A.N.: Okay, I know it already says this in the warnings below, but I have to say that this is one of the most angsty things I have ever written, and I found it quite uncomfortable to write. I may be less than used to writing stuff like this which probably makes it feel worse than it maybe actually is, but I just had to let you know that I think this is quite unsettling, just as a warning.

Warnings: References to infidelity, angst

Disclaimer: Don't own Sherlock

Chapter 4 – In Which Twenty Years Comes to an End

Greg Lestrade had had a bad day.

Three days had passed since his drunken phone call to Mycroft, and he still hadn't spoken to Louise. He felt like a coward for having put off the inevitable for so long, so he had decided that tonight would be the night. When Louise returned from yoga on that Tuesday evening, he was standing in the kitchen with his serious face on.

Louise and he had been together for what seemed like forever. They had met in university and, despite a brief period after their graduation when they had fallen out of touch, they had married relatively soon after they got together.

Twenty years and two kids later, their up-to-that-point rather blissful marriage had crumbled at the seams. Maybe it had been the twins moving out to go off to university themselves that had torn them apart. Maybe it was Greg's long working hours. Maybe it was something else.

Their relationship had never been the same since the first Christmas after the kids had gone. They had fought an awful amount of times and never seemed to be at peace. Even the times when they had been acting civil with one another, one of them had an argument from some time ago ticking away in the back of their minds, ready to burst forth whenever it took a fancy to creating some mayhem.

They had separated just before the kids finished uni, and they had been on-and-off since then. There had been extraordinarily good times; there was the one summer when Greg had moved into Louise's new townhouse and they had almost fallen in love with each other again.

Almost.

But the good times were always outweighed with the awful times, with the times when they were screaming at each other and throwing things and storming out.

Even so, even through all the bad times, Greg had always been faithful. He had never been with anyone but Louise, and he couldn't believe that she would betray him like that. He wasn't sure if the PE teacher was the first, but he was the first that he knew about, and he was determined to make it the last.

By the end of tonight, if she slept with anyone else, it wouldn't be cheating, because he wouldn't be there anymore. He had packed her things already; after all, why should he leave? This was his flat.

She would be gone by midnight.

"What's going on?" she chuckled awkwardly as she dropped her yoga bag on the sofa and saw Greg's face. "Something wrong?"

He shifted uncomfortably. He had never been good with face-to-face confrontations, not with people he knew. He didn't mind screaming at criminals and lowlifes at work, but this was Louise – this was the woman he had spent the majority of his adult life with, the woman who had given him two children. But he couldn't let this go on any longer. He had to say something.

"Who is he?" he asked plainly, deciding to cut straight to the chase. He didn't know if he'd be able to handle starting with something simpler.

Louise's face fell as she realised that she had been caught. He stepped away from the sofa and looked up at him. "H-how did you know?" she asked quietly, her voice cracking slightly.

"That doesn't matter," he told her, his throat starting to feel very dry. He had never been a particularly emotional person, and he would not let her be the reason that he cried for the first time since he didn't remember when. Besides, if he were to answer that question honestly, they would get side-tracked into discussing the wondrous powers of Sherlock Holmes, and that was not what he had planned for this talk. They needed to stay on-topic, otherwise he would never finish what he had to say.

Louise licked her lips nervously, and took a step forward. Greg let her; she was still far enough away that he was comfortable with her getting a little closer. But only a little.

"Greg, listen-"

"Who is he?" he asked again, his voice a little louder, but no stronger. He was finding that he was having a rather difficult time holding it together.

"He takes the same train as me in the morning," she admitted, and Greg liked that she at least had the courtesy to sound bad about herself. "We started talking a few weeks ago, and then… I don't know!" she sighed, lifting a hand to her hair and pulling at it. "We went out for dinner, and it just… carried on from there."

Greg nodded, looking away; he suddenly couldn't bear to have her face within his line of vision any longer. "When was this?"

"I'm sorry?" she asked, and Greg had to admit that she had an excuse for not hearing what he had said; his question had come out a mere breath, and tears were beginning to well up in his eyes. He blinked them away quickly before raising his head; since his throat had started to feel scratchy, he had accepted that he would probably cry over her, but he was not going to let her be there to see it happen.

"When was this dinner?"

"Uh…" she began, her voice shaking violently. Her eyes looked wet. Greg was glad. "Maybe… about a week before Christmas?"

Greg had to take a deep breath before continuing. "So when we spent Christmas day together… you were sleeping with someone else?"

She said nothing; a tear ran down her cheek, and that was all he needed to know.

Nodding with an air of finality, he walked passed her into the bedroom that they had shared since she had moved in – he would definitely be buying new sheets and burning the old ones – and grabbing the bag that he had packed from the bed. He dumped it at her feet.

She stared down at the bag, dumbstruck, her mouth open like a guppy and tears now falling freely but silently down her face. "What-"

"You have to go," he told her, trying to sound forceful but aware that he was being less than convincing.

She looked up at him despairingly. "Greg…"

"I couldn't fit all of your stuff in there," he explained, feeling the need to keep talking if only so that she couldn't; he couldn't bear to listen to her voice anymore. "Only the essentials." He chuckled, a humourless bark. "Maybe I should have given you a toothbrush and a sock and left you without for a few days."

"You're not like that," she mumbled, shaking her head slightly.

"Yeah. I know." He looked up at her, draining all emotion from his expression. "I wouldn't cheat."

Her face crumbled, and she let out a sob. Clamping her mouth shut to prevent any more sound emerging, she scrunched up her face until her cheeks went red, wet streaks lining her skin as it bunched up. She inhaled loudly before daring to speak again, and when she did her voice was higher than normal, and cracking every other word.

"Where am I supposed to go?" she asked, lifting her hand slightly before dropping it down so that she slapped her palm against her thigh.

Greg shrugged. "I don't know! Maybe he'll take you in."

She didn't try to be silent anymore. She was sobbing properly now, her chest heaving with each ugly sound. It was a moment or two before she composed herself, wiping the tears angrily from her cheeks with a rough swipe of her palm and straightening herself up to her full height. She grabbed her yoga bag off of the sofa and picked up the bag that Greg had packed for her.

"I'll come back for my other stuff later," she whispered, seemingly unable to raise her voice to any volume higher than that.

"You won't get back in here again," Greg told her. "I'm changing the locks tomorrow. You can tell me where you're staying and I'll bring your stuff round." He suddenly realised that she was probably going to take his advice to the letter and stay with the PE teacher, whom he might see if he went round there, and that was something that had no desire to happen. "Or I can… get a friend to do it," he added, with a small shrug of his shoulders, looking away again to the ground a little to his left.

There was a moment when time seemed to stop: neither of them said a word; neither of them moved. They were suspended in their positions, unable to alter this moment. In the end, it was Louise who made the first move.

"Uh…" she began, shifting the yoga bag so that it sat higher up on her shoulder. "See you."

Greg let out a puff of air, not quite a laugh and not quite an exhale. She turned to leave, when he remembered the very last question that he had for her.

"Just… one more thing," he looked up as she stopped dead in her tracks and then slowly turned to face him once more, "the other day, when you were at a 'girl's night'…" He let the question peter out, so she could finish it for herself.

She said nothing in response; she merely nodded.

Greg began to chew on his bottom lip, feeling tears begin to well up in his eyes once more. He felt so incredibly tired, so extremely exasperated. He just couldn't do this anymore. "Goodbye, Louise." He waved her off, turning around so he wouldn't be watching as she left. He stared at the sink intently as he listened to her footsteps getting further away, followed by the opening and then the closing of the front door.

She was gone.