Never Let Me Down Again Pt.1
| Rafe Cameron
Summary: Their lives apart, their wounds still raw, and a killer forcing them back together. Warnings: None. Writers notes: English is not my native language; please excuse me if there are any mistakes or poor translations. Rafe Cameron x female readerPart.1 Part.2 Part.3 Part.4
He had a reputation for being a man of few words—the kind of cop who didn’t speak much, but whose silence was enough to get the message across. Oh, he hadn’t always been that way. Five years earlier, you wouldn’t have recognized him: cheerful, radiant, a joker, someone you could always rely on. But that was before. Before the shooting. Before he survived… and before you came to hate him.
Now he was with the FBI, devoting his life to solving crimes in an attempt to bring meaning to all the chaos. The latest case haunted him in particular: a killer was targeting young women. All the same—around thirty, single, brunette, living in Los Angeles.
It had been several weeks since he’d been working this case with his partner and the rest of the team, barely sleeping. Not that he’d slept properly in years anyway, so he might as well put the time to use.
“Agent Cameron, we were called in after an assault.”
That night, the police had contacted him about a young woman who had been attacked… but survived. Same profile as the previous victims—except she was still breathing.
The nurses led them to the room, where the attending doctor was finishing his exam.
“She won’t wake up right away. Wait in the hallway, and we’ll let you know when she’s able to answer your questions.”
Rafe leaned toward the small window of the room. A young woman, hooked up to machines, her face swollen and bruised, lay motionless.
“I’ll get some coffee,” his partner said.
Rafe nodded silently. He loosened his tie, almost violent against the fabric choking him, and planted his hands on his hips. He almost missed his police uniform, unable to stand the suffocating seriousness of a suit.
God, he couldn’t wait to get out of here—this place brought back too many bad memories.
“I’m telling you, I’m fine!”
It was almost incomprehensible—how a voice unheard for years could still shake you to your very core. The same ferocity in the tone, the same burning anger, untouched by time.
Rafe slowly turned, mouth slightly open, brows knitted. His instincts already knew what he was about to see.
The door in front of him burst open. A female silhouette appeared in profile, her face tight, shoving away the hands of a nurse who was trying to wipe off the blood.
The blood, the wounds, the unbroken anger in your eyes… it all clashed together in a brutal mix that twisted his gut.
“Ma’am, you’ve been knocked around and—” “And nothing! I can clean this up myself!” you snapped, yanking the sterile pad and antiseptic from his hands. “Don’t need a degree for that!”
You weren’t usually this harsh, but hospitals dug up too many bad memories—memories that still cut just as deep.
When you turned to leave, your eyes met his. The blue of his gaze locking with the brown of yours stole the breath from your lungs. Your body froze, your heart stopped, and your breath hitched in your throat in a suspended instant.
Rafe Cameron stood there, looking just as stunned as you were, as if time itself had chosen to stop for the two of you.
The door slammed shut behind you, a barrier between the two of you. The nurse noticed your face suddenly pale as you sank back onto the bed. Your hands gripped the mattress, searching for an anchor, for something solid, as if to keep from collapsing under the vertigo of that encounter.
The nurse was talking, but all you heard was a low hum. He dared to clean your wound, afraid you might push him away again… but you didn’t. You let him.
Rafe flinched when the door slammed, dragging him back to a reality where you still existed. What the hell were you doing there? He had moved away precisely because living in the same city as you had become impossible—every street a memory, the downtown café a nightmare.
Running a hand through his messy hair in a nervous gesture, he left the hospital without hearing the doctor call after him, lighting a cigarette the second he hit the air.
As if every drag could make you disappear. As if poisoning himself could ease the weight of his guilt. Pathetic.
“Shit!”
One cigarette was never enough. The butt barely crushed under his shoe, he lit another—fire and smoke his only refuge. He didn’t cough anymore; his body was numb, even whiskey had lost its taste.
He shut his eyes, pressing his palms to his temples, desperately trying to erase you from his memory. But your face pushed through anyway, inevitable: those wide dark eyes staring into his with surprise, the dried blood on your temple, running down your cheek and split lip…
What the hell had happened?
His phone buzzed. Heyward, his partner, asking what the fuck he was doing.
He could already hear your voice echoing down the hallway, stress and anger vibrating in every word:
“I just want to leave!” “You’re a key witness in this case!”
He watched his partner trying to reason with you, but Rafe, caught in the middle of the scene, understood nothing. Key witness? And in what case, exactly?
“Listen, I just tried to help this girl!” you shouted, pulling on your jacket. “The guy came out of nowhere and slammed me against his car. I didn’t see him, I didn’t get his plate—I’m useless!”
So you were tied to their ongoing investigation… the serial killer.
You knew he was just doing his job—your brother would have reacted the same way—but you didn’t have the patience. Fatigue weighed on you already, and seeing Rafe Cameron didn’t improve your mood.
“She’s alive, right? Then question her!”
A hard body hit you when you spun around. Your body reacted before your mind.
He still carried the same scent, that familiar warmth that had crossed you back when you were teenagers. Memories came rushing back: your friends, tight-knit like a family… until the nightmare began.
Rafe’s hands instinctively went to the sides of your face, careful not to hurt you further as he saw the wound. A warmth rose in you, as if your skin recognized something you had long suppressed. Too sensitive, you felt the pads of his fingers against you, as if to make sure you were really you, not a mirage.
“Don’t touch me.”
Not wanting to make a scene in front of strangers, you hissed through your teeth, low enough that only he could hear. His words struck him in the chest before he stepped back.
You shoved him to put some distance between you, ignoring the other cop’s calls, and rushed straight for the stairs to get out of there.
“Damn it, why didn’t you hold her back?!” “What?”
He blinked, trying to gather his thoughts, but everything felt too fast, too brutal. Pope Heyward was yelling facts, vital information about the killer and tonight’s assault, but Rafe only caught fragments, the rest drowned in the panic twisting his stomach.
“Cameron!” Pope roared, exasperated. “That girl might have seen the killer when they ran! What if he followed the ambulance?”
Pope had never been bothered by Rafe’s silence, used to his almost pathological calm. But this time, he wasn’t reacting at all.
Rafe blinked several times, finally processing the information Pope was trying to get across, and then set off to find you.
You couldn’t be far: the ambulance had dropped you at the hospital, and you were on foot. Alone. In the night.
When he spotted your silhouette, he hesitated for a moment, but he had no choice.
“T/P!”
Your body tensed instantly, realizing he had followed you. Yet you kept moving, hand clenched on the strap of your backpack as if it could make you walk faster.
“T/P, wait!”
Of course, that bastard had always been in impeccable shape. He caught up to you in a few strides, his hand landing on the front of your arm to make you turn. You pulled away, as if his touch could burn through the fabric.
Rafe felt it too—the persistent burn he had never managed to extinguish.
“I told you not to touch me!” you roared, your voice trembling with anger.
His eyes met yours, shining with restrained rage and silent pain. He saw the hatred you felt for him, and it ate at him.
“Okay… I’m sorry,” he breathed, raising his hands in surrender. “Just listen to me…” “No, damn it! Fuck off!”
He wanted to smile at your foul language, which hadn’t changed. He had never met a girl who could swear that much… and yet, deep down, he knew you were still a soft-hearted little thing. What he had sensed long ago, that vulnerability hidden beneath your armor, now seemed buried under hard, tired features.
“That girl…” he started, hesitating. “If I’d known I’d see you because of her, I would’ve let her be!”
Of course, that wasn’t true. When you had heard her screams as you left the library, your feet had instinctively taken you to her… and to the guy trying to force her into his car.
Still, your words—he knew they were sincere in your mind—hurt Rafe and made him less conciliatory.
“Glad to know your hatred for me matters more than a life,” he sneered, voice tight. “But that girl nearly became another victim of a serial killer… and so would you!”
For the first time since their confrontation, you fell silent. Rafe felt a slight release within himself, an almost inaudible sigh slipping past his lips as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“We’ve been on this case for weeks, and this is the first time we’ve found a living victim.”
Talking about the investigation kept you quiet, but he had so many questions.
He wanted to understand why you were here, in Los Angeles. What had happened in those five years? Had you continued to hate him? And the others… what had become of them?
“Is it…” “Are you done?”
Seeing him hurt you horribly. More than you’d imagined, despite the time that had passed.
His hair, a bit long and messy, framed his face, and he was still wearing that ring… the one you had given him when, as a kid, he’d decided to pierce his ear. Damn stupid memories.
Eventually, your natural instinct resurfaced. He stared at you, too long for it to be purely friendly, but not long enough for you to really understand.
His blue eyes grew cold, his demeanor detached.
“All the victims share the same profile,” he said in a harsh voice. “They’re all the same age, brunettes, without family, they…”
Your hollow, almost cynical laugh cut him off. He almost wanted to hit himself for his clumsiness.
“I… I—” “If I have no family, I owe it to you, Rafe. Remember? You killed John B.”
You stepped back, your expression hard, giving him a cold smile before vanishing into the street, swallowed by darkness.
Rafe looked up at the starry sky, but the stars offered no comfort. His heart was pounding, each beat echoing like a cruel reminder.
That night, it wasn’t just his best friend who had been torn from life… but also your brother. And he hadn’t been able to do anything. Nothing.
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This fic is split into several parts, so make sure to check out the others to get the full story :)
