Disclaimer: The characters and the show CSI:NY are the intellectual property of their creators and CBS TV.

Spoilers (mild) for Child's Play, All in the Family

A/N: This story is part of the Wenches' Fairy Tale Challenge. Inspiration came from the Norwegian folk tale "East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon" as found on the surlalune site.

Rising of the Sun

She slid quietly out of bed, careful not to disturb him. He was finally, heavily, asleep, after working back-to-back shifts through the weekend, only to show up at her door after midnight, unshaven and red-eyed. She had said nothing, simply letting him and standing back to let him find his way to her bedroom. By the time she had followed him, after locking the door and turning out the lights, he was lying on the top of her covers, still dressed and restlessly dozing.

It had taken him hours to sink past the nightmares that followed him down dark alleys, suffocating in the shadows, then into the high-rises, climbing, climbing, finally standing on the edge of a building, feeling the pull of the abyss. He would jerk himself out of sleep, gasping for breath. She would hold him, soothe him, her voice calling him back to the warmth and ease of sleep.

But now that he no longer needed her, no longer turned to her in his pain and fear, she could no longer lie beside him in a mockery of peaceful slumber. They had learned to sleep beside each other, to share the space, sometimes cuddled heart to heart, sometimes only feet or fingers touching. But she had not learned to sleep when he was in pain, had not learned to turn away and take her own rest while he struggled.

She had not learned to be selfish.

Gathering up clothes from the floor, she restlessly wandered into the living room, looking at the television but rejecting anything which might disturb him with unaccustomed noise. She picked up a book, read a line or two, then dropped it on the couch beside her. She went to the kitchen and boiled the kettle, pouring the water over a teabag in a mug, wincing as she heard her grandmother's despairing click of the tongue.

"Tea is a ritual, lovie. It should take its own time, be treated with some dignity, with some care." And the old china teapot would come out of the cupboard, be filled with hot water, swirled round and poured out, then carefully measured spoonfuls of tea – "one for each person, plus one for the pot" – covered with boiling water – "bubbles the size of frog's eyes" – then five minutes to steep. Sugar cubes in a bowl, cream in a jug, a tray covered with a lacy doiley, cookies arranged on a pretty plate that matched the delicate teacups, some of which were close to fifty years old. Her grandmother's rite of passage: the ceremonial details of pouring hot fragrant tea through a delicate strainer over one lump of sugar and a dribble of cream.

This was her ritual, she thought – a bag, a mug, a half-spoonful of sugar straight out of the canister. The only lump sugar in her life came from the bits crystallized by water dripping off the spoon she used to fish out the teabag.

She took a sip, and swallowed a desperate longing to go home, to sit in her grandmother's comfortable living room, with the blinds pulled down a precise quarter-length so the afternoon sun would not fade the upholstery, with the hand-rubbed wood gleaming in the rosy glow, with the fringed shades of lamps that would not be turned on until the sun had set and the smell of dinner filled the air.

She curled up under a quilt and tried again to read. But the words danced and swung on the page in front of her eyes, and she could neither concentrate on the actions the stalwart hero was performing, nor care about the emotional turmoil the heroine experienced as she watched him from the sidelines.

Life wasn't like that, she thought. Life wasn't heroes swinging in to save the day and princesses in towers waiting, combing their long golden hair. Life was searching through dumpsters, not even knowing what it was that you had to find. Life was sitting in a safe lab, watching two men fight for their lives, for each other's lives, underwater. Life was standing outside a warehouse, trying to convince yourself that the shots you had heard were not tearing through the fragile flesh of the person you had grown to love more than you had ever known possible, flesh you had explored with tongue and hands only hours before.

She reached a shaking hand to her face, wiping away the bitter tears.

How was it possible that loving someone could hurt so much? How was it possible that thinking about a life without him was so much worse?

She wanted to ask him why he kept showing up at her door. They rarely talked, rarely touched except in sleep, rarely shared a meal or a meaningful glance. Since he had verged on stepping over the line every cop knew the boundaries of, they had moved in parallel lines: she safely back from the edge, he skirting it defiantly. They worked together well as always, sometimes reaching that comfortable place of ease and familiarity that she knew she depended on, but at the end of shift, whether they had worked together or not, whether they left together hand-in-hand or not, there was a careful space between them that she was afraid to stretch across, lest there be no welcoming hand on the other side to grasp hers.

Too many tears, she thought angrily, as she scrubbed an impatient hand across her face again. She was ashamed that her tears were not for the little boy who had lost his life, nor for the mother who had lost her anchor in the universe. Her tears were all for her, for the future she could see slipping away day by day. Her tears were all for him, for the life he seemed determined to throw away in anger and in shame.

But night by night, he would show up at the door, and she would let him in, and she would guard his sleep.

There was a fairytale she vaguely remembered her grandmother telling her, about a princess who failed her betrothed in the usual ways. She had looked when she should have closed her eyes, had questioned when she should have trusted, had spoken when she should have remained silent. And her punishment was to lose him to a troll.

No weeping miss in a tower, this princess had sought him out through more dangers than a lifetime could hold, and she had finally found her love again. Still, the princess could only watch over her love's sleep by night, begging him to wake up and remember her. But the troll had drugged him, so that he did not hear her pleas.

And time was running out.

She stared at the book on the couch, idly tracing the title with her fingers. Another tale of love misplaced, abused, ignored, gone wrong. Only to be put right in the end through the intervention of the author.

And life was not like that either. No divinely omnipotent Author to fix everything and make it all right. No string orchestra playing as the star-crossed lovers found each other against all odds and the credits rolled over their embrace. No joyous realization that all the obstacles in the way had magically disappeared.

Just a slow, reluctant, inevitable slide away from each other's embrace.

She made her way back to the bedroom. She could neither let him stay nor ask him to go: the scream inside her strangled, still-born. She sat on the floor beside the bed, brown hair gilded by the touch of dawn-light through the window, and watched over his sleep.

"Danny," the name whispered out through her lips.

He smiled, a genuine smile, and reached a hand to her, and pulled her into bed with him.

"Montana."

And as his mouth covered hers, she began to believe that the long journey to find him had been worth it.

Because he had been right beside her the whole time, just one arm's length away.