-Williams POV-
I couldn't even look at her in the eyes.
My cowardly heart couldn't look past the tears that were threatening to fall from both of us, to tell her. Once again I hid behind my work, behind my mannerisms.
Behind my logic. Logic. Something I had always trusted in. But this was not logical. It was not logical for me to sit here day after day.
Hitting the bottle. Shunning work. Shunning help. Shunning everything and everyone. But I didn't care. I had gone past the point of caring.
At first I took it in my stride. Looked past everything as if it was just another normal day. People come people go. Love comes love goes.
But I knew. I knew past my pride, past my exterior demeanour, past the smile and the friendly conversation it was there. My heart was broken and it was my best to hold it together. I would pray, I would use my confidence in god to heal my wounds and shield me from the onslaught that would constantly barrage my crumbling wall. My heart was in a thousand tiny pieces...but I still loved her with every single tiny piece..I still loved her as if it were whole...as if I were whole.
Days seemed to turn in to months and I was still in my hideous rut I was now captive in. I could handle the newspapers- just.
'WORLDS FIRST FEMALE SURGEON IS COMMENDED'
I could handle that. She was doing well, she was finally doing what she wanted most, she was living her dream. Week by week the newspapers would have more and more articles about the children's hospital, about her. People started to talk. She became somewhat of a 'Gossip Topic' The most eligible bacheloress in Canada... There were pictures of her in all the newspapers...Men queuing with false illnesses purely to see her. But she still remained stoic...No man seemed to even pique her interest let alone her love. Then...out of nowhere came a headline that I would never remove from my memory. It was lying on the inspectors desk on a Friday morning, he attempted to throw it into his draw claiming it had nothing in it I would find interesting...but I grabbed it quicker than he had.
'WORLD RENOWNED DOCTOR ENGAGED TO LONG TERM CO WORKER AND FRIEND'
I could only look at the inspector as the blood drained from my face.
'I'm sorry Murdoch.' Was all he could say before I had left the room and left the police station.
Left my life. I can't even remember how I got home. Or where I got the liquor from. A few weeks after that...it was my turn to be headline news...rumours...gossip...lies...they all followed me around.
'TORONTO'S BEST DETECTIVE AWOL'
"some say he's gone mad"
"lost his mind"
"alcoholic"
...I couldn't tell you what I was. Or what I was doing. Although I knew the part about being alcoholic should be true by now. I started to lock my home. All the doors all the windows. I didn't want anyone to see me, and I didn't want to see anyone.
George would post me weekly foodstuffs through my mailbox every week, per my request. I paid him well, for I had nothing left to spend my money on. But soon my money began to dry up. So did my liquor. With no job, no savings I had nothing left to fuel my abstinence from living. So I walked. I had no idea where too. The roads were silent, and empty. I had my bottle of scotch in a brown paper bag, a hip-flask in my pocket and my long black overcoat over my back, I dragged my legs in my tattered shoes and trousers. I hadn't washed in weeks and my beard made me fairly undescernable to anyone who saw me. Especially from the well groomed, well polished man that I no longer knew in the newspapers. I made my way all the way along the river, drinking as I went, when the bottle was empty I stopped and tossed it in the river, and moved to my hipflask.
My vision was past hazy. It was dark. The only way I knew there was something in front of me was when I walked into it. After a while I just decided to sit on the river bank I took off my coat, my shoes my socks and just revelled in the feeling of the water. I don't know how long I was sat there but before long my eyes were heavy and my head fell back with rest of my body onto the grass behind me. Feet still in the water I slept off my drunken stupor...
A/N:
Ok, so here's chapter one! let me know what you think! :)