Anielica

Geralt

Time passed differently for Geralt than it did for humans. It usually felt a little quicker. But in the eighty years he had seen, this year had easily been the longest of his life.
Each day dragging by painfully slow, he felt each hour like a pulse beneath a bruise. But time passed as it did, but the pain never got any easier.
The first month after he left her was the worst. He had spent every day of it blind drunk and each morning, woke up in new ditch, stinking of filth and alcohol. He relied heavily upon the intoxicating substance just to get through the day. He couldn't remember doing anything other than drinking and mourning and the only reason he stopped was because he'd spent all his coin.

He remembered the first day he woke up sober- in one of his more comfortable ditches- the throbbing in his head and muscles in no way, could compare to the pain he felt at her loss. It was as if someone had punched a hole through his chest, right where his heart should be. The wound raw, exposed and throbbing. He liked to think he'd left his heart with Elena. He knew she'd keep it safe for him.
He was ashamed at how weak he was. He lay in the ditch that morning and remembered the day he left her...
He had just made it to the first town when the reality of never seeing her again sunk in. The further he went, the colder he felt. She had been his light in the darkness. His warmth and brilliance in this stinking, cold wasteland. He remembered turning Roach back around, and staring at the direction he had come from for over three hours. He had almost given in and went back. But he couldn't be selfish with her. He had to do what was best for her future. No matter how much it hurt. He remembered thinking he was strong enough to live without her. Oh, how wrong he was.
He lasted ten hours before he found the nearest tavern and drunk himself into oblivion.

He was not strong. He didn't bother picking himself out of the ditch. He lay there for days, hoping that death would come for him. He truly thought the best thing for him would be to die here. There was no way he would recover from this. And even if he did, what did he have to live for now? He hadn't been a Witcher in over a month. He hadn't ate or washed in that month. He wouldn't have even been able to kill a fox if it happened to stumble upon him now. He must have made for a pathetic sight indeed.

He didn't know how long he had lay in that ditch for. His only conscious thoughts were of Elena. For so long, he had drunk himself stupid trying to forget her. But now, with the end coming close, he saw no point in trying to fight it. He closed his eyes and let her flood his senses: Her smile, her bottom lip slightly fuller than the top. The impossible depths of her blue eyes. The soft, glowing skin of her face and neck. So pale and fine. The smell of hair, and how soft it felt between his fingers. He could almost smell her now- Vanilla and raspberries. He lay there and remembered every detail of her. He might as well enjoy it since he was going to die anyway.
But he didn't die.
A man had bundled him onto the back of his cart a few days later. Geralt remembered being surprised at how easily the man had lifted him. He must have lost fifteen kilos of weight.
He ended up spending many months in the mans cottage. He was the local priest and healer and insisted that it was his calling to help Geralt.

The first month living there was another fresh bout of hell. The pain was even more extreme, now he was sober and fully aware of himself. After months of suffering and longing, he couldn't take it anymore. The way he saw it, he had only two options.
Number one: Go back to Elena and beg her to take him back. But then he would only be doing that for himself, out of pure weakness.
It in no way benefited her at all. 
Which only left him with choice number two: He would need to turn his emotions off.
The legend that Witchers didn't have emotions wasn't totally untrue. After the mutation was complete; many did experience loss of feeling or could learn to tune them out. But Geralt had already lost so much of his humanity back then- he couldn't bear to lose anymore. So in order to appease his mentor and his comrades, he simply pretended that his emotions had dulled to almost non-existence.
He couldn't believe that he was choosing not to feel anymore but he simply wouldn't survive this any other way.
He'd been trained and mutated to do it. It would be so easy... And it was about time he was a Witcher again.

After he switched himself off from humanity, life was much simpler. Emptier. But liveable.
Each day he ate, trained and slept. Over and over until he regained his strength. It was a gruelling and tedious routine, but he took comfort in the ritual. He found the priest, who's name was Alec, was quite an agreeable acquaintance. And if Geralt could feel, he knew he would have like him very much. 
After six months of this, Geralt left Alec, and continued with his Witcher trade. Physically, he was in the best shape of his life. He was stronger, leaner and with his emotions off, a hell of a lot meaner. But he would never be the man he was before. There was no point pretending to be something he wasn't. He would never be human. He was a mutant. A Witcher. And it was time to get back to doing what he does best.
Killing.

All that really mattered to Geralt now was monsters and money. He forgot how much he enjoyed the simplicity in it. When he was tired, he slept. When he was hungry, he killed something and ate it. When he wanted a woman, he would buy a whore and she'd be gone by the time he woke up. He'd be lying to himself if he said that when he touched a woman, he never thought of Elena. Because he did. And often. She was always in his thoughts. Something still stirred within him when she came to him in his dreams, but it was just a cellular memory, a faint shadow of something he had felt, which now felt like an eternity ago.
Sometimes, he was tempted to go back. Not to visit or make himself known. But just to watch her from a distance. Make sure she was safe. Sometimes at night, he would lie awake and wonder if she too was thinking of him. Was she happy? He hoped she was.
He would never be happy again. But he didn't need to be.
Monsters and money. That's all he would ever have. That's all life needed to be.