Somebody That I Used To Know
Chapter 1: Walk Out the Door
In the midst of the awful news about a certain Doctor Cunningham, my mind has gone into overdrive. Just needed to address the news with some angst. So this is for those who have heard the news (which is just about everyone if you're on twitter). This won't be very long, as I have other stories that need to be written. Oh, and the next chapter of Catch22 is coming along. Just slowly. It's a big angsty mess, that one. Mind you, this isn't much better.
Disclaimer: BBC owns the (totally heartbreaking) plotline. And everything and everyone else you recognise. The rest is me, totally broken-hearted.
"I've already said yes."
As soon as the words left his mouth, you felt your heart drop. Physically drop to the very deepest pit of your stomach, swirling around, drowning in acid, disintegrating.
Eight years. Eight years, and that's all he thought you were worth. Four words. No apology for breaking your heart, no apology for making you fall in love with him, no apology for even applying for the damn job in the first place.
And you could accept that without question. Because you'd been in love with him for God knows how long. You snuggled into bed, lying on top of him, no words necessary between you at this moment in time. You'd have that talk in the morning. The difficult goodbye. It's a moment you'd been dreading. Having to say goodbye. The emotion, tears, yelling. You'd lost so many people already, and he was your rock through a lot of that.
You never even stopped for one moment to contemplate that the next person you'd be saying goodbye to was him. It never even crossed your mind. Not once. His presence was unconditional. Unwavering. One of the only constants in your life.
As his fingers drew uneven circles on your back, his lips pressed against your hair, his heartbeat slow and (yet again) constant against your ear, it was easy to forget that he was leaving. As a visual, it was like any other night, when, exhausted from activity you'd engaged in earlier, you stayed in each other's arms until you drifted off.
But that night, there was a tension that made itself known. That night, you knew all too well, was different. It was to be the last night you'd spend together. But in that moment, you tried to block it out, ignore the inevitable. Focus on the constants.
You knew everything was changing. You should have seen it coming, really. The constants were changing. For one, you and Harry ended up in a relationship. Two, your bed was kept warm at night by Harry's arms enclosing you, protecting you from any fear that may have ever crept into your brain. Three, he loved you back. He said so, on many occasions. That was the largest shift in the constants.
For a long time, it was easy to pretend that you didn't really love Harry, because there was no indication of anything remotely more than friendship between you. Even that kiss, all that time ago, was just to silence you. Nothing more, nothing less. But one day, after a difficult case, and a badly-timed break up, it became so much more, that every day after that you mentally pinched yourself to make sure you weren't living the cruellest dream.
Until that day, you had ignored the change in the constants. Brushed them off as inevitability. Fate's way of apologising for all the torment it had put you through all those years previously. Until that day, you thought he'd never leave you.
The last thing you remembered was feeling warm. You remember that feeling of warmth, even now, because it's so distinctly different from the cold you feel now. The cold you felt that next morning. Waking up, feeling cold. Positively hypothermic. His arms weren't wrapped around you. They weren't there to keep you safe from the possible nightmare that he had gone.
You called his name, the solitary word echoing around your flat. The echo only emphasised how alone you felt. You felt like that echo, bouncing from wall to wall, unable to settle, unsatisfied until it eventually petered out.
Looking around your flat, cross-examining every room like it was a crime scene, searching for even the slightest fibre to suggest that Harry had ever been there. It was like segments of time had been erased. Pictures of you and Harry that once hung on a wall had vanished, leaving ghostly shadows of where the frames used to be.
Even in the fridge, his skimmed milk had gone, the red-topped carton replaced with your green one. The absence of his mug in the cupboard, or even his jacket on the back of the dining room chair, seemingly unable to move three metres left to the coatstand.
It didn't feel like home anymore. It was a house. An empty shell. The inanimate objects mirrored your feelings. You were the empty shell too. The middle, the yolk, the medium used up, whilst the shell lay broken, fragmented, discarded.
Unnecessary.
You yearned for that goodbye you had been dreading. Anything was better than this. He was better than this.
Not even a bloody goodbye. Like one more word would make all the difference, anyway. He just walked out of the door. Didn't look back.
No note. No phonecall. Nothing. You'd think the absence of that appallingly difficult goodbye would be better. You wouldn't have that memory of seeing him walk out of the door one last time. But it wasn't. Because instead of cherishing that last memory of him, you despise it.
Because you don't have a last memory of him. He stole that goodbye from you. Left you while you were sleeping. You didn't even realise he had gone.
But you felt it in every fibre of your being. The pain, threatening to suffocate you. You didn't even notice as the minutes become hours, as you sat on your kitchen floor, copious tears falling down your cheeks.
You didn't even notice that Leo let himself in. You didn't even hear the doorbell. The tears that fell down your cheeks that day were the worst kind. Soft and sporadic, uncontrollable as you gasped for air. When Leo pulled you against him, you broke. Mentally, physically, emotionally - clutching at his arm, his shirt, anything for the slightest segment of human contact. To erase the feeling of Harry against you.
As Leo whispered meaningless words of comfort, rubbing your back and trying in vain to get you to calm down, you both had an unspoken epiphany. It would never be the same again.
"He's left me, Leo. He's left me," you sobbed, your cries muffled as he pulled you even tighter against him, trying to replicate the safe feeling of Harry's presence. And for a while, it helped. But underneath the pain, Leo couldn't understand how you felt. Not even close.
Your lip quivering, you eventually began to take slower, steadier, more measured breaths. You were on the verge of having a panic attack if you didn't. Your breaths tried to become deeper, filling your lungs with the oxygen necessary to keep you living. For a fractional moment, you wondered what it would be like to stop breathing, because that's how you felt in that moment. Your world had stopped.
What was the point in finding out the reason for death, if you couldn't even find a reason to live in the first place?
Told you it was angsty. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed Sun is in the Sky and Those Who Wait: Lizzi, Clufie, Cariad1987, Flossie, whitenessie, dinabar, delectabledaisy, greyslostwho, Poppy and Izzy.
And for those who aren't on twitter, please note. This is official. Any stories about the new characters are hereby banned :) Unless you're planning on killing them. Otherwise it's just very painful...
As always, read, review and mourn the loss of the wittiest, funniest, sexiest, cleverest, occasionally most oblivious, pathologist in the world :'(
Ems xx
