A Golden Opportunity

The Morality of a Crazy Man

Victor lay crooked upon the motel bed, staring at the old man in the wheelchair. He had not anticipated Professor Holmes had enough breath in him to carry on such a story, indeed Victor had expected three sentences full of denial, full of insistence, full of ignorance. And yet the boy lay stunned, stunned as if he had just sat through an entire calculus lecture and had actually understood it. Indeed the old man had told his own story in the form of a lecture, so much so it seemed likely that his walking cane had doubled for a pointer stick throughout the entirety. It sounded convincing from this point of view, reinvigorating Victor to seek justice for this long lost love story. The guilt he had felt, the anger at being roped into such ridiculousness this afternoon...well from this point of view it all seemed justified. It all felt purposeful, which of course put Victor into a state of deep distrust. He had believed this man's stories before, and while none of them were yet debunked, Victor still had to wonder how much of this tale was true to the times, and how much had been tailored in his loving memory for these fifty years of simmering. Of waiting.
"Did he ever tell you he loved you again?" Victor wondered, finally pushing himself into a sitting position and trying to bring blood back into the arm which had been squashed underneath his body. He hardly felt it during the story, as Sherlock Holmes's lecturing skills were as well developed as any.
"No," Sherlock admitted. "Though of course he couldn't have. Not writing the letters across from his wife, in the house they shared! It would be blasphemy."
"And yet you thought he would leave her?"
"It seemed reasonable that it would. Yet as the years went by, as his letters started to mention pregnancies, families...well of course it seemed less likely."
"How long did it take until he stopped responding?" Victor wondered, still wary of being too kind to the man. A story did not change their position, nor could it justify any of the man's past behavior.
"About five years," Sherlock admitted, still faced towards the wall where his face was not visible. Victor could hear in his voice that he was pained, that the silence still haunted him. "His last letter gave no mention to his decision, he...he never said goodbye."
"You've been writing to him for fifty one years with no response?"
"No...not that long. Remember Victor, the time I spent in the military hospital."
"Which was what?"
"Six months."
"Oh, right. So...so fifty years and five..."
"Six!"
"Six months?"
"Right."
"That's pathetic," Victor decided at last. There was a chuckle from the wheelchair, a chuckle that sounded almost too joyous to belong to the decrepit old man.
"Well, if pathetic was embodied in one single lifeform, in a man who could find solace in neither body nor heart..."
"It would be you," Victor finished in agreement, nodding. He knew better than to euphemize what he said, there was no way to offend the old man these days, nothing that would hurt him anymore than he had already been. The wounds he had suffered went beyond physical, and had Victor understood the true burdens the man carried he would have been amazed he had ever been able to walk at all.
"But now there is hope, Victor," Sherlock Holmes explained carefully, his words tired but his tone optimistic. "I know he won't leave his family for me, I know it may even be difficult to get a love confession after all this time. Though there is hope yet for him to admit what he had felt before, and to rationalize why I waited so long. Soulmates can be interrupted, as you must know by now. Two people who were not supposed to meet, two puzzle pieces from different pictures just happening to end up on the same table...destiny would not allow it, but coincidence had the final override. We clicked together, he who was destined to another woman, I who may have been arranged for another man, had I of course not determined my heart was already taken. We weren't meant to meet, we weren't meant to love. But if I were to know tomorrow that his love for me was real, if at least in part, and for a time...well I can die a happy man. I can die feeling a happiness I had not felt for all of these years, not since he had dropped my hand and walking out towards that sunrise."
"Today you said differently," Victor pointed out. "You didn't want a mere conversation."
"Today I was carried away," Sherlock admitted heavily. "Today, I'll admit...I was out of place. Improper."
"You're damn right. You embarrassed yourself, and you embarrassed me. From an outsider's perspective I'm the one who is supposed to be rational, and what rational person would ever drive you across state lines just for that sort of harassment?"
"Ha! Well, no one ever said you were intelligent. Rational, perhaps...with a moral compass well aligned. When we get back home, when you check me back into that hospital, you can use your ignorance as an excuse. Say you were tricked, forced even."
"I don't want to think about what happens when we get home," Victor admitted, his eyebrows furrowing and his gaze dropping to the carpet. Well of course they would have to return to their hometown, if just for lack of anywhere better to end up. Unless John Watson opened his heart and his doors to the old man, suddenly feeling both responsible and obligated for the health of his former patient, certainly Sherlock Holmes would be dropped back in the town they had started. If he wanted to live some days longer they could go to the hospital, if he wanted to die they could go to his apartment. He would have food and fluids, but he would not have medical treatment. He could waste away in the comfort of his own home, if he wished it. Yet of course that decision seemed entirely dependent on tomorrow. Tomorrow...which Victor now realized would have to happen.
"I hope this trip will help you to believe in love, Victor. Help you to believe that love is found in the most unexpected places, and in the hearts of those you thought you most understood."
"My story doesn't end as optimistically as yours, Professor," Victor grumbled. "I never got a confession. In fact I never got any further than friendship."
"That's because your story moved slower than mine, Victor. You had no external pressure forcing it to accelerate, you didn't have a time constraint. You had four years...or you might have had them, if you hadn't decided to abandon your education."
"I'm not just abandoning my education; I've abandoned that a long time ago. I was only at school for Reggie; he was the only reason I truly...truly cared to be there."
"You act as if he is no longer there!"
"No longer there for me! He certainly would have abandoned me, left me for those basketball friends of his! How could I expect him to stay, even if he chose? How could he change in front of me, or...or sleep knowing I'm around?"
"Would you take advantage of that situation?" Sherlock Holmes wondered, still staring at the opposing wall. Victor could only see the back of his head, which in this situation actually served to make him sound more wise. Victor couldn't take the old man seriously, though in some ways his isolated voice was much more comforting than was his direct and passionate eye contact.
"No of course not," Victor assured with a determined nod.
"If he trusted you, he would know that. He would honor that. He would stay. Does he trust you?"
"Presumably, before the confession."
"You say that as if a confession changes things," Professor Holmes pointed out. "Does your secret make you any less trustworthy?"
"Other than my lying to him for years?"
"Did he ever ask?"
"No," Victor admitted quietly.
"Then you never lied. It is not a stain against your faithfulness, instead it is a mark of your character. If you never took advantage of his ignorance, and if you were always respectful while the normal array of happenings were occurring in your dorm room then I would say it should strengthen your reputation."
"I shouldn't be taking a lesson on morality from a man like you," Victor pointed out.
"An aggressive man?" Sherlock Holmes presumed quietly.
"A crazy man," Victor corrected. The old Professor chuckled, though he had nothing to debate. Finally he kept his mouth shut, as if lost in a moment of thought. Victor felt his heart panging, the very thought of Reginald Musgrave was still enough to bring a tear to his eye. He had abandoned the boy for good reason, though much as Sherlock Holmes wondered about his destiny when John Watson was taken from him, so too did Victor wonder which path was laid out the smoothest, and which he was supposed to take.