"Here, let me show you," John grabbed the skull off the mantle and turned it in his hand. "See, if the blow from the rolling pin had been two inches to the left it probably wouldn't have been a fatal blow, but as it was…"
Ten minutes later Lestrade was thanking John for the impromptu anatomy lesson and hastened to arrest Mrs. Lovett.
What a tragedy, Sherlock thought, she made the loveliest Chai Latte and tarts at her Marylebone Road pastry shop. He had just settled back down at the microscope when he heard John clear his throat. "Yes, John?"
John was frowning while his eyes scanned the calciferous dome still I his hands. "Sherlock, is this crack new?"
Sherlock changed slides on the platform, mumbling his reply. "No, that's been there."
John stepped forward, holding Billy out for Sherlock's inspection, "How can you be sure? You didn't even look."
Sherlock intentionally kept his gaze firmly fixed on the eyepiece, adjusting the focus with a practiced hand. "A three and one half centimeter crack arising from the sagittal suture on the left parietal bone bordering the occipital bone?"
"Yes, that's the one, but are you sure it's not new?"
Sherlock looked up, meeting John's eyes. "Positively. The damage occurred after Uni. I had just moved into the Montague Street flat a few months before."
"Oh, did you drop him or knock him off a shelf?" John asked.
"No," Sherlock sat up straight and pivoted in his chair to face John. "I don't know what happened, because I was unconscious at the time. It must have been a small earthquake or maybe the building settled, causing him to topple off the shelf where he usually sat."
John drew in a sharp breath. "Unconscious?"
"Yes, having a seizure, according to my neighbor in the flat below," Sherlock admitted. "He came upstairs to rant at me for waking him up and found me on the kitchen floor. It was Billy's impact on the lounge floor that awakened Mr. Patel. If it had not been for him I would have died from the unintentional overdose."
"Your neighbor or Billy?" John slid down into the chair across the table, still cradling the skull in his hands. He knew Sherlock had a drug history, but hearing how he had nearly died made him weak in the knees. What a waste of a good man that would have been and he shuddered, thinking of how his own life might have been altered had he never met Sherlock.
"Both, I suppose." Sherlock stood and stretched, his back cracking audibly. "If you will excuse me, John, I think I will retire."
John sat at the table for a few minutes lost in thought before getting up and placing Billy back on the mantle. He took two steps towards the door before turning back to look at the skull again. "Thanks for saving him, mate!"
In the darkness Billy's teeth shone in a wide grin.