OBX Pov's

Rafe Cameron POV; Sunset Tears

We never fought like this before. He fought like this before, I have fought like this before, never with each other. "DON'T ASK ME THOSE QUESTIONS, YOU KNOW I CAN'T ANSWER!" He screamed at me like he could kill me, which is what I was afraid of. I was never afraid of him, but maybe that's the mistake. I was shaking. I stood back cowering in fear, he didn't stop screaming and in fact kept stepping forward into my space. He stepped forward as slow and intimidating as he could get. It was a part of him I never thought I would see against me. He shouted right in my face, spitting "OH YEAH?! YOU'RE SO SCARED?! OK THEN BE SCARED OF THIS!!!"

He punched me. He punched me square in the face. I let out a low cry as I fell to the floor. I had been crying but that hit me like a shock wave. I gazed up at him expecting to happen, though I'm not sure what I was waiting for. I was laying in more shock than pain. I watched from the floor as the realization of what he had just done to me washed over him.

"I..." he breathed. He had no words for his own actions. He had nothing left to scream at me at least. I, as carefully and composed as I could be after this happened. All he could do was let me walk away and let me go. I could tell something in him that wanted to stop me, to hold me, to say he's sorry a million times, to talk through it but he couldn't. He couldn't because he wouldn't and because he knows it wouldn't have stopped me.

But right before I walked out the door the only thing, I could get to leave my lips was "I just wanted to help you...". My tears outgrew where they had been resting in my eyes and flowed down my cheeks like a stream. The image of where I left him standing there with his hand half out for me to take blurred. My stomach was churning and at this point I could barely see. I couldn't go home, I couldn't go back to him, I couldn't go to any of my friends. I had nowhere to go, stuck in what seemed like such a free place.

Before I left though I peeked back behind me to see if my glimpse of hope that he would be running towards me or watching from a window above or standing calling me, but as I should have known he wasn't coming for me. So instead, I ran. I ran faster than I ever thought possible until this moment, when I needed to. I ran 'til I could barely remember where I had been, and I could barely recognize where I was anymore. But when I walked down to the beachside, I knew exactly where I was, all those times and memories flooded in at once only making me sob harder than I had been before. I recognized and remembered this place more than I wanted to.

This beach was where me and Rafe would come when we were younger. He would come down here to calm his mind when it was all too much. He would call me and ask me to come to our spot and I would know just what to do. I would walk down and see him with his hands on his head rubbing his temples until they would turn red. I would step down into the sand and walk over to him and hug him. We would just sit, sometimes we'd talk about it, we'd sit in silence, we'd laugh, we'd cry. We never fought here though. The peace this place would bring to everything we had was like nothing else. The peace it could bring him. He would tell me; "It's not the place, it's the people." But the sunset and the waves sure couldn't hurt.

I guess we stopped coming here after his mom passed away and his dad went kind of crazy. It's like he had snapped and that only made Rafe snap more. I have only been getting more and more worried since we were kids. It's even worse for him because his dad feeds off of his problems. The worse it gets for Rafe the easier it gets for Ward to control him. But that's why we had our place. That's why we never fought. I could never forget those sunsets, with him sitting next to me. How happy everything still was, or at least still seemed to be.

In those moments he felt like home, not only because he felt like home to me but because to him, I was home too. It has always been us against everyone else, but recently it hasn't been feeling the same. It's the weirdest feeling when you can feel the ground slipping out from under your feet, but in a taunting way. It will slip out so fast you can barely feel it by the time it catches you again as you slam right into the floor. It just has been feeling like I'm going to lose him, my best friend, my love, my "Love you to the moon and to Saturn", my up all night talking, my home, my entire world. And once you lose someone that has become your life, don't you lose yourself to? What haven't you lost by then? Life would be purely emotionless and empty. I don't think he could understand what he is to me, at that I don't even think he would believe or accept it.

I sat down in the warm but quickly cooling sand. It was slowly turning to evening, and it was a sunset that looked faintly familiar. I just rested a little, let myself cry, listened to the waves, felt the sound of the ocean. I watched the sun sink down into the deep blue oceans. I could've sworn I could hear someone walking up behind me and sit next to me but over the crashing sounds of waves I couldn't be sure. I was only sure after I felt their presence next to mine. I didn't even look to see who it was, why would I? I didn't care. I didn't think it could be Rafe because he wouldn't come, he was probably still at home putting holes in the walls anyways. He wouldn't know to come here anymore anyways. I figured it was one of my friends or some random local crazy. I didn't really care anymore though. Would it really be so bad if it were some murderer? Someone to take me away forever? I knew it would be but, in that moment, I couldn't even have cared to move my head to the side to look.

I closed my eyes and let a tear slip from my blurred eyes, then as I did the person next to me sighed. Not a sigh of annoyance, it was of regret, empathy, and disappointment but not in me. When I heard that sound, I knew who it came from. Rafe had come for me, and he knew I would be here, our spot. I still didn't look at him though. In some weird way I didn't want him to come, but I did. I wanted the good Rafe to come, the side of him that cared about people, he was nice, he did good stuff, he danced, he sang, he loved, most important to me he loved me. But I had a bad feeling that it might not be him. What if he had come to kill me? What if I know too much? What if he doesn't love me? Would I still love him? Silly question, of course I would.

At that moment I felt a hand touch my cheek, the side of my face that had been hit. He turned my head towards himself, and I opened my eyes to see a beat up, tired, confused guy. Who just needed help. He looked at me and said, "Love you to the moon?" I giggled a little through my tired voice "And to Saturn my love." I couldn't not forgive him; I was all he had left, and he was all I had left. I looked into his blue eyes that matched the ocean perfectly. I threw my arms around him, and he sifted his fingers through my hair. In that moment I could have sworn we had finally found peace. In that one small moment, gone too quickly.

We both swung our heads around and saw Ward standing there with a gun pointed at... me.