A/N: This was the one-shot I had wanted to write after my chapter update yesterday. I can't say to enjoy this because I only have two words for this piece: pure angst.
Autopsy
He never did the autopsies. No, he left that to the experts. Sometimes, he would just stand by and observe it taking place. Other times he would not bother and merely wait for the report.
This time, he insisted on performing the autopsy.
He even insisted on performing it himself. Not even Molly Hooper could help him with this one.
"You sure about this?" asked John, worried.
"Hmm. Yes." he answered stoically.
"I don't think you should be doing this. I don't think you're able to."
"Shut up, John." Sherlock retorted quietly.
Sherlock was not a man of rules, but he did understand the necessity of certain protocols. He scrubbed in properly and put on the standard pale-blue hospital scrubs. Standing in front of the mirror, he swept his dark curls into a hospital cap, ensuring no stray wisp peeked out. Finally, he slid his hands expertly into a pair of surgical gloves and entered the room.
He was alone. Just him and the cold, grey corpse before him. Being alone always worked for Sherlock, and dead bodies never fazed him anyway.
As he examined the body, he noted its wounds, its discolourations and any strange markings on it.
"Bruising around the clavicle…" he reported out loud to himself, "Rope marks around the wrists and ankles."
"Flesh beneath the nails, signs of a fight…" he continued, "A single blow to the forehead, most likely from the back of a gun."
When all the externalities had been duly recorded, he reached for a scalpel, preparing to look inside the body now.
Taking a deep breath, he glided the scalpel along the smooth but cold flesh. The flesh of the dead felt like an oddly soft type of marble. It had the coolness of stone, as would marble slabs, but it maintained that slight softness of humanity. Even in death, one's skin never quite fully turned to stone.
He examined all the areas of suspicion first, areas he had decided would properly detail the cause of death. Sherlock already knew ninety percent of how this corpse bad become what it was. This was just confirmation.
The lungs indicated clearly that suffocation had taken place. The additional hairline cracks around the clavicle and a few neck vertebrae confirmed strangulation.
"In line with the bruising around the chest and neck area…" he said, making note.
He examined parts of the skull and confirmed that the blow to the head had only been superficial, splitting the victim's eyebrow. It was a bloody mess when the body arrived but it was just a flesh wound at the end of the day.
"Cranial damage, nil. Spinal cord damage, nil…" he uttered out loud.
Before he knew it, he was done. He contemplated getting someone to come in to help sew up his incisions and clean the body up. Sherlock decided he should finish what he had started and so began to slowly prepare the body so it could be ready to be sent to the undertakers.
He had scrubbed out and was now out of his autopsy gear. He sat at a borrowed desk, the only desk he ever borrowed, really, and began to complete the paperwork. He surveyed Molly's desk and found the blue Biro she always used. It brought the tiniest smile to his face. Carefully, he transferred all the autopsy notes that he had committed to memory onto the autopsy form.
Cause of Death: _Asphyxiation, by strangulation.
Name of Deceased: _
Sherlock swallowed hard. Perhaps John was right.
He called for John to meet him at the lab upstairs and brought the form with him.
When the brooding detective handed the autopsy form to him, John sighed as he watched his friend sit across from him, staring into space. John reached for a pen in his shirt pocket and began to write what his friend had been unable to.
"You shouldn't have done it, Sherlock." John remarked quietly.
"She wouldn't have wanted anyone else." Sherlock replied, his voice quiet and strained.
John looked up at his friend and studied his face. Sherlock's face was still cold and hard. His lips were pressed together, probably because he was clenching his jaw.
"It wasn't your fault, Sherlock." John told his friend.
"Yes. It was." came Sherlock's reply before getting up swiftly and storming out of the lab.
John took a deep breath as he poised the nib of his pen above the empty line, the impossible line that Sherlock could not write on. With a deep ache in his heart and a weight in his chest for the plight of two very dear friends, John wrote in solemn, black letters:
Name of Deceased: _Molly Hooper__
END