Where Two Stand
Chapter 1
The Hostage
Note: Don't own them just taking them out to play. :) Originally I was going to post separate stories in the series along the theme I started in the Hostage but decided to combine them all into one story. We will see where the story goes...
It is the Fourth of July, for most of the country it means celebrating freedom and independence. It means hotdogs, backyard baseball, and fireworks. For me it doesn't mean anything even close to what is considered normal for today, instead it is a reminder of the freedom I lost, of the independence that was ripped from me when a rain of hell was poured out.
James Gunther might be rotting in some jail awaiting trial, but the devastation of his bullets still holds me captive. Holding me hostage in a world that has shrunk to this hospital and the one room I have called home for the last months and a half, with daily visits to what I have dubbed the torture chamber. I will throttle the next person who tells me " no pain no gain", If that saying had any ounce of truth in it, then with the amount of pain I feel I should have all ready been out of here and back to who I was before the shooting.
But I'm not, a month and a half, just forty eight days after the shooting I am still hostage to the after affects, subject to its whims, it controls every aspect of my life. They call it a miracle, I call it a curse. I am a hostage and there will be no ransom demand.
How can this living hell be a miracle?
I made the mistake today of asking that question in front of Hutch. I didn't expect an answer. It was a question said in frustration of the pain I feel, but he heard the truth behind those words, that I believed I would have been better off dead than where I was. I opened my eyes at his sharp intake of breath and saw my physical pain reflected in him.
The silence in the solarium where he had brought me was overwhelming. Then without another word he got up and left. I knew he wouldn't go very far. He never does. But as I watched him leave, for the first time in our friendship I cursed our unique connection.
Why did I curse it? Because I knew just as I am a hostage to my body, he is a hostage to his soul. His soul is the other half to mine and for that reason it connects us. So whatever I feel he feels. He may not have had three bullets rip through his physical body, but they did rip through his soul. Each one felt as they seared their mark on my body, leaving his soul torn and shredded much as my body was.
In my wishing I had died I would have dragged my other half right along with me into the afterlife. My death will not release him from this prison back into the world it would kill him. In my wanting to die I would be responsible for his death. I cannot be responsible for Hutch's death.
I feel the tears that well up at the thought and attempt to wipe them away, but I can't. This "miracle" as they call it keeps me from it. Instead I look down at my hands lying useless and weak on my lap and I can almost see the imaginary chains that hold me captive. How can this living hell be a miracle?
"Starsk?" Hutch calling my name, as he knelt in front of me covering my hands, was so quiet I wasn't sure if it was said out loud or over the connection between our souls. Either way I couldn't look up. I couldn't look into his eyes and see my pain.
He said my name again this time he gently cupped my chin lifting it so I had to look at him. Once I did he wiped the shed tears from my face then ran hand through my hair before it came to rest on the back of my neck.
I didn't see my pain there, what I did see my friend didn't have to put into words, Unconditional love, that was the miracle. He saw my pain and even felt it, he knew he couldn't take it away, couldn't set me free from this prison only I could do that, but he would be there as I fought my way out.
Knowing that love was there didn't take the pain and frustration away, I still felt like a prisoner to my own body, and I know there will still be days where it will be to much to handle, but I will still be free on the inside. I was still Dave Starsky, maybe a little bit older and wiser, but still me. Most important there is still a Me and Thee, Gunther and his bullets can't take that away. He only has the power to hold us hostage if we let him. And we, Hutch and I were not going to let him win.