One Night
by Lucy Hale

Bullets were flying around him, missing him by yards or feet or inches, he couldn't tell. He couldn't move. He just stood, watching the people around him getting picked off in the crossfire, watching one of the men that had gone undercover with him as his chest exploded, spraying blood as he collapsed.

This wasn't supposed to happen. God, it wasn't supposed to go this wrong.

Police instincts kicked in abruptly, and his train of thought cut off as he dove for cover behind one of the cars they'd been ready to dismantle.

He had to get out of this alive. No matter what else happened, he had to get through it okay. If not for himself, then for...

****

"Simon! Pick up the phone!"

Simon jerked his eyes away from the wall he'd been staring at for what could have been minutes or hours, and lunged for the phone, cutting off the voice coming from the machine.

He hadn't even heard the phone ring.

"Jim? What's wrong?"

"Everything went to hell, Simon. Some cops from the 23rd went in and stormed the place."

Simon knew instantly what Jim was talking about, and it drained the blood out of his face. "What? What happened?"

"Some gung ho Captain from the 23rd decided to storm the place. The group H and Rafe were undercover with was armed to the teeth, like Rafe told us they would be. We just got the call from Henri."

"Where are you?"

"Sandburg and I are on our way to meet H. Simon, he was calling from Cascade General."

Simon's breath leaked out of him. His heart started pounding in his chest so loudly Jim could probably hear it. The phone slipped out of his hand, and he was out the door two seconds later, fumbling with his keys. He threw himself into the car and peeled out of the driveway, his body working on autopilot. His mind was a hundred years away.

Rafe...

Why hadn't he called himself? Why hadn't Jim told him anything about how Rafe was doing? Why was H at the hospital if he was well enough to make a phone call?

Rafe.

His breathing was labored as he twisted the too-familiar turns to Cascade General. His mind's eye was showing him a perfect image of the bright, smiling younger man who had come into his life and turned it inside out. Rafe. Jesus, from the first moment Simon had laid eyes on the new recruit to MC, he had felt a stirring in him that he'd never felt before.

He didn't approach Rafe about it until after long months of denying himself, behaving professionally.

He could still remember the confusion on Rafe's face when Simon asked if he would like to go for a drink after work. He had agreed, and of course the talk had been amiable for a while sitting at the bar. They talked about the station, and work, and the men around them in the office.

And then, with the benefit of having three too many drinks in him, Simon bit the bullet and blurted out the first thing he thought of. "Rafe. I got divorced because my wife and I realized that she would never be enough to make me happy."

Rafe just blinked, surprised at the turn in conversation, and then went along with it. "Why not?"

Simon swallowed another gulp of ice-cooled courage. "She was a woman."

There was another slight pause, and then an easy smile spread over Rafe's face. "I can see where that would be a problem for some men."

"Would it be a problem for you?" Simon asked bluntly.

"Hmm. I don't know. Did you want me to propose to her?"

Simon stared down into his glass. "Rafe..."

"Sorry. I know what you're trying to say here, I just..."

"What?"

Rafe waited until Simon looked up and met his eyes, then smiled. "I just hope this doesn't turn out to be another dream."

It was Simon's turn to blink in confusion. "Another...?"

"Yeah. Another." Rafe searched his expression. "I've dreamed about you...well, a lot."

It had been so easy after that. They had sat and talked for a couple of hours about what it meant, how the felt, and whether any of it was altered by the alcohol they had consumed. And then they went back to Simon's house and passed out in bed together with their clothes still on, determined to make sure waking up sober wasn't going to change anything.

It hadn't. And ever since that morning they had been together. Simon's nights of sitting at home and watching television were over. Suddenly there was this vibrant man in his life, taking him out to explore the city, filling his evenings with laughter, and such easy smiles. Simon was living again, with Rafe's help. He wasn't just sitting around watching the weeks pass.

Every second Rafe was with him he felt alive, and energetic, and like there was so much in the world to be happy about.

Simon drove to the hospital, his hands clenched to the steering wheel to stop himself from physically responding to the sudden mental picture about what would happen if that was all snuffed out. If he got there to hear Henri tell him Rafe had been shot, had died.

None of his friends would know it, but it wouldn't just be Rafe's life that was ending. Simon would stop living as well. He would go back to just surviving, watching the days tick by. And it would be so much worse now that he had felt what it was like to really live.

He took up a parking space and a half, and didn't stop to worry about it. He was out of the car and running for the door in no time.

Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg seemed to be waiting for him. They were standing together by the elevators, and when Simon came running in they approached him.

"Simon, he's okay!"

Simon skidded to a stop, his eyes almost wild. "Okay?"

"Yeah. He's fine. Concrete chipped by a bullet grazed his arm. Henri's fine."

Simon almost couldn't fathom it. "He's..." The name struck him a minute later, and he couldn't breathe again. "Henri's...what about Rafe?"

Jim glanced over at Blair, who shrugged. "We haven't heard. He wasn't brought here, so he probably got dismissed and went home."

"Probably?"

"To tell the truth, the scene down there was pretty hectic. There were a lot of bodies still unidentified when we left. But if Rafe was one of them, Henri would have seen it, right?"

Blair spoke up in response. "I don't know, man. He said they threw him in that ambulance pretty fast."

*Probably got dismissed and went home.* The words rang in his head, and Simon nodded numbly. "Tell Henri...uh. I'll come by tomorrow."

Jim turned back to him, brow furrowed. "Are you leaving?"

"Yeah. I just need to...I have to go...home." Simon turned and left without another word.

He made the ride home even faster than he'd gotten to the hospital. The options were clear in his head. Rafe was either safe and had been dismissed, or he was dead and hadn't been identified. Safe or dead.

He pulled up to his house, and his heart was clenched in a huge, squeezing fist when Rafe's car was nowhere to be seen. Rafe would have come here, he was sure. This was his home now, as much as it was Simon's. He could have made the drive by now. If he was safe.

He climbed out of his car and moved towards the house, seeing the living room light on and knowing he had left it on when he left. It meant nothing.

He opened the front door. "Rafe?" His throat was so dry he could barely get the name out.

No one answered his call.

Simon moved stiffly towards the back hall. "Rafe?"

*Please, God, please.*

He pushed open the door to the bedroom, almost afraid to look in.

"Simon?"

His eyes darted to the stunned form of his lover, sitting on the bed and looking up at him with haunted eyes.

Simon's relief came in the form of a huge, gasped breath and a whoosh of air as he crossed the room in an instant. "Rafe! Baby, God, you scared me!"

Rafe accepted his embrace gladly. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Simon shook his head even as he held the slightly smaller man even closer. "I didn't see your car. I thought..."

"I left it at Henri's. We drove to the meet together." Rafe's voice was flat. "Had to take a cab back here."

Simon heard the strange note in his voice and pulled back, looking at him seriously. "Are you okay?"

Rafe hesitated, then shook his head faintly. "I thought I was going to die, Simon. Everyone around me...and it was cops. Those stupid bastards from the 23rd, firing at us like...like...God, there was hardly time for us to identify ourselves after the firing stopped. I saw Henri going to the hospital. Branson...Branson's dead. Sheila Joranson is dead."

Simon held the shuddering body closer, making small shushing noises to sooth his haunted lover. "It's over, baby."

"They were dying around me. I thought I was...I should have died too."

"No. No, don't say that."

"Sheila has a son. Her fiance...what do I have? Why did she have to..."

"Rafe, stop. One person is never any more expendable than another."

Wide hazel eyes looked up at him searchingly. "What do I have?" he asked again faintly.

Simon squeezed him into his chest. "You have me, baby. I would have died, too."

Rafe breathed in sharply, and his arms appeared around Simon, returning the embrace. "You never...I thought..."

Simon pulled back enough to meet his eyes. "You thought what? I know I never said it before, baby, but I love you."

Rafe's expression fully showed his shock. Simon had explained to him before how important those words were to him, and why he would never throw them around casually. How the only people he had ever said it to were Joan and Daryl. "Y-you--"

"Yes. I love you, Rafe."

Rafe faced him completely, leaning the last few inches to sear their mouths together furiously. His hands appeared behind Simon's neck, pulling him even closer as he readily opened his mouth for Simon's exploration.

Simon's own harried emotions and the effects of the last hour of his life poured into that kiss. He invaded and explored Rafe's warm mouth as though he really wouldn't ever see the younger man again. He held him as though it was only the strength of his arms keeping Rafe there by his side.

Rafe tore away with a gasp of air. "Need you," he breathed out in a gasp. "Please. I want to feel alive."

Simon pulled him back to him without another word. Their arms broke the tight embrace to fumble and pull at each other's clothing, and a couple of clumsy minutes later they were finally naked and on the bed.

Rafe straddled his lover's hips, bending to keep their mouths in constant contact as he rocked the two rock-hard erections together. He drove into Simon almost frantically, as close as he could get and still not close enough. With a growl of frustration, he broke off their fiery kiss. "Simon. Want you. Please." His mouth swooped down again to lay claim to Simon's throat and neck.

Simon's head fell back against the pillow, and he lifted a hand to run through the tousled brown hair, keeping Rafe close without forcing him. "What...what do you want, baby?" he managed to get out with some difficulty.

Rafe stopped his fevered exploration long enough to answer. "Make love to me. Now."

The words lit the flame under Simon's already smoldering passion. With a growl he rolled them over, bracing himself on top of the smaller body and latching his mouth to Rafe's again, reaching blindly to their end table, where they had learned to have an ample amount of lube handy.

Rafe was arching his hips into Simon's, his face flashed and wild. "Simon, please. *Please.*"

Simon found the tube and returned to his lover quickly. "Okay, baby. Shhh. It's all right." He flipped open the tube without looking, brown eyes locked on fevered hazel. "Rafe, I..."

"Shhh," Rafe rocked up against him again, his eyes falling shut under the assault on his senses. "Later."

Simon agreed more than readily, coating two fingers and quickly sliding them one at a time into the small, tight opening into Rafe's body.

Rafe gasped, arching towards the invading digits. The incredible sensations were only enough for a minute, and then he was back to begging. "Simon, now."

He didn't need to be asked twice. His fingers slipped out, and Simon positioned himself over his lover carefully. In one swift, practiced move he entered Rafe to the hilt, and for a moment he could just stay there, fighting to stall an eruption.

Rafe lay back, breathing in ragged gasps. After a minute he started moving under Simon. He found his lover's mouth and traced full lips with a hot tongue, his hips moving to encourage Simon to fuck him.

Simon reacted all at once, sliding back and then angling his hips to thrust into him again. He acted on both of their unspoken desires, making his thrusts hard and fast. He found the right angle, the one that had Rafe almost sobbing his pleasure beneath him, and pounded into the hot body over and over again, hitting that spot with every thrust.

His mouth went to work as well, his tongue meeting Rafe's in a flash of fire that added even more overwhelming sensation to their forceful joining. Rafe's legs wrapped around his hips as Simon sucked on Rafe's lips and tongue, never once slowing his movements.

The bed creaked and groaned under them, but they were too far-gone to notice or care. Simon could feel the fast, unstoppable wave of his orgasm approaching, and his hand moved between them, capturing Rafe's unattended erection and pumping quickly in time to his own powerful thrusts.

In return, Rafe clamped the muscles in his ass, gripping Simon's cock even more tightly, and angling his hips to meet Simon's thrusts and increase the force of their meeting.

All too soon, pleasure -- white-hot, unbelievable pleasure -- exploded inside of Simon, causing him to shout out his lover's name as he filled the tight body with evidence of his eruption.

Rafe's hands dug into Simon's back as he cried out loudly, spattering his own fluids over Simon's palm and both their stomachs.

Simon went rigid as his body was milked dry, and a moment later he went limp. Somewhere in his aching body he found enough energy to slowly and carefully pull out of his lover, and then he simply moved off of him and curled up around the exhausted younger man.

Rafe turned his head towards Simon, his eyes already shut. "Thank you," he murmured, his arms going around Simon.

Simon wrapped them tighter together -- no one could have possibly separated the two men. He wanted to ask what Rafe was thanking him for, but he could tell from the rhythmic breathing that Rafe was already asleep.

And then he remembered. Rafe had said he wanted to feel alive again. Simon must have done that for him.

Simon smiled faintly, holding Rafe impossibly closer. The possibility of losing him that night made Simon realize fully how alive Rafe had made him over the last few months. If he was able to return the favor, even for just one night, he was grateful.

He silently said thanks to the powers that be for not taking his lover and life away from him, and the sounds of Rafe's breathing and the feel of him moving so slightly against him lulled Simon into a deep and dreamless sleep.

The End