Title: Dawn
Author: kyrdwyn
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Spoilers: none
Summary: A Grissom based mood piece.

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He didn't know when he had started hating dawn so much, but over the past few years he'd discovered that when the sun rose, his spirits fell.

He hid it from his co-workers. He had to. They all viewed him as an iceman - someone whose emotions remained unseen except when some case became twisted and bizarre. One colleague even told him that he didn't feel anything. She was wrong, but it was hard to overcome their opinions. It was easier to stay silent, stay focused on the job. But he still dreaded that moment when the first tinges of pink would appear on the eastern horizon. For then his day was over, his work no longer a refuge he could depend upon.

Often he would avoid the dawn by working straight through it, staying in his office like a hibernating animal waiting for the spring thaw. He would emerge when dawn had fully turned to day, the brilliant colors evaporating into the blue and yellow of sky and risen sun. Then he could function again, go about his job and his life without hesitation.

He often thought it was odd that for as much as he hated the dawn, he loved the sunset. The fading light, the blue sky turning to reds and pinks and purples before settling into the blackness, energized him. This was his time, the start of his day. He was at home in the night, moving through places most people would avoid, seeing and doing things most people preferred to ignore.

Today would make him face his fears. There was no work to allow him to hide in his office, no case to keep him in the lab until dawn was a distant memory for the sun. He stepped into the crisp morning air that held a promise of the heat to come, slipping on sunglasses to try to fool his eyes into thinking dawn was still to come. But while his eyes could be fooled, his heart could not. Every streak that lit the morning sky was another stone weighing down his heart.

He surveyed his colleagues as they laughingly dispersed to their homes. One had a daughter waiting for her, the others had friends and lovers. They called out to him, waving at him, and he waved back, forcing his lips into a semblance of a smile. He truly liked them and enjoyed working with them. His hatred of the dawn shouldn't affect their mood.

He kept his eyes on the road as he drove into the dawn. It wasn't that far to his home, and he hesitated on his doorstep. This was why he hated the dawn. He hated the empty echoing of his house in crimson shaded light. The first golden rays mocked him as they highlighted the empty bed. Dawn had once been his friend and ally. Now it was a cruel reminder of that other Dawn who had once waited for him. That other Dawn whose glorious rays had not turned into the blues and golds of a perfect day, but instead had wasted into an empty nothingness from which she would not return.

***