After morroco

Rafe Cameron still remembered the splash.
Not because it hurt - it didn't.
Not because he was angry strangely, he wasn't.

But because of the last thing Kiara Carrera shouted before she pushed him off the boat:

"Sorry! I've got to go save my friends!"

No hatred.
No insult.
Just urgency, adrenaline, and loyalty the kind he never really understood until Morocco.

She didn't mean it personal. She just had to get him out of her way. And Rafe, already beaten down by Ward's fists and words in the weeks before he died, hadn't had the strength to fight it.

He hit the water. Came up sputtering. Watched the boat roar off with Kiara leaning over the edge, looking ahead, not back.

That was the last time he saw her before everything changed.

Now, months later, Rafe stood in front of the Chateau, hands in his pockets, bruises healed, eyes quieter. Morocco had burned the recklessness out of him. Losing his father had burned out something else the desperate need to prove himself to a man who never cared.

He wasn't perfect. But he was different.

Inside, the Pogues were talking. Loudly. Kiara's voice carried the most passionate, fast, full of life.

He stepped through the door.

Silence.

Kiara spun around first. Her eyebrows shot up, shock flashing across her face before she masked it.

"Oh," she said, arms crossing out of instinct. "You're back."

Rafe nodded. "Yeah."

A beat of quiet.

Kiara tilted her head. "What... what do you want, Rafe?"

"I'm not here to start anything."
And he wasn't. The calm in his voice surprised even him.

She didn't say anything, so he added:

"You pushed me off a boat."