Spoilers: for ep1x01 backstory details.
A/N: Betaread by the brilliant fififolle.
It rains at the funeral and he doesn't bother with an umbrella. The dyes run from the cheap new tie onto that blank white shirt. It's an awful tie. All ties are awful to him, but this one he hates especially. Someone had pushed it into his hand, someone else had done it up and all day people had whispered to him, kind condolences and suggestions they planted, pushing him in the directions he was expected to go.
Helen was gone. Missing. He'd stood looking down on empty coffin and as he'd dropped that clump of earth on top of it he'd wished the weight would snap the brittle wooden thing. It was meaningless to him, yet he knew what it meant to everyone else. It represented giving up, it meant they expected him to move on. They all said sorry, they all wished it were different but to them they saw the beginning of the end of his sadness as much as the start. To him it wasn't either, there was a grave but no answer as to why.
He'd never liked unanswered questions, not when there was little hope of a reply, an explanation – a challenge was one thing but this he was realistic about, what hope was there he'd ever know? Helen had loved teasing him, always one keen on keeping a sense of mystery so he supposes this is at least fitting for her, a legacy she could be proud of, even if it breaks him. That was one reason he'd wanted the marriage to fail, for it to trail off, without fear it would come to something like this. He'd never expected death would undo him instead of her alone.