Victor tried to remain composed as he walked towards Professor Holmes's hospital door, trying to keep his excitement bundled up in his chest so as to be conspicuous about his conclusions. He could hardly wait to reveal his plotting, though he knew Professor Holmes well enough to suspect it wouldn't be an immediate slam dunk. Much like Reginald's basketball playing, Victor assumed he would have to take many shots before he sank one, or before he got through the surprisingly thick skull built to protect the brain and emotions of such a fragile old man. He had to introduce his plan with the expectations of a fight.
Peering through the slight crack in the door, Victor was surprised to see the old man had fallen asleep. His head was tilted back on the pillows, an IV stuck into his arm, and his chest suspiciously motionless. For a second Victor feared the worst, worried he might have walked into the scene of his Professor's last breath. As he approached the bed, Victor's fearful heart began to beat so loudly he worried it would undermine his intentional silence. He wanted to ensure the man was alive by sight alone, watching for his chest rising and falling, so as not to disturb him if he was merely napping.
"Professor?" Victor whispered, approaching the bed as one might a frightening dog, the sort that was cowered into a little ball in a corner, growling. Victor was sure Professor Holmes would bite, too, if he were to make a wrong move.
To Victor's surprise, however, upon his minute whisper the man's eyes opened quickly, wildly, and with such energy it was immediately obvious that his napping was falsified. That, or he was merely resting his eyelids as his brain worked feverishly behind.
"Victor, thank goodness. I thought you were one of those ridiculous nurses, here to take me for another damn appointment." The man sounded disgruntled but surprisingly energetic, with the same rigor in his tone as he might use in front of a lecture hall. Victor stood by, aghast, as Professor Holmes sat straight up in the bed, ripped the IV from his arm, and pushed the blankets away to reveal he was fully dressed. He must have changed into the clothes he came with, as hiding beneath the sterile bedsheets was a full suit set and even a pair of polished dress shoes swinging down to meet the tile floor.
"I'm leaving," Professor Holmes announced. "I'm getting discharged, they told me while you were away."
"Oh yes?" Victor muttered suspiciously, unwilling to take the man at his word considering the state of secrecy he was previously operating in.
"Yes, it will be good to go home," the man grabbed for his cane where it was propped next to the bed, testing out his strength as he sat forward on the edge of the bed, leaning upon the thing as if to ensure his arms had enough strength to hold him.
"Why don't I grab a nurse before we go, to make sure..."
"Oh no, I've got all I need. Yes...yes." The old man wrenched himself to his feet, taking the final scoot off the bedframe as if it was the last thing he was prepared to do. Miraculously his legs supported him, and while the right leg still hoovered just slightly off the floor to ensure minimum impact, his entire body stood upright and proud. Victor was happy to see the man was dressed once again, being that the fabrics helped to cover the alarming state of his thin limbs. It was almost enough to make him seem human again, and not some frightening animated skeleton.
"Have they given you a prescription?" Victor questioned, stepping back as the man stepped gingerly across the room, his face contorted with pain as he leaned nearly his whole body weight upon his walking stick. He could hardly make it one step before he had to pause, making the entire trek to the door remarkably easy to disrupt.
"Oh yes, yes," the man agreed dismissively.
"What drug, then?"
"A couple," Professor Holmes assured. "I'm to go to the pharmacy right after this with my doctor's note."
"And your discharge papers?" Victor questioned, stepping in front of the door to block the old man's glacial migration. Professor Holmes paused, though he would have despite the newfound obstacle.
"My papers, yes. They're downstairs, I have to collect them. No need to...to worry about me." Even his words were strained, mimicking the pain that was erupting from each one of his muscles. Victor crossed his arms, firm in the doorway, watching as the brilliant eyes of his mathematics professor flared with determination, blind passion for a mission currently impossible. And, presumably, not allowed.
"I don't believe you," Victor said decisively, to which the old man's face fell into a nasty frown.
"No one asked you to, Victor. Now you run along, run off to...to wherever it is you think is best to go," Professor Holmes insisted, waving his free hand for the brief moment his muscles could allow. He was depressing to watch, especially now as Victor realized he couldn't go any steps forward. It was not Victor's blocking the door that deterred him, instead it was the mere impossibility of another step. He had some ways to go, not nearly crossing the middle of the room, though he was still once again. Still but for the wobbling in his knees, those which were growing progressively more...
"Professor!" Victor exclaimed, rushing to the man's side just as soon as his legs lurched underneath him. With a small yelp the old man crumbled, falling much more rapidly than seemed possible for his feather weight. Thankfully Victor was still quick, and before the Professor was able to hit the ground he instead fell limply into the boy's outstretched arms. Dangling and useless, Professor Holmes groaned his protests as he was intensely cradled, lowered down onto the floor against Victor's chest. Victor could hardly lift the man, and he didn't want to prop him back up on two useless legs. His collapsing was reason enough not to believe his story of a discharge, and indeed it only made clear how frail he had really come to be.
"Professor, you're too weak to walk," Victor pointed out, finally working himself out from underneath the old man's momentum and settling him gently upon the tile floor. Sherlock Holmes lay there miserably, his coat buttoned badly and hanging askew around his neckline, his grey curls pressing flat against the floor and chilling his scalp against the sudden coolness.
"I'm fine, I just tripped," the old man lied immediately.
"You can't trip if you're not walking!" Victor insisted, snatching one of the many pillows from the man's bed and propping it gently underneath his head. Sherlock Holmes looked more angry than ever, his face red with humiliation and a sudden flare for action. He was motivated like he was in the war, the youthful pride and energy burning within his heart, trapped within a body that could hardly be expected to move, much less fight.
"Fine, fine!" Professor Holmes's fists clenched, his teeth barred in pain. "I haven't been discharged, but Victor, I must leave."
"Leave?" Victor whispered, staring upon the shell of a man and wondering if there was any better place for him than a hospital bed. Unless of course he meant to walk himself to the graveyard.
"I need to see John," he said flatly. Victor sat back upon the floor, falling heavily against the bedframe so as to support his weight as he reeled in sudden astonishment. Well of course it wasn't a great surprise, though the irony of the entire situation seemed so remarkable he had to laugh.
"I was going to tell you the exact same thing," Victor admitted with a grin.
"Then you agree! You agree I need to..."
"Not you! You need a hospital bed and an IV! I'm not taking you!"
"You better take me, Victor, or I'll call the police on you!"
"What is it with you and the damn police?" Victor scoffed. "I'll have done nothing wrong, besides, I think I would be in more of a position to be arrested if I had smuggled you out of the hospital!"
"You have to, you must. I need to see him before I die, you convinced me of that."
"In this state you'll die before we make it to his front door! And in my passenger seat!"
"If I die, I die. Throw me in a river somewhere, if you like. Throw me in a ditch. If I can't live to see him again so be it, though I damn well will not sit here and wait for death, wait for death without trying for John Watson!"
"Professor..." Victor messaged his temples, suddenly overwhelmed with a clash of rationality and fierce emotional understanding. He would have it no other way of course, Victor understood that the two must see each other one last time. But there had to be another way, surely there must!
"I can get him, then. You stay in this bed, and I'll drive to get John. I'll bring him to you, and you can say your farewells that way."
"No," Professor Holmes remarked flatly. "No, because if he won't even read my letters how on earth could you get him to follow you?"
"I can bring a gun," Victor suggested with a sarcastic shrug.
"Then he'd call the cops on you!" Sherlock Holmes tried to reposition himself, though he could hardly plant his elbow long enough on the ground to support the weight of just one arm. Victor could hear the bony thud as his clothes shrank against the impact and his bare bones smashed against his thin skin. With no muscles to protect it, they clanged like musical instruments. The entire affair was almost sickening. "Besides, at this point I feel as though John needs to be surprised. He needs to be reminded abruptly of what we had, of what we were. My name on an envelope obviously never worked, and my name off your tongue would be a deterrent if anything. No, I have to go, I have to see him."
"To say goodbye?" Victor muttered, his fingers caught against his cheekbones and his mind beginning to process within the more irrational side. That which put him on this path in the first place, with no self-preservation in mind. Perhaps he could assign the same carelessness to his Professor, and put him in danger if just for love.
"To say goodbye, yes...but to know. To see him and to know for sure if he still feels anything. If he still feels anything...for me." The Professor raised his eyes to the ceiling, he tilted his chin towards the sky, he looked far above, far past the ceiling tiles, far past the sun. He stared at the same clouds he had seen that day, he stared with the same passion. Victor could see it in his eyes, he could see the reminiscence of when their paths first crossed. Of when that bullet, damning as it may have been, brought them together for the first time. With an impact, and a promise of life. A promise of life when Sherlock Holmes was on death's door the first time. Would the doctor react in the same way when Sherlock returned, some fifty years later, with his crippled body on the doorstep?

The Professor would have no job but to hold the blanket around his head. His arms had strength enough to do little else, and it was all his fingers could do but clutch weakly to the fabric, that which now cocooned him, that which now encircled him. He would be disguised as an old woman, with his head bowed in a crooked posture and his curls concealed underneath the wrap. He looked about as frail as anyone could, though without his proud posture and his usual scowl he blended in well with the rest of the crowd. Victor had him settled in a wheelchair, his cane tucked under his arm in case they needed to use it to bludgeon a nurse who would look to stop them. They had no pills, no instructions for care, no ointments or creams that would make the infectious swelling ease in color or in pain. It was a suicide if anything, an escape of proper care without the intentions of substituting it. Sherlock Holmes was putting his life in the unknown, sacrificing what may have remained of it, in one final attempt to reunite with the one he loved. It was all he had left, and it was all that seemed worth doing.
In this, Victor supported him. In this Victor understood him. In this, Victor would help him. And so, with as much collectiveness as the boy could manage, he turned out the light to the dingy hospital room and began wheeling the old man towards the elevators. The hallway wasn't empty; there were nurses walking here and there, pushing carts of fresh linens or lunches. Neither gave them a suspicious glance, some even smiled, and for now there seemed to be no foul play detected. Patients were often times allowed to wander, and relatives liked to allow them to get a change of scenery once in a while. It was doubtful that any of the nurses recognized Sherlock Holmes, as he was well concealed in his blanket, though if any of them stopped to recognize the boy pushing the chair there may be an issue. Ignoring the risks and prepared to counter them with force, Victor arrived at the elevators and pressed the button to descend. This was the easy part of course, for nurses were naturally trusting within the closed and controlled atmosphere of the inner hospital. It would be the first floor that would be the issue, the escape door...and the alarms.
As the elevator door closed the old man adjusted himself in the wheelchair, leaning backwards as if he was about to drive an incredibly fast car and was preparing himself for the inertia. His head rose into his more natural posture, snapping the vertebrae in his spine into their usual orientation, though Victor promptly pushed his blanketed head back into a more feeble state.
"You're breaking character," Victor snarled.
"We're in an elevator!" Professor Holmes growled in defense, his voice weak but his spirit strong enough.
"Which might open at any..." as if on cue, the slow decent was interrupted with a sudden halt at floor three. Sherlock Holmes disintegrated into a cloaked cripple, and as the doors opened a nurse joined them in the car. Victor smiled to her, watching as the woman shuffled into the back corner of the elevator so as to leave enough room for the other passengers. He tried to act naturally, over examining his posture, the way his fingers clutched onto the wheelchair handles, the way his face sat in a neutral expression. And yet he could not breathe, he could hardly allow himself the effort of expanding his chest, knowing that he wouldn't be able to take just a small, normal breath. He was overthinking the point of gasping, and if he allowed himself air he would undoubtedly have to gulp for it like a pelican. It was too risky.
The elevator descended in silence, agonizing silence. Sherlock Holmes was quite still, his form collapsed and even his energy incredibly dulled with the dedication to the character. If the nurse recognized him from the upper room she gave no mention, and when the doors finally opened she merely smiled to Victor and to the blanketed head of the Professor, exiting first without a single word of accusation. Victor finally let out his breath, nearly blue in the effort, and gasped his relief when he was sure they were alone. He wasn't sure which crimes he was breaking beyond the simple rules of the hospital, though he was sure there was something amiss in his actions. Something fairly akin to driving his car through a stoplight, or abandoning classes without due notice. It may be elder abuse, may be kidnapping, may be jailbreak. Either way he was prepared to face the consequences, he was prepared to speak his truth to the judge and, if God would allow, Professor Holmes would be alive to reassure his stories. The worst case scenario was the man dropping dead throughout their trip, as his corpse would not be so easy to handle, nor to explain.
The secretaries would be the impossible factor, both men had agreed as they were plotting that the front door should not be their means of escape. Patients were not wheeled out of the hospital so thoughtlessly, as they were hardly ever prescribed fresh air to help with leg wounds. Victor would have to provide them with discharge papers, which he certainly did not have, and his plans would be failed from the start. No they had to be sneakier with the exit, and as Victor pushed the wheelchair into the hall he turned right, not left, onwards towards the back of the building rather than the front.
This area was less trafficked, at least not by those on foot. It seemed as though the first floor of the hospital was dedicated to office space, with the doors of empty conference rooms closed and dark and single offices with their doors opened and their occupants looking curiously to see if the footsteps were announcing their next visitor. Victor kept his head down and focused, ensuring he did not make eye contact with the numerous office workers and their gigantic stacks of paper. There were witnesses, yes, but no one here to look them in the eyes. No one here that would recognize either one of them to be a criminal.
"The back door, Victor," Professor Holmes announced in a whisper, speaking the most obvious observation so as to announce their final destination. It was indeed a back door, alarmed and ready to announce the departure of anyone unwarranted. Victor kept pressing forward, disregarding the signs that so blatantly insisted this was not a proper exit. He did not care.
Pulling down on the handle and pushing the door open, the expected alarms began to ring. This was when things got truly interesting. This is when he did not have to be discrete any longer. Professor Holmes sat up like a meerkat, turning his neck in a near circle so as to watch for any followers. The blanket fell away from his head and revealed his greying curls, his eyes vivid and alert as the wheelchair bumped and rocketed along the uneven pavement. Victor had increased his stride to a sprint, knowing there would be a team of nurses soon on his tail. He had to convince them it was a false alarm, that the wind had blown the door open or one of their coworkers had simply been too lazy to exit through the preferred door. They had to run to make it around the building in time, racing along the long side of the hospital parallel to a parking lot, that which unfortunately did not hold Victor's car. If they were to make it around the building they would have a chance.
"I don't see anyone yet, Victor!" Professor Holmes announced thankfully, his voice panicked and his weak hands grasping at the handles of the wheelchair, trying to stifle his pain as his body bounced up and down in the felt seat, undoubtedly flaring his wounds to the point of pure agony.
"Good," Victor breathed, wishing he had spent some more time playing basketball with Reginald so as to build up his endurance before the final chase. It hadn't seemed a long distance when first he approached it, though by now his legs were burning and he was panting with the effort, realizing that this skeleton of a man still weighed some ninety pounds, that which he was now tasked with pushing across the sidewalk at the speed of light.
"Come on Victor, the bells are still ringing! They'll be sure to check for us soon!"
"If you'd like to....to volunteer to run...this would go faster!" The boy was nearly paralyzed with the efforts, though he made the thoughtful sacrifice of breath if just to snap back at the ridiculous old man. Thankfully Sherlock Holmes fell silent, realizing that he best not complain.
The edge of the building was in sight, and at last Victor hit a hard left turn, throwing the momentum of the wheelchair so hard against the sudden turn that Sherlock Holmes was flung into the armrest, crying out in fright and exasperating pain.
"That's my damn hip, Victor!" the man exclaimed, seizing in the chair but helpless to do anything but shriek. Victor shushed him quiet, finally letting go of the chair's handles and leaning heavily against the wall in an attempt to give his legs a rest. He could hardly hold his own weight, and as he clutched upon the bricks the poor boy felt as if he would vomit from the effort.
"I'm rolling!" Professor Holmes warned, which was not a lie. Thankfully, however, the grade was just slight, and the old man's wheelchair was only moving along at the rate he would have been expected to walk.
"Give me a minute," Victor scowled. He pressed his forehead against the wall, understanding that the run was just one part of their escape plan, and the efforts would be foiled if he took too much of a break. Heaving in breath enough to keep going, Victor jogged heavily back towards the wheelchair, grabbing the handles and skittering his heels against the cement so as to slow it to a stop. Sherlock Holmes scowled his disappointment, though he made no protest as Victor wheeled him at a slow jog towards his car.
"Can you get into the seat yourself?" Victor questioned, dangling his keychain in his teeth as he wrenched open the passenger door and held the wheelchair steady.
"I can try," the Professor admitted, though his confidence was not remarkably contagious. The man pushed up on the arms of the chair, planting his left foot on the ground and attempting to push himself over top of the left armrest. That might have worked if he had the strength to rise more than an inch, and instead the old man merely collided with the chair, swiveling it dangerously against the car and nearly crushing his good leg in the process.
"You told me to hurry up!" Victor protested, having lost all pity for the old cripple. There was brain power enough in there to handle the insults, and to understand them as only half legitimate.
"You're going to have to lift me," Professor Holmes admitted with a grumble of defeat. "If we had more time I would be able to get it, but we must be quick!"

"Fine, so long as you're properly humiliated by it," Victor agreed, grabbing the old man from underneath the arms and wrenching him upwards with as much strength as he could muster. From there, Professor Holmes was able to swing his body over the armrest and into the front seat, sat on the very edge of the cushion but close enough that Victor could finally close the door. He very unprofessionally folded the wheelchair, nearly pounding it into the parking lot in an attempt to collapse it, and in good time Victor finally had the engine running. Sherlock Holmes was still trying to buckle his seat belt when Victor floored the gas pedal, rocketing the two across the parking lot and joining the myriad of cars already hustling past the hospital, properly escaped and without a witness to report them. It was as clean a getaway as Victor would have wanted, and as he looked towards his passenger he saw a hopeful gleam in the old man's eyes, the sort of gleam that was only found when adventure was in the horizon. When there was something truly to live for. It was a reward in itself, regardless of what followed. A reward enough to carry Victor through any prison sentence, or any firm scolding. He was helping a man follow his dreams; he was helping a man find his true love. What more was there to life?