Rewrite

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Guys this chapter is one of my favourites. I swear! It's got Rowan being Rowan, it's got Con being Con and the Five-0's FINALLY make an appearance. I know they've been gone for so long but here they are. A little added note, for those who are interested in what Con looks like, I've based him off young Benjamin Bratt. I know right? Don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you guys on Friday!

Chapter 269

The door shut behind him and he got a spritz to the face. He wasn't certain what it was, just that a fine mist had coated his face. When he opened his eyes again he was in the dark. He froze, the hairs on the back of his neck rose, chills went down his spine. Why did he have a bad feeling about this?

Gabriel was supposed to be meeting a potential partner but this didn't feel right. A light flickered on and across from him someone appeared like a beacon of light in the darkness.

But this was no angel, it was Rowan Pierce.

Though he was shaky and he suddenly felt like his world was shifting and tilting he went for his gun. He fired two rounds, quick and easy, and though he was certain he hit her, she didn't fall, she merely blinked out of existence. He knew better than to assume he got her. The girl had been haunting him for a whole month now. He hadn't gotten her any of the other times that girl with the red hair and the all black eyes had appeared and he was certain he hadn't got her now either.

And he was right because in the heavy silence came one of her giggles followed by this low groan of a line.

My Lucifer is lonely.

Good god she wasn't going to start singing, wasn't she? He hated her songs, she demonic things with her songs, he swore she was possessed the way her body would contort.

He moved hesitantly forward. It took him bumping into three walls that he realized he was in some kind of maze, he'd have to follow it the whole way through. Damn he knew this meeting was too good to be true, this had to be a set up, she was fucking with him still. And she was supposed to be in Colombia, that was the intel. Rowan was supposed to be locked up in Colombia. Wo Fat was absolutely rabid about Steven McGarrett finding that girl. There was no way that he would just let the girl come back to Hawaii but he must have because he was still dealing with her. Here in Hawaii.

Standing there, killing time. Can't commit to anything but a crime.

She appeared beside him and he shot again, once again she just blinked out of existence, instead of dropping to the floor. He caught the smallest glimpse of her and he swore that she looked different. Her red hair was pin straight, her eyes were a terrible black, her mouth dripping a black goo. And even though she had vanished the song continued.

I should be on vacation, an open invitation. Animals, evidence. Pearly gates look more like a picket fence. Once you get inside 'em. Got friends but can't invite them.

He followed through the maze, every now and again she would appear. He would shoot at her and she would disappear and he'd be left in the dark as the song continued around him. The all of a sudden fire was raging around him, the flames leaping up around houses he swore he recognized but were no where near him.

Hills burn in Cartagena. My turn to ignore ya. Don't say I didn't warn ya.

Cartagena? No. No. Not Cartagena. She couldn't be there… everything he cared about was there.

Look at you needing me. You know I'm not your friend without some greenery. Walk in wearing fetters
You should have known better. Your cover up is caving in. You're such a fool, why are we saving him? Poisoning yourself now, begging for our help, wow!

No, he was not begging for her help. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. No seriously, he could see it. He turned the corner and all he could see was flames. Big burning orange flames around the house, the safe house that no one was supposed to know how about. How the hell had Rowan found it?

All the good girls go to hell, 'cause even God herself has enemies. And once the water starts to rise, and heaven's out of sight, you'll want the me on your team.

Rowan was standing there. She looked different. Less… pristine maybe? A little bit more human. And instead of black eyes her eyes were all white. But it was who was standing in front of her that had Gabriel's focus.

"Sarah?"

It looked like his daughter. She had the stuffed bunny he got her and she was in one of her usual nightgowns. But he didn't trust his eyes anymore not after everything else that he had witnessed Rowan do.

But when he heard the vision of his daughter ask: "Daddy" he began to panic. He knew it was her voice.

"No! Let her go!"

That toothy wolfish grin grew on Rowan's face but both of them knew that Gabriel couldn't shoot, not with Sarah in the way. And then in a crackle both she and Sarah were gone.

"No! No! Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?!"

But nothing came. The fires died around him. He ran the rest of the way through the maze but when he got to the end there was nothing. Nothing until he heard the crackle again.

He whirled around and Rowan was back, except this time she was alone.

"Where is Sarah. Where is she?"

Your grave is getting lonely. There's nothing left to save now. My god you're gonna owe me. There's nothing left to save now.

What the hell did that mean? What had she done to Sarah?

"I swear to god you fucking bitch if you hurt Sarah… if you've done something… I'll ruin you… I'll…"

"I'm already in hell."

It was the first time she had spoken to him instead of singing. Her teeth didn't seem as toothy and she wasn't leaking black gooey blood out of her mouth. She didn't look like she was in hell, she just looked… normal?

Around her everything crackled, he swore he saw electric bolts wrap around her body, a swirl of red surrounded her, he swore he saw it swirling around her feet cresting like waves.

"Would you like to join me?"

She held out her hand to him and for a second, he swore the red around her feet became flames. No, no he wasn't going to hell with that girl.

He went for his gun, it took all of two seconds but when he looked back up Rowan was gone and he was all alone in the dark. His world still tilting and swirling.

And then it all went dark again.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Rowan should have gone back to England by now. It had taken two days to set up the little trick they were going to play on Gabriel and last night they had managed to pull it off. Lured him into the warehouse where they had set up a fun house maze of life sized TV monitors and mirrors and then she straight up tormented him. He ran into three walls too it was hilarious.

At the end of his fun time, after going to Cartagena and pulling his daughter just to show him that she could, Conejo put a bag over his head, knocked him out and took him away. They weren't going to kill him of course, Rowan was just going to gaslight him. And it definitely helped that, as soon as he walked through the door, Gabriel had been hit with a very strong hallucinogenic. He would be withdrawing from that for a good long time.

Now Rowan was just waiting for Conejo to come back. Sitting on the back of the Audi that Wo Fat kept in Hawaii, that he hadn't managed to sell yet as he was distracted and was now her ride for the foreseeable future. Rowan had been smoking, usually she only smoked one, but she was nervous, something wasn't sitting right with her, she just didn't know what it was. The last night's escapades had been a success so what was she worried about?

The second car they had drove up and Conejo came out, sans his mask and the leather jacket. He must have gotten hot.

"Okay, so Gabriel has been deposited back in his apartment. We've wiped all evidence of his night and the meet up with Andrews. I've also paid Andrews a lot of money to pretend he has no idea what Gabriel is talking about. So you know… that should be a great help with this whole: make him think he's crazy, plan you got," he said. He was busy putting the jacket back on, and fishing through his pockets to find his phone. "I've got like six texts from Wo Fat. Can you please answer one of his texts before he freaks out?"

"He's just going to tell me to come home."

"Wait… we're not going home?" he asked. Rowan just held his gaze and Conejo groaned. "What? Why? You know he doesn't want you on the island, he doesn't want Steve to find you."

"Steve's not going to find me."

"Yeah, I unno, every time we've done major void stuff he appears, I told you about the Barnes situation, right?"

"He wasn't looking for me, he was looking for Lou," she reminded him. "And besides, we just did some major void stuff and he didn't show up. So, I doubt me using my powers is attracting him."

Conejo held out his hand and she handed over her box of smokes. He took one, got it lit and then took a long drag before he turned his attention on Rowan. Clearly, he needed the nicotine to deal with her.

"Okay, what's going on? Why don't you want to leave?"

Damn he was perceptive. "I… I don't know. Something's wrong but I don't know what it is."

"How do you know that?"

"I unno… the void I guess…"

"The void is giving you spidey-senses?" he asked and Rowan scowled at him though that seemed to be exactly what it was doing. When she continued to glare at him, he sighed again. "Alright, Fine. You want to stay to investigate, fine. We'll check up on your Five-0's but if we bump into Catherine and Steve and you start crying, we're not coming back to Hawaii. I don't care who's in trouble or what you want to do to Gabriel, you got me?"

Rowan nodded eagerly and hopped off the car ready to jump but Conejo shook his head. "No, not now, let me finish my cigarette. You send a message to Wo before he sends people to find us. I swear, the man's having a fit."

"You shouldn't have told him where we were," she whispered even though that was unfair. It wasn't like either of them could lie, not when he could activate Sandy to find her at any time.

She sent her older brother a text explaining the delay in her return, and got a text demanding more than requesting for her to be safe. By the time she was done sending him a promise that she would, Conejo was done smoking and he was ready for the jump.

He picked up the large duffle bag that held all the good toys, like his rifles and all the void goodies, before he put his hand into hers and she opened up the void to find the right string to where she wanted to be. It might have been just her but she swore she could feel the void trembling in anticipation or maybe in warning, that whatever she was supposed to be worried about was rapidly approaching.

They stepped out of the void and onto the roof of a building across from the HPD Oahu precinct. The one that Duke worked out of. The one Steve was at the most. To find that the place was surrounded by it's own cops.

"Well something's definitely going on down there," Conejo said taking in the scene across from them. "But… uh… I don't see Steve, so why are we here?"

Rowan didn't even bother to try and tell him that she wasn't here for Steve. He wouldn't believe her, she wasn't even certain she'd believe herself. She took out the binoculars from his bag of goodies and trained them onto the scene. No Steve but someone she knew was there. Conejo pulled out his sniper rifle and set it up so he could look through the iron sight.

"I still don't see him."

Rowan tsked at him but otherwise ignored the jab. "I know. But Chin's down there."

"Who?"

"Chin Ho Kelly? You got him out of IA while I was in Colombia," she reminded him. "So, if he's there, and there's something going on in the Precinct, the others will be coming soon. Chin just got here first."

Beside her Conejo sighed and she found herself sighing too. This was nonsense. What was she here for? Was it really because something was wrong, or was it because she wanted to see Steven?

And as if her thought of him had called him to her, the Camaro came speeding down the street, past the barricade and up to the SWAT van. In a flash Steve was out and jogging up to the low brick wall where Chin and Duke were waiting. And in her chest, her traitorous heart was clenching.

"See, there's Steve and he's got Danny with him," she whispered as if she weren't trying to get a good glimpse of his hands to see if he was wearing a wedding ring. God, why did he have to look so good? Why?

"Say what you want about the guy but he has a nice car."

"The Camaro isn't Steve's. It's Danny's," she told him absently. "Steve drives the blue Silverado."

Conejo pulled himself away from the Sniper Rifle to stare at her. "I'm sorry. But Steve is always driving that Camaro. Why is he the one driving it if the car belongs to Danny?"

"Uh… well... Steve's official excuse is that he gets car sick if he doesn't drive…" "—The man's a fucking Navy SEAL, what do you mean he gets fucking car sick?!" "…I'm pretty sure he's just a control freak."

Con shook his head at her. "I cannot believe you dated that man. I swear."

Rowan just shook her head. She wished she knew why she felt so… off. She wished she knew what the strings were trying to tell her.

She focused again, focused in on Steve who was standing with Danny and Grover in their matching Five-0 black Kevlar vests, and took a good long look at their strings.

All of them were blinking black. They were their normal colors but stripes of black where going through them. Good God they were going to die.

"Oh my god," she whispered.

"What, what do you see?"

Rowan didn't know how to explain what she was seeing. She knew Conejo would want an explanation and luckily, she was distracted from having to give him one. Out of nowhere Steve had turned, his furrowed brow pointed in their direction. It was almost like he had heard her, but there was no way he could have. They were so far away, and so well hidden.

"What the hell is he looking at?"

Her.

Her heart screamed that it was true, screamed for him, wishing that he could really see her there. Except all of that was just silly broken-hearted wishful thinking.

"He knows you're here, doesn't he?"

"Don't be foolish," she snapped. Before Conejo could argue with her, as she knew he would, it arrived. The vehicle of her friend's demise walked out of the precinct.

It was this giant suit of armour, looking like a mech that had walked right out of an anime. It had a cop in one hand, forcing him to walk, using him as a human shield, and a gun in the other. The gun looked small and plastic compared to the metallic sleekness of the suit of armor.

"What the hell is that Iron-man suit thing?" Conejo asked but Rowan couldn't answer him because she didn't know.

"That thing is going to kill them," she whispered, though Steve's strings had more black in them than the others. "Or maybe just Steve. That must be… that must be why I need to stay."

Conejo looked at the metallic suit slowly making its way out of the precinct. "That thing? You actually think Steven McGarrett is going to take on that thing on his own?" he asked with a scoff. He glanced to Rowan and took in her stare. She knew Steve would, he had taken on worse on his own. "Aw come on, not even he can be that stupid!"

And then, as if to answer Conejo's cry, Steve suddenly stood up, leaving the safety of the low stone wall behind. He put his arms up to show that he was unarmed before he snatched a megaphone out of Duke's hands and approached the suit. Both Rowan and Conejo held their breaths.

"My name is Commander Steve McGarrett. I'm with Five-0."

And then the gun in that suit's hands turned on him and opened fire. Steve barely had time to take cover behind a tree and Rowan winced while Conejo sighed. "Okay I was wrong."

"It's going to kill him!" she repeated.

Conejo shook his head. "No, look, see, it got away, it got in the car." And that was true. It got into a black SUV and the police cars stopped barricading the driveway to let the SUV get away. Well damn why the hell would they do that? Probably because he had a hostage.

Steve jogged after it briefly, a phone to his ear. But Rowan knew that this wasn't done yet. "But Steve's going to chase it and he's going to get killed."

"Okay… but do we care?"

"YES!"

Conejo sighed. "Aw, do we have to? I mean… the man's a douche. He broke your heart, he steals Danny's car on the reg. Maybe a good shooting would be good for everyone?"

Rowan turned a dark glare on him and Conejo sighed. "Fine, fine, but I'm going up against that thing, not you. Don't need terminator taking you down, Wo Fat will never let me go anywhere with you again."

Rowan just smiled. She liked getting her way and she wasn't leaving this place until she knew everyone in her Five-0 family was safe. Even if they weren't her family anymore.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

It took a couple of minutes of searching in the strings but eventually Rowan found where the terminator suit went after he ran off with the car. They followed after it, pinning the mobile suit in the alleyway between two houses. Good thing it was the middle of the work day and the suburbs were empty because otherwise this would look insane.

Conejo had a great plan too. They got a head of the guy, hotwired a car and skidded to a stop in front of him. Blocking his way out. Before the large lumbering suit could turn, Conejo got out of the car and opened fire.

All the bullets deflected.

"I told you it's bullet proof!"

Rowan had agreed to stay in the car, only because Conejo didn't want her using her powers and attracting Steven. She had told him the suit was bullet proof but he couldn't quite believe it, the thing looked so damn stupid he figured there was no way it could work. He had even had armour piercing rounds. That shit went through Kevlar, it went through solid metal.

But everything deflected off that shiny armour. Yeah well try deflecting a fucking head shot with one of his armour piercing bullets.

He took aim, his signature move and fired three times rapid pace. Each and every single head shot ricocheted off.

"Okay… head shots don't work… that's uh… that's not good."

It lumbered towards him and the car, arm raised revealing a weapon. Conejo blanked, this was not good. The thing was bullet proof and it wasn't like he was about to punch something that could deflect bullets.

It opened fire on him and in this static whoosh a translucent shield of sparking orange appeared between him and the terminator suit. Coenjo looked down to where, between his sides and his arms, two hands were poking out, palm forward. Rowan's hands.

She pushed not with her hands but with her powers, he felt it and the shield surged forward slamming into the terminator and knocking it back. Her arms lowered and Conejo scrambled to the side. That red blonde wig must have been glued on well because, despite her hair levitating around her, it hadn't left her head. Her eyes were that glowing white, but unlike the last few times they had gone that white, Rowan seemed calmly in control.

She walked towards the suit as it clamoured to get back up, but standing wasn't going to help it. It turned onto her and she held out her hand, this time palm to the sky.

"Go to hell," growled out of her and then a portal opened up underneath it's feet and it dropped out of sight.

Conejo stayed quiet until she turned around. Her hair was back to normal, her eyes were that impossible blue again. "Are you okay?"

He should have been asking her that, but he didn't. Instead he nodded and tried to brush off her concern. "So, uh… where did you send it?"

"It's floating in the void right now," she answered, walking towards him. "The void will crush the tech in the suit, and suffocate our little friend inside. It will make it easier for H.P.D. to arrest him."

She opened another portal this one looked like a hop. She clearly knew where she was going. He followed her through it and found them back on the roof that started this whole thing. Rowan pulled out her phone and looked at it.

"Three minutes, that should be enough right?"

He got half of: "Wait a second" out of his mouth but she once again had that hand out, palm to the sky, that time when she flexed her fingers a portal opened up above the precinct and the terminator suit fell out of the portal she opened high above the door and crashed to the front steps of the precinct.

"You know… if you had just listened, I could have told you that maybe… maybe we should have kept it."

"Why? I broke it."

"That shit was bullet proof, that would have made me invincible."

"Yeah, but it also made a lot of noise and was very clunky."

"Yeah… but if I put you in it, not only would you always be safe, but I'd always know where you are."

Rowan hit him with a dry look and an even drier: ha ha. "Come on. Let's go back to the hotel."

Beside him she opened the portal to hop back to England and then she stared at him. She always wanted them to go through first, so she knew everyone was safe before she went through and closed the portal behind her. Conejo offered her a hand and together they left that rooftop. Hopefully to never come back to Hawaii again.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

It was pretty easy to figure out what was going on once they realized that the guy who had stolen the suit had made the cop he took let him into the evidence lock up to retrieve a gun. A gun that was the key piece of evidence in a trial, one that would need to go to court the following day. Once he knew that figuring out the next move was easy.

Steve had gotten HPD to go all the way out to Laukahi Slope to try and trick the guy with the suit into giving himself up. That's where the trade for the stolen evidence was going to go down. They had the shifty lawyer for the guy who wanted that gun gone, ready to make the switch. But the guy in the suit never showed.

What Steve got instead was a call from Duke. They had the guy with the suit… and something was wrong. Steve had gotten back into Danny's Camaro and raced to the precinct to find Duke waiting for him by the front a big huge dent in the concrete by the steps.

"What the hell happened here?" Steve asked.

"Your man. He just… fell," Duke said. With Danny by his side, Duke led the two of them back and towards the cell. Recounting what he knew.

"He just dropped, I'm telling you. He just dropped out of the sky and onto the front steps. Bag of evidence beside him. We got him out of the suit and the poor man was just… crazy. He hasn't said a single coherent thing."

Steve looked into the cell and recognized immediately who was sitting there.

Steve going in to see him. It's Hugh Foster, their first suspect.

"Well, son of a bitch," Steve whispered. "Hello Hugh."

Hugh Foster was the first person they had suspected and interviewed. He had an air tight alibi, evidence of him buying a movie ticket at the time of the heist. Clearly that had been a lie.

He turned blank haunted eyes onto Steve. "The fire girl. She was on fire. The girl was on fire. She put me in the dark and I couldn't breathe… don't let her get me."

"That's all he'll talk about," Duke said. "Some girl who was on fire who dropped him in the dark and then dropped him onto us."

Hugh continued to mutter and Steve turned back to Danny who, too, knew the significance of a fire girl with magic powers. He then turned back to Hugh, but he had a feeling that Hugh wasn't in the right mental space to identify Rowan Pierce. And he might not ever be… ever again.

H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O

Steve was having one hell of a weird day. He had been woken up in the middle of the night with this lurching feeling of… wow he didn't even know what. It took all his will power and a very early morning swim to keep himself from chasing after it, mainly because he had no idea where to look in the first place.

Then he got to the first scene, where the suit was being used to steal evidence out of H.P.D. lock up and he got it again. That unwavering feeling, a pulling in his chest, like his heart had honed in on Rowan and was trying to point him in the right direction. Except Rowan wasn't on Hawaii.

Or at least that's what he thought before that suit got returned to them in the condition it was in and their suspect would only talk about the fire girl who dropped him into the cold darkness.

He was pacing, he knew he was pacing so he decided to get out of his office before someone noticed the pacing, and go… somewhere. Probably the vending machines for another snack he didn't need. But as he was walking past Danny's office he noticed something, and that nervous energy took him into his friend's office instead of to the vending machines.

"Evidence," he said pointing to the suit that Danny had laid out on his desk. "To be returned."

"Here's the thing. I was thinking that we keep it, we say that it disappeared. I mean it's broken anyway. And besides, it'd disappeared before, right? It could do it again. What do you think?"

Yes it was broken. Crushed actually. A lot like all of Rowan's phones that ever once went into the void with her. It was too much of a coincidence and luckily Danny hadn't said anything about it yet. Steve was just trying to hold it in, because he knew if he tried to process the thought of someone on Hawaii using void powers he'd conclude that Rowan was on the island and he'd probably do something stupid. Like lock down the borders so she couldn't leave and he could find her.

"Okay, I'm pretty sure they can fix it," Steve said to him instead. "And what are you gonna do with an 80-million-dollar piece of hardware anyway?"

"I'm gonna wear it."

"You're gonna wear it?" he echoed.

"Yeah. Right?"

"Okay."

"Because this thing is, you know, it's completely McGarrett proof. It's been designed for your partner to wear."

"Oh. We're doing that." Danny nodded. "Still with that? Six years. Since the day I met you, you've been telling me I've been trying to kill you."

Danny seemed unperturbed. "What's your point?"

"What's my point? My point is it's getting old. You're very much alive. You're very much alive, which means I have your back. I've always had your back. So, what are you talking about?" When Danny didn't answer but instead stared at him with unwavering blue eyes Steve forged forward. "Now return this to Universal Exports before you break it."

"It's already broken," Danny reminded him.

"Fine, before you break it further."

Danny shook his head, opened his mouth to argue but Steve got a phone call. Danny sat back to watch him take it, to watch him talk to Duke. Steve ended the phone call and then turned imploring eyes onto Danny because he couldn't take another one of Duke's weird discoveries alone. Especially if yet another one led to Rowan.

"Hey, Duke found something at a warehouse, wants me to come check it out. Think you can come with?"

It wasn't like Steve to ask something like that, but if Danny thought it was weird, he gratefully didn't say anything and instead just nodded and agreed. They got in the Camaro again and Steve drove them all the way down to a warehouse by the docks where Duke was waiting for him by a door.

"So it's just person sized TVs and fun house mirrors all set up in a maze," Duke said. "All throughout this warehouse, and there was some kind of… drug in the air."

"How do you know?"

"The first cop on the scene triggered it," Duke explained. "A sort of sensor, shoots the airborne drug in at the person below, we're not sure what it is but judging what happened to our responding office it's clearly some kind of hallucinogenic. We've dismantled it now so it's safe to come through." He opened the door and pushed him in. "It's the video's you'll want to see.

Duke waited for them to be through the door before he set off whatever sensor started the video.

My lucifer is lonely.

And then the TV in front of him flickered to life and continued to flicker as it seemed to be splintered by something, but the image on the other side was an effervescent looking Rowan with terrible black eyes and black goo seeping form her mouth.

She looked fucking demonic.

Steve catatonically followed her through the monitors. Her voice swam around him, this desperate deadly song while the monitors and mirrors around him splintered off, clearly having been shot at. All of it was Rowan. Rowan singing, contorting, videos making her look skeletal and deadly. Fire and flames followed by her appearing over and over. Jerky sudden movements, quick appearances, jumping out at him. This must have been fucking terrifying all high in the dark.

She was taunting someone, tormenting someone. Someone with a gun, judging by all the shot up TVs he was seeing. Steve figured if all this happened to him in the dark when he was fighting off some Hallucinogenic high, yeah he'd be shooting at TV monitors too. At the end of the maze there were two TVs that are completely fried, completely different from the ones that had been shot, these were electrically destroyed as if taken out by a power surge. Like the suit they had just gotten back

Rowan was messing with someone, and he had a feeling he knew who it was. Seemed the war with Gabriel, still wasn't over.

But this… this was something else, something that wasn't quite like the Rowan he knew. He was starting to worry that being around Wo Fat and other criminals was warping her. But he didn't know how to fix it if he couldn't find her.