- - - - -
She wakes with the dawn, red-gold spreading across the sky until the colours shift and change and the real world starts again.
It's her favourite time of day, because it's hers - no phone calls, no doctors, no patients, no responsibilities. Just the cool, new light of morning and the pavement beneath her feet as she measures her breaths and strides and prepares for the battles ahead.
- - -
Blue and grey and charcoal are the colours of his sky.
He hasn't seen daybreak in years... at least, not voluntarily.
Most of the time, in the pitch quiet of night, the buttery lamplight bathing his bed and his room and his fingers trailing across the piano, he can almost forget the erratic pulse in his thigh.
But the last time he remembers a sunrise was from having stayed up all night, when hecouldn't forget, however hard he tried, and all he could do was clutch an empty pill bottle as the blood-red light crept through the window and across his floor.
- - -
These days, he wakes with the dawn, though he doesn't tell her so.
He keeps his breathing even, his eyes shut, even as she sighs awake and shifts in his arms.
She is careful when she finally gets up, careful when she gently moves his hand from her hip, careful to lightly press her lips to his forehead before she disappears into the bathroom.
He smiles, opens his eyes, and watches her go. She might turn him into a morning person yet.
- - -