Poison & Wine//A BBC Sherlock fanfic

Now

Now

He knew that what he was doing was socially unacceptable, but he always felt like he was above those kind of rules.

Kneeling at the bottom of the closet, Sherlock pushed several pairs of shoes out of his way, his eyes searching for what he had deduced about Cosette a few days ago. He hadn't managed to get anything else out of her since that morning in the garden, Cosette always changing the subject whenever he asked. All he knew was that it was bad and she was guilty.

Guilty, Sherlock thought, chucking a stray sock out of the way. Guilty of what?

He might've just found the answer. As he thought this his hands brushed over something wooden and he paused, his eyes focusing on what sat before him. Tucked away in the corner of the closet was a wooden box, dark with intricate patterns along the sides. Glancing over his shoulder and deeming it safe he pulled it out, moving away from the closet and sitting cross-legged before Cosette's bed. He stared at the lid of the box, taking in the swirling designs which made a flower.

Cinquefoil, Sherlock thought as he traced the lid, his ears listening out for any sound of Cosette or Teddy. The women were in the backyard at the moment, Mrs Bellamy at work. He knew that if caught, he would be in serious trouble. Teddy would shout at him and call him rude. Cosette would yell too, except she would do it in French. He could only imagine how that would feel, being yelled at in two different languages. He would risk it though. He was burning with curiosity to find out what happened since the last time he had seen Cosette. What had she done once she had come back to France? She obviously finished off Uni and gotten herself her master's in History, but what else? What else did she do? What made her blind? How did she get those scars? Sherlock needed to know and he was certain that this box- this memory box of Cosette's- held the answers.

Slowly, gently, he opened the lid and peered inside.

What he found shocked him to the core.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The wind was blowing softly, rustling the leaves on the trees and picking up strands of her hair. Teddy lay on the hammock tied between the tree and a fence, her hand hanging over the side and running through the grass below her. She stared up at the blue sky above her, the air smelling like all kinds of different flowers and the area around her looking like the garden of Eden. She was still recovering from the flu, her throat still a little sore and her muscles a bit achy, but she was feeling well enough to go outside nowadays. She had gone with Margot Bellamy, Cosette's mother, into town the day before (that had been both enjoyable and weird: enjoyable because she was out of the house and weird because a man had approached her and told her that she and the man that looked like her were not safe. Part of her felt as though she knew what he meant, but she didn't stick around to ask). She enjoyed the peace and quiet here before it was to be taken away from her.

Make the most of it, Teddy girl, she thought with a small sigh. Soon you'll be back to living in hiding, taking down a criminal network and facing death every minute of the day.

Thinking of death made her wince slightly, her mind thinking about all those near-death experiences she had been in. The sniper at the pool- her shoulder still played up every now and again due to that bloody scar. Then there were all those other cases that had occurred over the past year: The shrapnel that had gotten her in the left arm in America; The knife wound to the ribs in China;  that guard dog which had nearly taken off her foot in Russia. Then all those torture sessions when things hadn't gone according to plan. True, she and Sherlock always managed to get out after a few days, but in a few days damage could be done and their handlers always knew how to cause damage. She had the scars on her back to prove it. Yet, she was lucky. It was always Sherlock who got the worst of it. They had made a pact before they had journeyed off that no matter what, they would not spill their secrets. Sherlock had gone through half an hour watching Teddy get beaten to a pulp and he didn't break. Teddy had gone through even longer watching her brother getting ripped to shreds by a cat o' nine tails and she didn't spill anything. They were always meaner to Sherlock than they were to her, probably because they thought that because she was a girl she would crack faster than Sherlock. That wasn't true, though. They didn't know that, though, so they continued to drag Sherlock to the gates of Hell before ending their torture and allowing Teddy to bring him back to the cruelty of life.