Poison & Wine//A BBC Sherlock fanfic

Now

"I- I do not- I don't understand what you're talking about-" she denied, shaking her head. "You- you must be mistaken-"

"Cosette, I know."

The look of absolute shock and despair that crossed over Cosette's face would stay with Sherlock forever. He found it so amazing and so, so sad that two words could cause such pain and grief for one person. Then again, he knew what it was like to have two words hurt him so. Those last two words he ever said to John Watson would haunt him forever.

"How... How did you find out?" she whispered, her eyes staring down at the sheets on her bed.

"I always knew that something had happened, the scars and your blindness were proof enough. I just didn't know how or why. I asked you but you would always change the subject. I just... I couldn't deduce it, so in the end I..." Sherlock frowned, looking towards the wardrobe. "I had to do some searching."

"You... You looked through my wardrobe," Cosette replied slowly. Sherlock found no point in lying to her, so he just said yes.

"You found the box."

"Yes."

"You..." Cosette looked up, her hands balled into fists. "You bastard. How could you go through my things like that?! Without asking-"

"I have been asking, I've been asking since that afternoon in the garden. You just never told me-"

"That's because I didn't want to-"

"So I had to find out for myself-"

"No doesn't mean yes, Sherlock!" Cosette fumed, her unseeing eyes narrowed. "No doesn't mean that you try to find an alternative route! Why couldn't you have just left it alone?!"

"Because this isn't something that can just be left alone, Cosette," Sherlock replied, staring at her in sadness. Although she was angry he could see the grief that hid beneath the surface. He saw the sadness and the guilt that she still tried to keep hidden even though he already knew. Gently, slowly, he reached out and took one of her hands in his, leaning in close. Cosette, who had been shaking with worry and anger, suddenly became quite still and her breath caught in her throat.

"Cosette," he murmured, staring at her beautiful scarred face. "I'm sorry. But please, tell me what happened. I want to hear it from you, not painful mementos you keep hidden away in a box."

She was wrestling with the demons in her mind, he could see that clearly. Her head turned towards the wardrobe and Sherlock followed her blind gaze towards it, knowing exactly what she was seeing in her mind. Endless letters filled with love, a diary holding stories about days out that were bathed in happiness and nights in that were cloaked in the light of the stars, photographs that were slightly worn by how many times they had been touched but never actually seen until Sherlock himself had laid his eyes upon them. Then there were the other items that had been inside that memory box, the ones that made Sherlock's usually stone heart clench in pain and crack in sorrow. Each item had a piece of the story that made up Cosette's past. Sherlock had managed to piece it together but he needed to know if it was right.

For the first time ever, Sherlock hoped that his deductions were completely and utterly wrong.

With a sigh Cosette turned away from the wardrobe, her eyes closed. Sherlock stared at her, the music that continued to play filling the room softly. She didn't speak for a moment, and at first Sherlock thought that perhaps she had fallen asleep. After a few more seconds of silence, though, she spoke.

"It must've been fate, I guess. Some kind of plan that a higher power came up with. It was a year after I had returned from London. I only had a few more months before I was to finish University. One day I was in a cafe, just reading over some notes, when he came over and introduced himself."