It was only the second month that she had spent a Uni and already Astoria wasn't sure what to do with herself in her spare time. She lay on her bed with a cigarette in one hand and a half drunk bottle of red wine in the other. The smoke was drifting out of a window in her room, which also happened to let in a cool refreshing breeze. It was 3 o'clock in the afternoon and she had nothing to do. She decided to take her cigarette outside and walk around the grounds for a while, gazing at the trees in the park would keep her occupied for a while and she could always watch the people that passed her and guess what they were thinking. She put the bottle on the table, grabbed her black coat and strolled outside. She received a few odd looks from people, but she was used to that by now, her appearance often seemed rather morbid-looking and people constantly asked her if she was ill.

She had long jet-black hair, pale skin, a rather thin physique, a gaunt face and deep blue eyes. So people presumed that she was on death's row. What probably didn't help the matter was that she nearly always wore dark clothing and she was rather partial to dark eye make-up. Whilst she was at school she used to get called names, people would call her a freak, a Goth and plenty of other stereotypes and nasty names. She tried to ignore it and always told herself that she was used to it all by now.

She brought the cigarette to her lips whilst she found a seat on a park bench. As she was blowing out the smoke she leant back slightly and closed her eyes.

"You wouldn't happen to have another cigarette would you?" A deep voice asked from her left.

Astoria jumped at the sound of the voice and opened her eyes to find a young man sitting next to her on the bench. He was pale and gaunt looking too, although he had a mop of dark brown curls on his head and startlingly icy blue eyes.

"Err, yes I do. Would you like one?" Astoria asked politely, although she wasn't entirely sure why she was offering this man one of her cigarettes.

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't." He replied curtly.

Astoria was a little taken aback, he seemed rather rude, but strangely she didn't mind.

"Alright." She said and took out a cigarette before handing it to him. "I'm afraid I don't have a lighter, sorry."

"I have one." He said, "Thank you."

He took the cigarette from my pale fingers with his own, slender white ones. He lit the cigarette and began smoking it, although he showed no sign of wanting to move.

"So, was it Bi-polar or Dysthymia?" He asked suddenly.

"W-what?" Astoria stuttered.

"Your mental illness, which is it? Bi-polar disorder or Dysthymia?" He asked again.

"Dysthymia." She replied, "How did you know?"

She eyed him suspiciously.

The man gave a cocky smile and said, "Well, you have a long term mental illness, it's not Schizophrenia or Psychosis and you don't have OCD. You don't take very good care of yourself, so you're not worried about your health, which means its likely that its some kind of depression, its unlikely that you would be outside in public if you had major depression, besides that only lasts for a few months, a year maximum. You've had mental health issues for much longer than that, so that led to Bi-polar or Dysthymia. Of course they've diagnosed you wrong, but that's irrelevant."

"I still don't know how you knew I had a mental illness." She said nervously, "I don't even know who you are."

"You're pale, which suggests you don't get much sun-light, you stay inside as much as possible, this suggests a lack of desire for social situations, common in people suffering with depression. You're quite thin and you're tired, so you don't take care of yourself, your health isn't important to you, this could be because you're a 'care-free student', more likely because you don't care if you get seriously ill and potentially die, you're smoking emphasises this point. You're not anorexic, otherwise you wouldn't drink alcohol, there are a lot of calories in alcohol, but there's a slight stain to your lips, you've had red wine recently, in large quantities. That suggests that your lack of eating is due to a loss in appetite, also a common symptom of depression. " He said.

Astoria stared at him, astonished. "You still haven't told me your name."

"Sherlock Holmes, studying Criminology and Forensic science." He said offering his hand.

She shook it and said, "Astoria Burrow, studying Criminology and Psychology."

"I know," He replied, "You're in my Criminology class."

"Oh." Astoria looked at him curiously. "Why did you say they diagnosed me wrongly?"

"You're depression get's worse than most Dysthymia cases usually do, you have a strong morbid curiosity, attempted suicide many times. You also have phases where you feel like you're losing control, unusual bouts of anger, hatred and bitterness, mostly directed towards yourself. And other times you feel completely empty and detached from everything. I think it's a lot more than Dysthymia." Sherlock looked rather pleased with himself.

Astoria turned away from him and wiped her eyes with her sleeve, she didn't want to cry in front of this strange and brutally honest man. If anyone else had said all of that to her, her whole life, she would have been really hurt, but somehow she didn't mind that much, it just stung to hear it out loud. To know someone had uncovered the truth about her.

"Ah, I didn't mean to…" Sherlock began.

"It's alright," Astoria replied. "That was quite clever, what you did. How did you know all of that?"

"I simply observed you, from your behaviour in class, to now." Sherlock said.

"How did you know about… about the other stuff though?" Astoria asked, referring to the losing control point that Sherlock made.

"There are signs." He said.

"Right. I don't want to know." She replied.

Astoria composed herself. "But really, that was quite astonishing."

"Really?" Sherlock asked.

Astoria turned to face him again and he looked genuinely intrigued.

"Yes, I've never seen anyone do that before." Astoria admitted, "It was marvellous… just don't tell anyone else about all of that though, please."

"I have no-one else to tell." Sherlock replied.

"What do you mean?" She asked, her soft blue eyes locking with his icy ones. "Don't you have a girlfriend? Or any friends?"

"No." He replied. "You're the only one who seems to appreciate my skill."

"That's a shame, it's amazing. You could go far with that."

"Go where?" He asked curiously.

"I don't know. You could be a detective or something." She said trying to think of something plausible where that level of observation would be necessary.

"The police are dull." Sherlock said absently.

"What about a private detective?" She suggested.

"And what? Find out whose husband is having an affair with whom? Boring. I want something more interesting, like a serial killer."

Astoria thought for a moment, "Why not be a detective on a free-lance basis?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, "Isn't that what private detective's are?"

"Yes, but as you implied earlier most private detectives deal with things like affairs, whereas if you labelled yourself as a free-lance detective, you could help the police with serial killers and things like that. Then you wouldn't have to always comply with the police but you would still get the interesting cases." Astoria said.

"Do those even exist?" Sherlock asked.

"I don't know. If not, you could invent the position. Become the first." Astoria smiled.

Sherlock smiled back, "Maybe you're right. I could be a kind of consulting detective."

"Exactly." Astoria replied. "You'd be good at that."

Astoria suddenly realised that she had just suggested an entire career path for someone she'd only just met. She would never have just talked like that to anyone, somehow Sherlock was different. He found her interesting, she could tell. And she most definitely found him interesting.