Rewrite
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Hello my wonderful readers. I'm sorry this took long, and I'm sorry that this week will most likely be a double update week instead of a triple. We do have some interesting things happening, but don't worry the Stepanov's will be dealt with very soon and I swear I have the Five-0's coming back very, very soon! Don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you when I get the next chapter written!
Chapter 259
Roman was just as she remembered him.
That perfect little blonde boy with more abs than brains. He was still easy to manipulate and even easier to goad. She knew her Professional bit would work on him, it always had. So she wasn't surprised when it worked, she was surprised that he didn't just try to kill her like he had the first time she tried it on him, though she didn't have Conejo with her the first time.
But Roman had always had a soft spot for her, and it was obvious that, even in this world, that lust he had for her was still going strong. This was something she knew she could exploit
Roman had called later that night, once he had been made aware that someone had paid a visit to his driver and taken out his knee caps. He took her up on her offer to drive in their next heist, and not too subtly alluded to wanting to know exactly how she knew Trevor and how she knew about his heists and who his crew was. And then flat out told her that he was very upset with the so called accident that his driver went through.
She had called to update Wo Fat who answered in clipped responses which meant Trevor was awake and either in the room with him or near-by. It was a gamble leaving Wo Fat with Trevor, when she knew that Wo Fat was jealous of him and didn't really like him. But Wo had promised that he'd behave so she'd have to believe him.
The meet up for the heist walk-through was set for later in the day and Rowan was to go back to the garage to meet with the crew and be walked through the plan. The original plan was to go on her own, but she had gotten a strange feeling about going, this sort of apprehension about going to that garage. She was so nervous about it that Conejo put on that rabbit mask, loaded up on an armoury of weapons and essentially made it clear that he was going to come with her.
Once Conejo was ready, he let Rowan drive the Audi over to the garage. The deal was he was going to stand there, mask on his face, silent and imposing. If it looked like things were getting hairy he'd step in and start shooting, which was the bloodier and more violent way of dealing with their current issue, and not the one she wanted to take as she didn't want to deal with Irina and her retribution all over again.
And for the first little bit she was silent out of pure shock. Because he was word for word going through their last heist. The heist where she crashed the car, killed Roman and the rest of the crew in that car with her.
"Do you get it Zaichik?"
Rowan was almost jolted out of her thoughts. She turned a dry glare onto Roman. "Bunny? Really?" she asked him. It was better than called her pussy, but she didn't like it either. "I dare you to call him that."
She jerked her head towards Conejo, who only let her call him bunny and waited to see if he would. Roman had been carefully avoiding looking at Conejo, the older, more silent man made him nervous clearly. He shot a glance to him before lowering his eyes back to the map of the plan they had in front of them. Rowan didn't even need to listen she knew every detail of this plan, she had memorized it so she could hand it over to Malcolm. It was so engrained within her memory that she doubted she could ever forget it.
"If you're asking if I got it, I do," she said. "It's really not that hard of a plan to get."
Roman scowled at them both. "What we have been doing… no one can predict what we're doing… no one can catch us, we… we are considered geniuses…"
Rowan looked down at the plan once more. "Okay, whatever gets me out of this meeting, I have better things to do than deal with this."
"What a coincidence, I have better things to do as well… and they all involve… you."
Rowan went stock still. No. It couldn't be. She was supposed to be in Russia.
Both she and Conejo turned to where Irina Stepanov was standing, blocking the doorway. She too, looked the same. With her blonde hair, all curled perfectly and the vicious vile green eyes pinned on Rowan. She was the glittering pretty princess that Rowan had known, but she knew that the outsides did not match the insides.
Rowan knew she should have said something but she couldn't make the noises to do so. They were all staring at her, even Conejo was staring at her but when she said nothing Irina took a step forward. Rowan nearly bolted, she nearly called for the void to get her out of there. Instead she stayed still, struggling to reign in the fear she didn't think she still had.
"I've been doing a lot of research about you two," Irina said. "Sin Nombre the glorified babysitter is in Colombia. There's no mention of a Professional working with him, ever. Trevor Pierce has never mentioned either of you and trust me, he would have if he could have. You've seemingly dropped out of the sky with the single purpose of inserting yourself into our heist, so you can understand why I'm suddenly very… suspicious…"
Rowan blinked her eyes. All her carefully laid lies, all the planed and rehearsed lines left her head. Beside her, Conejo reached out, he put a hand to her elbow that was all she needed and she immediately came back to life.
Donning what had to be her shakiest Ice Queen smile, she focused her attention on the woman who was her age but still haunted her nightmares every now and then. "My background is none of your business." She tilted her chin up, as defiantly as she could.
"When you take out our driver so you can be on our crew, it becomes my business. You may have wowed my brother but I am far from impressed with what I see."
"What a coincidence because to me this looks like a backwater, country bumpkin, lousy attempt at being some Fast and Furious heist team. I was told you'd be a hard crew to infiltrate," Rowan paused to scoff and shoot Conejo a glance. She noticed right away that he had his arms crossed over his chest, one hand already ducked into his armpit. He had a grip on his gun, he was not liking the way this conversation was going.
Irina's nostril's flared. Too many insults for her, she was definitely overloading. She took half a step forward and quick as a rabbit Conejo had the gun out and pointed right at her. Pistol barrel leveled with Irina's head.
Silence took over the back of the garage. The others scrambled for their own weapons only to be halted by Conejo's unwavering growl of: "If anyone else moves I'll blow a hole in her head so large you'll need a closed casket."
Rowan rolled her eyes and sighed. Well wasn't this just getting out of hand? "Okay, let's all calm down here," she ordered stepping between Conejo and Irina. "You want answers. Fine. Trevor Pierce is my business, it doesn't matter why, but he is. Sin Nombre is on loan to me until further notice and as you can see, he does not like threats of violence against me, so maybe you better back up and keep your fucking distance."
Irina nodded and Conejo slowly lowered the gun away from her.
"Are we good?"
"We'll want to do a test drive," Irina answered stiffly.
Rowan nodded. "That is fine. But you," she said pointing to Irina. "You will not be coming. And I'm… I'm leaving."
She snapped her fingers, something she knew Conejo would bitch at her about later, and together they left the garage.
She got into their car, drove back to the hotel and then put the car in park. Conejo finally took his mask off and then turned to her.
"You froze. You never freeze," his whisper the only sound in that car and it felt like he was yelling. "You wanna tell me what that was about?"
"That… that was Irina Stepanov… and uh…"
"She's one of your recurring nightmares, isn't she," Conejo asked. "You say her name sometimes. She's the one that stabbed you in Ireland, right?"
He really did retain a lot of information for someone who really only looked like he was more focused on eating than listening.
"That would be the one. I uh… she's one of my traumas and… I'm not… I'm not over it… like really not and I… I unno… I thought she wasn't here."
Except she was, and now she was going to have to worry about how she was going to perform under the scrutinizing glare of one of her nightmares, now made living.
Trevor better appreciate this shit.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Wo Fat tried very hard to seem blasé about everything but he couldn't help but watch Trevor from under hooded eyes.
This was the man that Rowan called her brother. Granted Rowan was calling both him and Conejo brother, but this was her real brother. The one that should have been related to her by blood.
On some level, Wo Fat knew this wasn't her real brother. This wasn't the brother that dragged her into a Russian heist crew because of his gambling addiction. This wasn't the brother who let their parents think it was Rowan who got them into that mess. It wasn't this brother who left her to go on a date and let Irina attack her. It wasn't this brother who sided with his boyfriend with every argument the two of them had and let that man cuff her to a radiator.
But a part of him wanted to ask him what the hell he was thinking? How could anyone, anyone who knew Rowan, who knew just how much love and kindness she had inside of her, how could they let any of that stuff happen to her? How could they throw her under the bus like that when the girl wanted so desperately to just be loved, to help people?
Trevor finished showering and came out of the washroom in nothing but a towel. The boy had made a big show of his muscles and lean body as if Wo Fat had cared, which he hadn't. That had been… well… uncomfortable to say the least. Then, once Trevor was changed, he made himself lunch. He offered to make something for Wo Fat but the man wasn't hungry. After getting the call from Rowan saying she was heading to the meeting he was on edge, unable to eat. He wouldn't be able to until he knew the outcome, until he knew it went well and she was back at the hotel.
After lunch Trevor had tried to sit beside Wo Fat but Wo Fat merely glared at him and he chose to sit in an armchair. Computer in front of him, guitar on his lap, playing badly and scribbling things in a note book and then scratching those scribbles out again.
Now… this he couldn't help but stare at because this was very similar to the way Rowan looked when she was writing songs except he was doing it wrong. It wasn't the first similarity between the two. They had extremely similar mannerisms and the same blue eyes. But Wo Fat couldn't watch him struggle like that.
"What are you doing?" he asked and Trevor looked up.
"Oh uh… I'm writing a musical," he said. "Sort of. I unno, the actually script part was a breeze but this whole writing music part sucks."
Wo Fat blinked his eyes. "Yeah well, you're not doing it right. You have to know the chords and the lyrics and you can't play the guitar… not well anyway…"
Trevor's face changed, a scowl donned on his features and Wo Fat sucked a sharp breath in. See, this was Rowan's fault, she shouldn't have left him here with this man when she knew that he was annoyed. Wo Fat figured now would have been a good time to apologize but he found that he both didn't want to and couldn't get the words out.
"How would you know?" he snapped
Wo Fat shrugged. "My sister writes songs."
Suddenly the guitar was out of his lap and he was leaning forward. "No shit, really, she write anything I'd know?"
Wo Fat mulled it over for a minute weighing the pros and cons of answering truthfully. Eventually he chose to brag. "Cheap Thrills… all of the Alex and the Doctor's albums…"
"Wow, really? That's impressive," he said and Wo Fat found himself smiling proudly. He loved bragging about Rowan's song writing.
"So uh… do you know what the plan is?" Trevor asked. "I mean… the heist is in a couple of days and they expect me to case…."
"My sister will be dealing with that. I assume the plan will uh… it's not going to come into place until we know more essentially."
"That seems… unsafe…"
"We know what we're doing."
"You just admitted that you guys don't really have a plan!"
"What do you care? Things can go one of two ways. Either our plan works and you'll be free from the Stepanov's or it doesn't work and we absorb your debt. Either way your debt is paid and you'll be free."
"Well of course I care!"
"Why? We're nothing to you!"
"That's not true! I care a lot about Rowan, even if I haven't met her…" Trevor paused Wo Fat paused too. Sitting upright he blinked his eyes at Trevor, he should have been surprised but he found that he wasn't. Instead he was mad. How the hell did everyone in Rowan's family know who she was, and how the hell did Trevor know him?
"I… I spoke to my dad… he said my sister was traveling with two guys… her brother's she said… which I know isn't true because I'm her only brother. Anyway, he said their names were Con and… Oz… I highly doubt there more than one Asian, intimidating, suit-wearing, burn marked Oz, you know?"
Alright, so maybe the boy was a smarter than he gave him credit for.
"How much did your father tell you about her…"
"Powers?" Trevor finished for him and that answered Wo Fat's questions. "Yeah, he told me everything, figured I'd want to know."
"Why would you want to know?"
"Because I was part of the experiment that brought her here… did you guys not know how she got here?"
"Rowan doesn't know how she got here," Wo growled. "I believe your father was going to tell her but Con knocked him sideways before he could. We uh… we're rather over protective of your sister… my sister… she's not really yours, not really. Your DNA doesn't match…"
"No, she's mine, ours. She's a Pierce. She has the eyes, she has the personality, and she knows all of us she's just from a different time line."
A pout donned his features, a pout that was exactly the kind of face that Rowan made when she was upset. Wo Fat figured it would be a good idea to change the topic.
"How about we don't argue about it anymore?" he offered. "Why don't you tell me how it is that Rowan came here? Both you and your father claim to be involved, so tell me about it."
Trevor narrowed his eyes at him but after a charged pause, eventually started to explain. "My dad and I did this… experiment. We… well… he made this thing… it opens Portals…" "The worm hole generator, I believe he called it the..." "…Yes the Wig and he also made this hook, you know, and it uh… it was made specifically to survive the cold of space. And it uh… I had this homing thing set up, something that could track particles. It was supposed to pick up an object… when I shot the hook into the WHIG I was told to think of an object…"
"But you thought of Rowan… why?"
"I… my sister died and my family imploded… you know? I thought maybe if I could get her back, I could maybe get my family back…"
"So you did the experiment in Hawaii?"
"No, no, I was in my dad's lab at UofT. No, we lost Rowan in… uh… in transit. She fell…"
"She fell into Hawaii… that's uh… that's a pattern, you know?" Wo Fat offered him, he figured he might as well, it was all he had to offer after all. "Every time she tries to go back to her own reality she ends up falling into the Hawaiian Ocean, your dad was trying to figure out why… something about a point of exit."
"Yeah, wrong person to ask, I have no idea," Trevor said and Wo Fat nodded because that made sense to him. "Uh… so we tried to do the experiment a handful of times and then uh… the hook snapped after that we kind of gave up. Then, my dad said that they tracked some energized particles to Hawaii and I said I'd go down with him to find it, but I never told him what I was really trying to pull. So… you know he was looking for a trophy not a girl and when I told him he went on about how a regular person wouldn't have survived the void."
"Okay… well… her version of you shot her with something called a…" "Energizing ray, yes he mentioned that too. That explains how she survived."
Trevor sighed once more. "We didn't know that though. But uh… we did look at the morgues and then we called the coast guard to see if anyone had been pulled out alive and we filed a fraud report cause we figured if she was alive she'd be using the Rowan Pierce identity cause it's hers and I mean what else was she going to do? We thought we had figured it tout but yeah… we shouldn't have done that because that put McGarrett onto us…"
"Wait… Steven McGarrett?" Wo Fat asked and then groaned. "Oh god, what did that asshole do now?"
"Well he basically called us crazy and uh… deported us…"
"Did you tell him you were looking for Rowan?" "Well… yes…" "Yeah he's ridiculously controlling when it comes to Rowan and he doesn't share nicely. Wow, deported you so you wouldn't take her home… when was this by the way?"
"I unno about two years ago… somewhere around January to March. I know we got deported in March… why?"
"Oh so around the time I shot her," Wo Fat admitted despite Trevor's surprised stare. "So that might have inspired Steven's behaviour, I mean he's never wanted to share her with me but he and I have always had bad blood, but it's strange he'd flat out what you two gone. But he was probably over reacting. You see he had just gotten her back from me, she had almost died, she left him for her other ex, Alex."
"You shot her?" Trevor asked and Wo Fat winced.
"Not my best choice, or moment, but I have since then made it up to her and I would never do it again, of course."
Trevor looked far from assured by this though and Wo Fat didn't blame him. "Could I… uh… could I meet her? Like properly meet her? Without one of you knocking me out? Dad and mom have and I unno I feel left out."
Wo Fat was blindsided by the question. On the one hand, he wanted to say yes, but on the other hand, the jealous side of him wanted to say no. He had legitimate reasons, of course, ones to hide behind. If he let Rowan meet, Trevor, if Trevor got to tell Rowan everything, she would want to stay. Wo Fat couldn't chance that thought. With Rowan's phone call, Steve would know where she was, which meant, since he knew about her void powers and her family, that he would know that the only reason to come to Canada would be to visit her family. Which meant he'd know to watch them. Which meant he'd find her, and he'd take her back, probably by force and then all of Wo Fat's lies would come tumbling out and he'd lose his sister twice. First to her family and then to McGarrett… again.
However, if she talked to Trevor she'd find out that McGarrett deported her family and he'd love to see her chew McGarrett out for that. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that it would keep them apart, if she found out Steven was single and looking to have her back, he could deport her family to the moon and she'd forgive him.
"We have to see how this all ends first," Wo Fat told him instead. "But I can definitely try."
It was a flat out lie but it was one that made Trevor smile. It seemed that both Pierce siblings were easily soothed by his words and his lies and that was going to make the rest of this stay bearable.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Rowan had been in the Empress for all of two seconds when yet another call from Roman came in. He wanted to see her drive the route. Well that was stupid, she had said, can't go full speed during the day.
He just wanted to see if she knew the route. She had agreed on the condition that he didn't bring his sister. He agreed to that condition so long as she didn't bring Sin Nombre.
The drive itself was fine, though plagued with ghosts. Rowan got a little stiff riding past the corner where the accident had happened, but she always got like that when she went past it. Mainly because she could hear the echo of the screams of twisted metal against the concrete like she was back in that car. But the worst was the warm sticky wet feeling that would slide over her, a sensory memory of the blood that had pooled around her. Most of it hers… but a good portion of it not.
And it was odd sitting in the driver's seat of Roman's car, with him in the passenger seat. It brought back memories of when she was in love with Roman. No… now that she knew Steve she knew it wasn't love, it was lust, but she was young and she hadn't known any better. And then he threatened her brother, him and his family, and that was the end of any warm feelings for Roman she might have had for him.
Though he was still pretty fucking hot, she'd give him that.
Roman was impressed with the drive, impressed that she already knew the route, that she already knew a backup route in case something happened or they came across cops. He tried peppering her with questions while they drove but she kept telling him not to bother the driver.
When they ended up drinking in the Empress once they were done with the ride-along he got to ask all the questions he wanted.
"You know the city. Don't lie to me. You do."
"I do," she admitted. "Used to live here. Grew up here, moved on to bigger and better things."
"Oh yeah?" he asked. "Like what?"
"Nothing you can prove," she shot back with a playful grin.
"Is that how you know Trevor? You grew up here, with him?"
"Trevor grew up in Toronto, he's only been here since middle school," she answered before she could stop herself. She was just opening herself up to all sorts of more questions. When she glanced at Roman his eyes were boring into her. He no longer had that crooked amused grin on his face he was now truly looking at her as if he didn't trust her.
"Now… you see… stuff like that… that tells me that you know him. But I know Trevor too. If he had someone like you in his pocket he would have brought you up long before now. And Irina… Irina doesn't trust you. You are too efficient, too well prepared to infiltrate my crew, too good, too knowledgeable. It makes me wonder what your real game is."
When Rowan held his gaze and refused to answer he continue. "Irina thinks you're after the score. This is the largest bank we've ever hit, the largest amount we're gonna get…"
Rowan scoffed. "Between my two brothers we've got more money than that stupid little bank."
"Then what is it? What do you want from us? Huh? Cause hiding behind this ruse of wanting Trevor free is stupid, and we both know that not only will it not happen it's going to get you killed."
Rowan took that in for a moment, swallowed her drink and then turned to look at him.
"You know I have two brothers?" she told him and for a second his face fell. "I have the one upstairs who kills people and I have another one."
"You're related to Sin Nombre?"
"More like adopted, but he is not what you need to be worried about. It's my eldest brother that's the problem. He's a sociopath with a temper, so if something happens to me… he'll come a knocking and no one ever survives a knock from him."
"Why I want Trevor is my business. It's of no concern to you, all that matters is the money right? And after this score you won't need him," she continued when he'd only stare at her. "But not trusting me is going to split your crew. I can do my job that is not the problem, it's whether or not you and your sister can stop over-thinking long enough to do yours."
Roman exhaled at her, long and slow. "That's pretty heavy handed. Insults and threats all in one go. You've got a touch."
"I live with two criminals, you learn a thing or two." She shot him her own little crooked grin and his smile sort of softened.
"You are something else, Zaichik. Most people are scared of me, you know, they'd never speak to me like that."
"Yeah… well… where I come from… you're not that hot shit. Low level at best."
At that Roman laughed, his hand came up to touch the tips of her hair which was altogether too close to her chin and her cheek.
"It's refreshing… so beautiful… so stubborn. It makes me wonder… what else does that mouth of yours do? Other then get you in trouble."
She should have slapped him. She should have told him to get lost and then gone straight back upstairs to tell Conejo so he could kill him. Instead downed her drink, shot him a sultry smile and simply said: "Well why don't we go upstairs and find out?"
He put his hand in hers and they began to walk away. It was wrong, she knew it was, but she couldn't help herself. After this she'd be able to say she fucked Roman Stepanov in more than one reality and that was really something.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Malcolm Garbo had been put on an impossible case. All because he was the youngest agent to be promoted up into the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and because he had the nerve to demand his own case to run point on. No one had wanted to take orders from the young buck so he had gotten his own case… his own unsolvable case.
The heist in Manitoba that had taken out a security guard wasn't really that big of a case, except for the fact that this had crossed province lines. It was his job to find the people who did it and bring them to justice. They were very similar to a crew that was running out of British Colombia but there was no real connection other than the M.O. Knowing they were from B.C. didn't help narrow it down either.
The crew was good, he'd give them that. They were always in and out in a matter of minutes. They never had to shoot anyone, just warning shots to get people on the floor. Their driver was professional grade, possibly a drag or rally racer, but that was a prevalent sub culture in B.C. and everyone drove under different plates and codenames.
He was starting to think that he'd never crack this, he was going to be a laughing stock, and they were never going to let him run point ever again. He was going to be a two-bit agent with the CSIS always taking orders.
And then his phone rang.
He answered it with a gruff: "Garbo," and got a pause of dead silence and then a half laugh.
"Wow, someone's grumpy today," the girl on the other line said. He opened his mouth to argue but she cut him off. "And don't me you're not, I know you well enough to know your tones. You're grumpy, have you had your coffee today?"
Okay, what the hell was this? He glanced to the cup of coffee he hadn't touched yet and scowled. "Who is this?"
"Right… yeah, you don't know me. Forgot about that," the girl said. "I'm the Professional, I'm gonna be the getaway driver for the little crew your tracking right now. The Manitoba crew."
Holy shit. Uh… what was he supposed to do. "Now wait a second…"
"Nope, I don't have a second. Here's what I can tell you. I'm working with the Stepanov's not the big man himself but his twins. They're running this little band of merry idiots. All the proof you need to nail 'em is with my man. Trevor Pierce, but you gotta get him before they do. Cause if I run this heist and ya'll don't arrest them beforehand we're all gonna die. You got two days to get this sorted. So figure it out Mal. Good luck!"
The call ended and Malcolm stared at the phone. No ever called him Mal except his family, why would she call him that? Who the hell was that girl? It took all of two seconds to call the IT department to trace where that phone call was made. But it came up empty, bounced all over the world had no actual caller ID and when they tried to ping the phone itself the entire system went down. He pulled up known aliases of the B.C. illegal racers and got no one named Professional. He looked up the Stepanov's and found that they did live on the island and the heists did coincide with their activity.
Then he looked up Trevor Pierce, and found that the Manitoba heist coincided with when he was in town for a skate competition. There were also reports of a man on look out that fit Trevor's description, so he must have been part of the crew. And he had one hell of a pair of blue eyes, so vibrant, so blue, even through the screen they seemed to be holding his gaze, staring down into his soul. It was so disturbing to Malcolm that he had to minimize the picture to it from looking at him.
But he still couldn't find a Professional connected to either Trevor or the Stepanovs.
Still, he wasn't about to look this gift horse in the mouth. He simply got on a plane and flew from Ottawa to B.C. not knowing the kind of chaos he was walking into.