The strings would have told her.

Rowan sighed again. She had stopped eating pretzels once the salt had started making her thirsty. It was probably a good thing that she hadn't had anything to drink. She was surprised she hadn't needed to go to the washroom. It wouldn't have been an option, either.

She glanced over to Jian who was staring at her phone.

Wo kept texting her, kept asking how she was. It was cute to see how supportive and caring he was with her. She was glad that he had found someone he could be like that with.

"He's asking if you're okay again," Jian said.

"I'm still fine," Rowan said softly. "How about you though. You okay? Do you want to get up and walk around the store again?"

They had found that stretching their legs had been essential. Every time they did, they left their bags and purses on the bed they had been sitting on.

Originally the poor cashier had tried to tell them that they couldn't sit on the bed, it being display and all. She was just trying to keep a semblance of normalcy by doing her job despite the situation. Rowan had simply reminded her that they were in fact in a lock down situation and she doubted that her bosses would be that upset that she let a couple of pregnant ladies sit on the bed.

And if they did, she could call Rowan and she'd get her a job in literally ANY of the businesses she's invested in.

"Another walk would be nice," Jian said. She got up first before turning back to Rowan and helping her to get back up.

She linked arms with Jian, not because she didn't the help but just to give her the comfort of her touch. They went through the circuit they had already designed. Starting by browsing past all the things they had wanted to purchase today that they couldn't do now because the systems all went down shortly once the cops arrived.

Power hadn't gone off entirely but it wasn't at full power either.

"It's too bad we can't just… pick up whatever we want and pay later," Jian said softly and then Rowan blinked her eyes as she took in that comment.

The more she thought about it the more she wondered why she couldn't just… take everything she wanted.

"Why don't we?" Rowan whispered to Jian.

"Because it's stealing."

"Yeah, but at some point, the power is going to be cut. When that happens, the cameras will go down. Which means I can use the void to throw stuff to my house without anyone seeing. What do you think?"

Jian shot her a bit of a glare, her lips pursed. "That sounds heavily illegal."

"Think of all the cool things we could get if we save on these things. Besides we're in the middle of a lock down, with the cameras down how are they going to know?"

"That's true," she said but Rowan could tell she wasn't sold.

"Here's what we'll do. When the cameras go down, we go for another walk. I'll use the void to throw the things I want to the house, and if you decide you want some things you tell me."

Jian sighed heavily, clearly not impressed but Rowan liked her plan.

"It's scares me how easily you and Wo just swing to illegality."

"Eh, it's part of the charm of being a being a sociopath," Rowan said with a grin. "You might be raising a little one soon."

Jian frowned at that comment. But Rowan didn't mind. She was worried about her own possible sociopath growing inside of her, it was nice that she'd have another mom to worry about it with. Especially since Wo was so much worse than Rowan.

"Thank you for that," she said as she put a hand to her belly.

Rowan just smiled at her. She had already started to make a mental list of all the things she wanted to void to her house. Picking and choosing the things that would be the easier to get there. All she had to do was wait for Steve to do his job.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

When Steve got to the mall, he found that he was less anxious and afraid. He was mostly just annoyed.

Rowan really hadn't told him that she was in a fucking hostage situation because he got pulled into Grover's situation. Granted she wasn't actually in grave danger. She was locked away in a Pottery Barn away from the actual situation, which definitely helped with the anxiety, but still.

She should have told him.

He had to park some ways away and then jog up to the command center. He had to flash his badge to a million people, first to get past the police barricade, then to any SWAT officer that came up to him, and many did. By the time he got to the command center, which was built around a surveillance truck of theirs, he had decided to just keep his badge out.

That meant when he got to the team lead, his badge was out and he was ready.

"Lieutenant Commander Steven McGarrett of Five-0, I know I'm coming in late here, but I just found out some of my people are inside. Any chance you can get me up to speed?"

The man stared at him for a moment.

"You have an officer inside."

No. He had his wife, his brother-in-law's fiancée or girlfriend, not sure what he was calling her, and an assassin. But he was sure if he told this man that he'd be told to wait with the rest of the bystanders.

"Sort of. More like an undercover man…"

He waited to see if the team lead would call him out on it. See if he'd ask what the undercover officer was doing at the mall at the point in time. But he was lucky, it seemed like the man didn't want to argue with him.

"We have four hostiles. They uh, robbed the jewelry store and then got caught inside. We have several stores on lock down with people inside. There are ten confirmed hostages. Hostiles and Hostages are in the food court. There's a full permitter and we have snipers on the ready at the different exits, though they've been pretty good at staying away from doors and windows so far. The leader has made contact. They've asked for an untraceable van and to be able to drive away."

"How long ago did they request the van?"

"Half hour ago," the team lead said. "Where exactly is your man?"

"Honestly, not sure," Steve said. There were monitors in front of the team lead, it seemed to be camera angles of some sort. "Is that the feed from the mall?"

"Yes. Honestly, they're not the brightest bunch so they didn't think to kill the cameras. We've been synced into the live feed since we got here."

That could be a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, stupid criminals were easy to catch, on the other hand, stupid criminals tended to be the most violent when cornered and these guys were definitely cornered.

Steve lent over to look into the cameras. Sure enough the Team Lead was focusing on the hostage situation. He had all the different angles he could get of the food court.

Steve could see Con sitting with the rest of the hostages. Sort of.

They had Con away from the other nine people. He was on his knees, hands on the back of his head. They must have decided he was a threat and that it was better if he was on his own and in a more submissive position.

He didn't expect Con to look worried or anything, but he definitely wasn't making the face that Steve thought he'd be making, which was an angry one. In fact, just like Wo Fat had been on the call, Con seemed entirely too calm.

"Did you guys by any chance get yourself linked to the intercom?" The Team lead nodded. "Any chance I can use it?"

"We've been avoiding it. Didn't want to spook the hostiles."

Steve nodded. "That's fair. But still… can I… could I?"

The Team lead took that in and then said: "Your man's with the hostages, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"And you think getting him a message will help?"

"Yes."

The Team Lead clearly didn't believe him but he moved aside and let Steve take his place. Steve started by picking up his phone and calling Jerry.

He had spoken to Jerry briefly before arriving, so the man knew what he wants Steve to do.

Once he had Jerry on the line and ready to go, he linked himself into the intercom.

"Uh… this is a message for Sin Nombre," he said and behind him he heard a bit of a hiss from the Team Lead. Clearly he knew the name. "I have confirmation that both are fine. I can see that you're okay so far. Do you need back up?"

Steve focused on Con, his eyes darted to each of the four hostiles that had been gathered together, by the body language he figured they had been arguing. At that moment though all of their eyes were turned heavenward as if getting their eyes on t he speakers for the intercom would tell them who was talking. He waited to see if they'd look to him before softly shaking his head.

Okay, so he didn't need back up.

"Right. Do you have a plan?"

Once again, Con's eyes swept the hostiles to judge if they realized Steve was talking to him. Seeing as they were now whirling around as if they'd find Steve behind them, Con must have figured they weren't paying attention to him. So he nodded again.

"Okay. I'm going to kill the power. You do you," he said.

He then picked up his phone and said: "Okay Jerry. Kill everything."

It took a couple of seconds but eventually everything went dark. They lost the feeds, all lights went out in the mall and Steve just sat back.

"Uh… we're going to give it a half hour, and then I'll go in to help him, but he'll probably be fine."

"You could have told me you had the assassin in the building," the Team Lead said but Steve just shrugged.

It took ten minutes and a group of frantic people burst out the doors. Nine of them. The first hostages. Steve was already up and out of the mobile command and heading for the door. By the time he reached the door, people were starting to pile out of the other stores that had gone into lock down.

He had to wait until there was a break in people before he got himself into the mall. The shutters to other locked down stores were starting to go up, but Steve still couldn't see his wife. Though he could sense her nearby.

He got up to the second floor in time to see Con coming out of the Pottery Barn, he was carefully ushering the two women out of the shop, his arms filled with bags.

Rowan smiled when she saw Steve, letting him come forward and wrap her up in his arms.

"Let's get you guys home," Steve said to her before turning to Con to mouth a thank you to him.

Con simply nodded. He noted bruising around Con's left eye, and a slight favouring of his right arm, but otherwise he looked okay. He knew that Con would eventually reach out to Wo, and Steve would no doubt have to keep an eye out on him to make sure he wasn't too hurt, but all of that was manageable.

All that mattered was getting them home and keeping Con away from law enforcement. Though, luckily, they were too busy taking statements and dealing with the four dead bodies in the food court to notice them slipping away.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve got the girls home and then sent Con to go get looked at by one of Wo's many mob doctor connections he seemed to still have on the island.

The first thing he did was try to get them to sit down and relax, especially his own wife. But both women seemed insistent on going upstairs so Steve had let them go. Then he had gotten together a plate of snacks and approved drinks for them.

He fully planned on cuddling with this wife, even if Jian was in the room with her. At least until Nahele came home from being out with his girlfriend all day and it was time for him to make dinner. What he found when he got into Rowan's room was that both girls were on his bed surrounded by a pile of baby items that he knew for a fact hadn't been in the bags they had come out of the mall with.

They had baby blankets, pillows, all sorts of toys, towels, and oh my god so many clothes. They even had two baby bouncers.

It wasn't even all baby stuff. They had taken plates and decorations, like throw pillows, cutlery. It almost looked like they had taken one of everything in the store and put it in the master bedroom.

Steve looked around at it all, caught the girl's surprised stares and then just exploded.

"What the hell did you do?!" he cried. "Did you steal this stuff from Pottery Barn?"

Rowan hit him with a dry glare. "Obviously that's what happened."

"How?!" he howled. "How did you manage to get ALL of this out of the Pottery Barn." Rowan kept that dry glare on her face and he knew exactly how she did it.

Steve groaned loudly. "You know you're not supposed to be using the void! Especially around that many people!"

"Oh they didn't see anything. And besides, I was simply dropping things out of the shop it's not like I opened a whole door," she said.

Steve found himself massaging his temples. "Oh my god. Why would you od this?"

"This shit is expensive."

"Yes, I know that but we can afford it. You didn't have to do this? And besides, we were going to choose a lot of this stuff together… which clearly didn't happen cause you stole it all from the store."

"Okay, for starters, I can afford it. Secondly, I was tired of waiting for you. At the rate we were going we weren't going to have anything ready for went the baby came. Thirdly, I have saved us a whack-load of money and now we can justifiably spend more money on the big-ticket items. Especially the maternity chair I'm going to need."

Steve wanted to argue, he really did. But she had a point. She was the one that was going to be buying everything, he couldn't contribute as much, but now he could afford to contribute more. And he had been having trouble carving out time to really go with her anyway.

"And what if they look into the inventory, and then check the cameras…"

"We waited until you cut the power."

That came from Jian.

Only then did he realize that it wasn't just Rowan's stuff, it was Jian's too.

"Oh my god, she roped you into this too?" he cried. "Rowan what were you thinking?"

"That I was going to have to lend Wo Fat the money to cover anyway?" she said with a shrug.

"And you think he's going to be okay with the fact that you've made his fiancée an accomplice to your little heist?"

Rowan simply shrugged again. "Man's a crime boss. There are worse things I could have convinced her to do and he knows that."

Steve went for his phone to show Rowan he was serious about snitching on her to her older brother. "Really, so if I call Wo Fat right now and tell him you what you two did, he wouldn't be mad at you?"

"I doubt it," she said.

"Actually, Wo was only annoyed that we didn't get to do it together. He's actually rather proud that I managed to lift this much. On my first try and everything," Jian told him, the sincerity in her voice telling him that she wasn't lying.

Steve blinked his eyes at both of them before realizing what was happening. He was surrounded by morally ambiguous people now. Rowan was turning Jian into some copy of the three of them. It was just him, the odd one out.

He sighed heavily at both of them, his hands on his hips watching as they continued to open the packaging, with Rowan voiding off security attachments and Jian taking pictures to show Wo Fat everything she had chosen for their baby.

"Do you want to help us open stuff and fold things?" Rowan asked him. "Or maybe I just show you everything I picked?"

Steve sat down beside her. "Yeah show me everything and uh… collect all the boxes and security tags in a pile, we'll have to set them on fire."

The smile Rowan hit him with was worth the aggravation. And besides, she was right. She had saved them a lot of money. Tomorrow he could buy the high-end crib, that extra fancy stroller she wanted, a change table and the maternity chair and neither would feel all that guilty about it.

They just wouldn't go to the Pottery Barn in the mall ever again.