Conflicted, so conflicted.
I’ve been listening to “No Children” by The Mountain Goats continuously because, damn, that shit’s catchy. And it gave me Lestrade feels.
I just picture Lestrade getting divorced from his wife and generally falling apart after Sherlock jumps. The image of him drinking and just kind of strumming a guitar and singing along to this alone in his flat while he’s sprawled on the sofa with the shades drawn just won’t leave my head. I don’t like to paint his wife as ‘the bad guy’ in my mind—I’m always reluctant to do so unless people are actual villains.
So instead, I just see a marriage that started out beautifully, that they were completely in love and then a few years in, they hit a snag. They couldn’t conceive. They both desperately wanted children of their own and they tried everything they could, but nothing worked. They couldn’t have children. They tried to tell themselves it was okay, that it wasn’t anyone’s fault and they still had each other. Besides, they could always adopt, right? But it wasn’t okay. Oh, they started off okay, but it stuck in the back of their minds, some sort of nagging doubt, a lingering feeling of disappointment. It was like a planted seed.
Over time, the seed would grow. She thought he resented her for not being able to bear him any children, he thought she resented him for having wanted children in the first place. A schism grew and grew between them over the years, quietly at first and then eventually announcing itself loudly; arguments that left them shouting themselves hoarse at each other for reasons they couldn’t even place. Most times they weren’t even sure why they fought.
Greg worked long hours, sometimes not coming home for a day or two when he was involved with a case. Sometimes he found reasons not to go home. She was no different, really. It seemed to get to the point where when they were together, it was only to argue; about work, about the hours, about Sherlock, about children, about each other.
But they tried to make it work. Underneath it all, there was still the love that they had founded their marriage on. It was buried down deeply, but there was still a part of each of them willing to dig for it. They went to counseling, had trial separations, and things seemed to get better, for a time.
They weren’t better, though. They couldn’t bridge the gap that had been forged. She realized that before he did. He wasn’t willing to let go. He didn’t want to. Giving in, admitting it, was to say they were wrong. Even though he knew, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. It didn’t seem fair, the thought that she might go off and be happy with this other man, while he remained miserable. But he knew he couldn’t keep her, couldn’t make her stay, couldn’t do that to the woman he loved and had loved. So he signed the papers.
He bottled it up, hid it inside, and put it away. He still had his job to do. Then that came crashing down, too. And what was any of it worth? What was the point? On a temporary suspension, he was left with an empty flat and the bitterness that came in the wake of extreme anguish. So that’s where I see him—alone, singing this song, and trying to work through it in the only way he thinks he can.
I feel like I should write a fic for this somehow, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Anyway… just thoughts that popped into my head.
