CONTENT NOTICE: More of the same from the last chapter.

When I returned to Baker Street, Holmes was still sleeping peacefully. I knew he would stay asleep for a long time after the drug I'd given him had worn off, so much was his exhaustion. Judging from when I'd dosed him, he'd sleep until the early hours of the morning. That was the way it usually happened for me; when I'd finally give in and dose myself on my worst nights, I would sleep well into midday of the following day. That was why I refused to take anything when I knew I may be needed in my professional capacity or when I suspected Holmes would be wanting me. There was no way I would let him face a dangerous situation while I slumbered.

I wanted a cup of tea, but didn't want to disturb Mrs. Hudson who had already been generous enough to leave some cold dinner. So, I lit a fire under the swinging teakettle Holmes had bought for the sitting room. Mrs. Hudson didn't like the thing demanding to know what was wrong with the way she made it, 'every day at tea time when you two aren't off gallivanting who knows where and drinking who knows what horrid leaf,' and so Holmes had declared that it was 'for tea emergencies, Watson.' Certainly this qualified.

Cup of mediocre tea in hand, I finally settled into my own chair. My bad leg had been making its displeasure of my exertions known for some time now, I had been steadfastly ignoring it, and now I propped it up by the fire with a sigh. Not for the first time since I'd returned home, my gaze flicked to Holmes' desk. On these kind of occasions I'd often find myself questioning why he had drugged himself with the infernal substance he kept in the drawer there. This time, I wondered why had not.

In the past, I'd come home to find him in a stupor for no reason more substantial than that he'd been a full day without any kind of activity. His black moods were usually characterized by his use of the morocco case and the needle. Yes, he had recently made me a promise that he would try to do better, but I wasn't self-centered enough to imagine he would actually take my feelings into account when he wanted the drug. So why didn't he take it?

This was perhaps the worst black mood I'd seen him in for some time, and yet he hadn't so much as touched his case. I would have been glad of it except that it was so worrying. I had a feeling that I understood all too well why had hadn't, had a feeling that perhaps it had something to do with the same reason I refused to use my own prescription for morphine and accept the comfort that drug offered me. In the past, I had told Holmes a half-truth about not wanting to be one of many soldiers who ended up addicted to it and were to be found dead in some rotten alley after coming home from war. He had pressed me, and I'd elaborated that too many doctors prescribe the drug much too freely and he'd let it go at that, but I could tell he was suspicious there was something else I wasn't saying. Perhaps now he knew.

I turned my thoughts away from my own personal hurts to focus on Holmes again. How was I going to tell him what I'd found? How was he going to react? I hoped I would help, but he always reacted badly to anything he remotely considered failure.

Reluctantly, I stood in order to stoke the fire higher and get some cold dinner. It was getting late, but I wanted to sit up and watch over my friend. He didn't deserve to be alone, not tonight, and even if he didn't want to talk to me I knew he'd be grateful I was there nevertheless. Even for a man like Holmes, a reminder that he had a friend wouldn't go amiss. I settled in my chair once more to wait, but it had been a long day, I was tired, and the fire was very warm and I rested my eyes for just a few moments... and I woke to Holmes throwing a blanket over me.

Holmes noticed that his action had woken me, but avoided my eye. He stoked the fire back to life as I stretched and realized we were in the early hours of the morning, just as I'd predicted. It was still dark out, but soon the sun would be rising. I expected him to retreat into his room and avoid me, but instead he sat in his chair, shoulders slumped and head down like a child who knows they are about to be chastised by a disapproving parent.

"Watson," he said softly, "I am very sorry, my dear friend. I did not mean for you to have to deal with…" he trailed off, gesturing vaguely around us.

I huffed. "Oh please, Holmes. As if I of all men would be unsympathetic. But Holmes, there is something important you should know." I wanted to get straight to it, we'd wasted enough time already.

"Please, Watson I know you want to help, but…"

"She was murdered," I said, cutting him off.

He snorted. "Perhaps. We live in an unsympathetic world where a troubled young woman cannot express her hidden anguish. Perhaps if she felt she could confide in her fiancee or her brother… and who knows but there may have been some secret person tormenting her. Murder? Yes, perhaps. But not punishable. "

"Very punishable," I corrected him.

"Not when the murderer is inaction on the part of those around her and the failings of our societal system..."

"No, it was a person. A singe assailant, I'd say."

"And when the cause of death is so hidden…"

"No. It was asphyxiation."

He finally seemed to hear what I was saying. "Watson, I think there's something you need to know. She…"

"She was asphyxiated, I know. Probably by single assailant shoving her head into a pillow or blanket. She was then hanged, dropped violently enough to snap her neck. Maybe yanked upward from the ground hard enough to do it. Finally, her body was dressed up to make it look like a convincing suicide. So convincing, in fact, that it could even fool Sherlock Holmes."

He stared at me. " How…"

"It's all right, Holmes. You did what you thought was right, and there was no reason to suspect foul play, not until the body was examined," I explained quickly and, I hoped, reassuringly. "Our emotions lie to us often, Holmes, and whatever happened to you would have distressed the most dedicated Greek stoic. We are dealing with a cunning and devious killer, my friend, and so far everything has gone the murderer's way. But we will change that. Together, like always."

"Emotions lie…" he repeated slowly, eyebrows knitted together in thought. He was trying to remember something I told him once. I saw on his face the moment he remembered.

"Emotions lie," he said. "People lie. But not bodies. Alive or dead, bodies keep a record. Bodies tell the truth. That's why the only way to hide a cause of death is to hide the body or destroy it completely. Because bodies will tell the truth." There was a spark back in his eyes now, and he sat straight up, leaning towards me and staring intently at me. "You looked at the body. You found something, something that I and the police corner all missed."

I nodded, scowling at his mention of the police coroner. I didn't explicitly say so to Lestrade, but Holmes should know I had no affection for that man. "You speaj as if doctor Staiger would be able to tell a decapitation if a body was brought to him separate from the head. Yes, Holmes, I found something, and I'm not surprised that fool Staiger missed it. "

The corner of Holmes' mouth actually lifted the tiniest bit at that, and I chose to be glad of it. "So what is it you have found, Watson?" he asked. "What was wrong with the body?"

"The blood," I answered.

He cocked his head to the side. "You may be misinformed, Watson. She was not bleeding. I… she…"

"I know," I quickly interrupted him. "I am speaking of the blood inside her body. It is that which told me things were not quite as they appeared."

"The blood inside her body," Holmes mused. "I didn't really see her afterwards, so I didn't notice anything. What about it, Watson? What did it tell you?"

"That she had been hanged, "I stated bluntly, wanting to get the hard part over with and move straight to the point.

His face blanched. "Watson…"

"Which it should not have," I continued quickly, not wanting him to dwell on it. "The blood should have told me she was laid on her back after her death."

"Because she was," he breathed, understanding dawning on his features. "She wasn't upright long enough for the blood to settle. It would have settled once she was laid on the ground." He looked to me for confirmation and I nodded to assure him he was on the right track.

It was rare he bowed to my superior knowledge on a subject, but he'd never before tried to contradict me when it came to a matter in my own profession. My skills had been helpful to him more than once, and to Scotland Yard, too, when it came to that. Staiger really was incompetent, and though he'd never admit that he knew it, I knew that was why Lestrade often had me perform some important autopsies for him as a second opinion. Both he and Holmes defended my findings from criticism, and I knew they both trusted me to be thorough and exacting in my work. I wouldn't lead them astray.

"Once a person is dead, the blood will settle," I explained. "Depending on the position the person is in, it will color areas of the body and distinct ways. Her blood told me she had been hanging for long enough for the blood to settle."

Holmes hummed thoughtfully, closing his eyes and steepling his fingers under his chin in thought. "What else?" he asked, eyes still closed.

"Fabric under her fingernails," I said. "She tried to pull whatever was smothering her away. She fought for her life."

"What kind of fabric?" he asked.

"Wool," I answered, folding my own blanket as I did so. I rose, holding the blanket and striding over to him. "I found two distinct bruises on the back of her neck," I said. I stopped next to his chair. I held the blanket in front of his face and grabbed the back of his neck without force. I didn't push, but instead pulled my hand away in the same position I grabbed him in. I showed it to him.

"That," I said," it's how you grab someone to shove their head into a pillow and keep them there until they die. It doesn't take long; panic sets in and it's as I've told you before about panic."

He nodded. "Panic is the enemy of survival. You found those kinds of bruises were on her?"

"Yes. Plus, there is the evidence of her snapped neck."

"Hmm?"

"Her fall was not from very high, Holmes. Stepping of a bench would not would not have resulted in her neck being snapped. As a matter of fact, her death would have been long and painful even if she did not immediately regret her decision and struggle for her life. Which she would have. If it really had been a suicide, if she'd tried to kill herself, you may have been in time to save her."

He narrowed his eyes at me as I retook my seat. "How can you say that?" he asked. His tone had taken on a low and serious mien, but without being harsh or accusatory.

I hesitated, not wanting to reveal too much. This was about him, not me. "Because they all do," I finally admitted in a whisper. "They all struggle. They all regret it. When it comes down to it, they all want to live."

I shivered involuntarily, the vision springing into my hand of a young soldier who had died in my arms after shooting himself in a moment of absolute despair. At the last second, he'd thought better of it and had yanked the revolver away from his temple, but it was too late. He'd already pulled the trigger and the bullet pierced part of his skull. I'd ran to the tent as soon as I heard the shot, but I hadn't been able to help him. I could only hold him as he died, his last choking words a desperate cry for life that I was not able to answer.

"I am sorry, my friend," Holmes said gently, interrupting the memory.

I shook it away. "Everyone I know who has lived after such a foolish attempt has regretted it and never tried again… even those with less to live for than most," I finished, and hoped Holmes would allow that to be the end of it. He didn't need to know that it was partly the memory of those horrific deaths that had kept me right in the midst of my own worst moments.

Holmes let the subject drop. "The ring," he said instead.

"Hmm?"

"When I… well, I noticed she was still wearing her wedding ring. Part of me knew that was wrong, but at the time I was too muddled to figure out why."

"And now you know?"

He nodded. "She would have thought of him, wouldn't she? The fiancee, I mean. And then, deciding not even he was worth living for, she would have thrown away the ring. It's the drama of the moment, the last thing on her mind. I don't have to be an expert on relationships and women to be able to deduce that. She would have thrown away the ring."

I nodded, understanding his logic. "So, Holmes, it was murder?"

"Yes, Watson, "he said, his eyes glinting in a way that spelled disaster for our antagonists. "It was murder."

HERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:

The vast majority of persons who attempt suicide and survive the attempt do not go on to die by suicide.

Serious suicidal thoughts are often short-lived.

No one is defined by their darkest moments.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the United States is 1-800-273-8255.

Author's note:

I am not an expert forensic pathologist. If you, dear reader, do happen to be one, I hope you will forgive the mistakes I'm sure I've made in my description of the corpse.

Panic, as Watson says, really is the enemy of survival.

MHC1987: You are absolutely right about the Robbie Lewis connection. I was specifically thinking of when he says, "You're dead aren't you, you stupid girl?" while trying to save someone. Kevin Whately's acting in that scene is incredible and heartbreaking (in my opinion, of course). I am so glad you caught that one. :)

Shey72: Seeing as how you asked so nicely, your wish is my command; I hope this was fast enough. :)