Rafe Hernandez is a fictional character on Days of Our Lives, an American soap opera on the NBC network. Portrayed by Galen Gering and created by Dena Higley, Rafe is introduced in 2008 as the FBI agent assigned to protect the troublesome Sami Brady (Alison Sweeney) during her stay in witness protection. Sami and Rafe's contentious dynamic later develops into romance and the two fall in love and eventually marry. However, their romance is plagued by Sami's supercouple romance with Salem's resident badboy, EJ DiMera (James Scott). Rafe's disdain for the DiMera family grows when he discovers that EJ is behind the kidnapping and presumed death of Sami's daughter Sydney and EJ's father Stefano (Joseph Mascolo) replaces Rafe with a doppelganger. The series also introduces Rafe's younger sisters, Arianna (Lindsay Hartley) and Gabi (Camila Banus) and later his younger brother Dario (Jordi Vilasuso). Rafe is very protective of his siblings having helped raise them when their father abandoned the family. Rafe also has an affair with Kate Roberts (Lauren Koslow) putting him at odds with Stefano, Kate's ex-husband. He later falls in love with physical therapist Jordan Ridgeway (Chrishell Stause) whom he tries to help overcome her own dark past. In 2015, Rafe is forced to confront his past when his estranged father Eduardo (A Martinez) resurfaces. Rafe later falls in love with his longtime colleague Hope Brady (Kristian Alfonso) and supports her when she loses her true love to a brain tumor. When a grief-stricken Hope murders Stefano, Rafe helps her cover it up. Later storylines include raising Jordan's son, David, and his devastation when David's aunt gains custody of him, and developing a relationship with Ava Vitali (Tamara Braun).
