1. Here Comes The Sun.

4:28 am

"Son of a bitch." mumbled Danny. It had been exactly three minutes since the last time he rolled over to look at the clock. He ground the heels of his hands into his closed eyes and let out a frustrated groan.

This could not be happening again.

The bout of insomnia that had hit him a few years ago similarly caught him off guard. He had always been the guy who could fall asleep anywhere- the subway, leaning on the railing of his fire escape, on the floor of his dry cleaners (that had been awkward to wake up to, but- you shout, you ring the bell- then you hunker down and try to have some patience, like a man). It was a trait that had proven to be essential during his residency and in general in his role as a delivery doctor. But after weeks of a slowly-eroding sleep-schedule, he had prescribed for himself what any doctor would- upped his exercise regime, cut back on coffee, and tried to eliminate... stress. He hated the word. It was one that whiney people used a lot, and for a long time he felt like the only people using it should be combat veterans or Scotch-Irish mothers trying to raise eight boys in The Rockaways; the two types of people who would use it responsibly, or not at all.

But he had to admit that, back then, the dissolution of his marriage had been a pretty huge stressor. The kind that clings to you physically for weeks like an angry virus before you realize that maybe the reason you just repeatedly punched the pizza box into the too-small trashcan in the on-call room had less to do with the inadequate receptacle and more to do with your need to just... punch something. That, and the fact that this revelation only struck him when he suddenly found himself yelling at Doris about the relative size of the trashcan and the likelihood of physicians ordering pizza in a hospital... and he saw tears in her eyes. Doris. The woman who he suspected tucked the blanket over him in-between early-morning deliveries. Who raised eight boys in The Rockaways on a hospital custodian's salary and who had him beat by at least two decades on the lifetime number of Springsteen shows she had attended. A woman who not only didn't deserve to be yelled at, but who also deserved all the waffles she could eat after her shift- at Carlo's around the corner.

Which is where she gave him the advice he had needed for all those weeks- "Get home to see your ma, and get to mass." And that's exactly what he did. Instead of going home and not sleeping, he rode the ferry out to Staten Island for the first time in too long, and sat up talking in the kitchen with his mother and a mug of warm milk that she insisted he drink. His mother had at one time driven him crazy with pointed questions about why she never saw that pretty wife of his, or when she was getting grandchildren. But on this visit she talked to him about funny things he used to do when he was a kid, and how worried she had been about him when his dad left for good, and how she always knew he would turn out to be something special. And that she had been right. And something inside his chest had finally thawed out and he knew everything would be alright, in a unique way that only happens when you sit across from your mom in the kitchen of your childhood home and watch her hands cupped firmly around the same harvest-gold coffee mug she's used everyday of her life.

He had awoken in his childhood bed that day, still in his scrubs, and it felt like his heart beat differently in his chest, like someone had reached in and punched the reset button. After that, he was back to sleeping like a bucket of snow; his troubles suspended, and his heart buttressed by Father Francis's sermon at sunrise mass about St. Francis of Assisi and the value of simplicity. This was a concept that appealed to a man whose wardrobe of scrubs and jeans, and diet of shredded wheat and the occasional burger or slice, had a consistency similar to that of the saint's. If it was good enough for Frank, it was good enough for him.

So- he had set about carving even more routine into life-after-divorce. Which is easy to do when you live alone and your closest colleague is Dr. Shulman- a man who readily encouraged his monastic behaviors.

And yet somewhere along the course of this past year, the order of his life had eroded and here he was at 4:28 am, wide-awake with insomnia.

But this time felt different.

His insomnia lacked the sensation of staring into the abyss. Instead, his mind was racing with things that had happened over the course of the day- ideas for expanding the practice, notes he forgot to make in the chart of Mrs. Soledad about her irregular heartbeat, plans for a paper on the difficulty of interfacing with technology during patient visits (which he had to get published by the end of the year, he was overdue), that quip about his haircut that Dr. Lahiri threw his way this morning- which made him chuckle, again, despite himself- the usual rambling thoughts before he fell asleep. Just, since Dr. Shulman had retired, their volume had... increased. Well, it was around that time anyway. He told himself that the added responsibility they had all taken on at the practice was probably the trigger to his newfound sleeplessness.

But something was nagging at him as he restlessly got up and fumbled towards the front of his apartment to tie on his trainers in the dark, pull on his shorts, and swap out his t-shirt already damp with the stress-sweat of not sleeping.

It wasn't the first time in the past year that he had thrown himself into early-morning exercise instead of sleeping.

He considered this carefully as he nodded to Renaldo his garbage man and turned the corner, picking up his pace- and felt the prickly rush of cold, dewy air across his skin as he began to jog. Letting loose a big sigh that helped to unwind some of the keyed-up muscles at the base of his skull, he allowed his focus to fall to the rhythm of the sidewalk lines ahead of him.

If he was honest, his sleeping had maybe stuttered a little around the time the practice had first expanded. Somewhat around the time Dr. Reid had been hired (he still harbors some residual territorial feelings towards the guy, not that anyone would know), and then a sharp up-tick again when they had taken on the chattier, Dr. Lahiri.

Which had been good- they needed to take on more and younger patients and to do that they needed more (and younger) doctors. But the routine of his life had been disrupted and that had maybe, somewhat, stressed him out. Nothing he couldn't handle. He just found it easier when the office had a more business-like atmosphere. Things ran smoothly for him when he could compartmentalize the professional and the personal. He could see patients, do an emergency delivery, then change gears and grab a bite to eat with a woman he was dating- one of the handful of women he had stumbled upon since his divorce. And not even a blip in his blood pressure. All sorted and done for one day, as he headed home his heart would thump slower and slower until he fell asleep in his own bed. If he had something that nagged at him, he went to confession and then on Sundays rode the ferry out to the Island to spend some time with his mom. Everything in his life was firmly situated. He could handle stress.

Except for times like this, when he was on his own at 4:30 am and sprang out of bed and into the dark streets to get away from the repeating thoughts. Just the work stuff and bits of conversation, mostly. Things he couldn't shake off. And a little bit... her voice. And her laugh. Sometimes they got stuck on a loop, like that "Put a Ring On It" song she played too often in her office. She was a human earworm.

This was all her doing, the way she had scrambled everything together- being his co-worker, being his friend, being around all the time and also dragging him on weird dates and butting in with relationship advice he hadn't asked for... she proved to be uniquely difficult to file away into one of his compartments.

And she knew it.

As he turned onto 23rd Street and felt a hint of warmth from the sun peeking up on the other side of the Hudson, he also felt a bubble of warmth deep in his chest. He couldn't help cracking a lop-sided grin to himself as he pictured her expression in those moments when she knew she had knocked him off his axis. She was smug and self-satisfied and... adorable. He couldn't deny it. Lately at night, alone with his thoughts, he had the constant feeling of being in the middle of her monstrous clothes closet- trying to get everything sorted out, feeling overwhelmed. He was used to a small row of monotone, button-down relationships- still in their bags from the cleaners- and not the barrage of colors and textures she seemed able to seek out and curate like a pro. It was easy for her, this rainbow of emotional energy between them. And the hot, giddy sleeplessness that had been attacking him had maybe been a byproduct of all that disorder he had trouble such tuning out these days. He reached the edge of the Battery Park marina near Chelsea Pier where he usually about-faced and instead slowed his pace and came to a stop - placing his hands on his hips, breathing heavily and... grinning out at the water like an idiot.

Then he was walking back and forth in front of the chained-off water's edge, cooling down from the run, his mind racing ahead of him. He was still grinning when he realized- he couldn't stop doing this. Letting her scramble everything up at the practice and drag him into her spring break planning, show up at his apartment on a Saturday with paint swatches for his bedroom and then confuse him into watching "this Nicholas Cage movie" that turns out to be 'Corelli's Mandolin' and... generally screw with the stride and structure of his life- because he kind of loved it.

Because he wasn't a monk, and because that feeling of being overwhelmed by her had taken on a sharper edge lately- he found himself needing that feeling all the time. Even at four in the morning.

His mother had summed it up best during his last visit: "You look happy. Whatever it is... keep doing it."

At the time, he felt a twinge of nervousness as his mother had conspiratorially patted the back of his hand, a twinkle present in her eye. It had been the twinkle that pushed him over the edge- a self-conscious grin spreading over his face that day like the one he felt now. One that spread up from his toes and over the back of his head as his ears lifted slightly and he had a sense that his face was a giant blinking billboard that his mother was able to read. And now, this morning, when gazing out into the hint of a sunrise- he thought back to all those times in the past year he felt like someone could see his feelings strung out across a canvass, laid bare. His thoughts flew to that moment a few weeks back, on the airplane, when he reached out for her hand despite himself.

Yes- lately, everything was messy and confusing and he had a constant knot in his stomach and now he couldn't sleep, but he also couldn't shake the feeling that everything in his life had gradually become better and more exciting and more... colorful, since the day she first interviewed with Dr. Shulman. And the thawed-out feeling in his chest he felt that first day back in his mom's kitchen had stayed and stayed the more he gave into Mindy's demands… because he liked to.

It was then he thought of the similar mischievous twinkle he just couldn't stop himself from chasing after.

And that was his thought as he turned his aching, sleepless body and started jogging again- the sun coming up over his left shoulder and his heart pounding more than it should at such a slow pace. All he wanted right now was that mixed-up feeling of her permeating his life. He turned and went the opposite way up 23rd Street this time, a little light-headed and his fingers wouldn't stop tingling. The grin slowly melted off his face and he started running with purpose down the empty street, catching up to his pounding heart, shock waves running up from his feet as they hit the pavement.

He ran faster still and where the sidewalk had been, he saw her face beaming up at him.

Out on the streets in that pocket of time in the early morning where everything feels possible he sensed that if he could beat the sun to her apartment, he could maybe trick himself into doing something that would just mess up everything in the best possible way.

And then maybe he could get some sleep.