Part 38
The next day Starsky was dozing on the couch in Hutch's living room when the phone rang. He'd been up half the night and had just got himself settled beneath a blanket, and propped up comfortably on a pile of pillows. Hutch was still in bed, and the last time Starsky had been in to check on him he'd been sleeping peacefully. The doctors had done their tests, but Hutch hadn't been released from the hospital until late the previous evening and it had been after ten when they'd finally arrived back at Venice Place. Hutch had been exhausted – despite having slept for most of the day – and after helping his partner into bed and making sure he was comfortable Starsky had ordered a pizza for himself, and warmed a can of chicken noodle soup on the stove for Hutch – but he'd already fallen asleep by the time he'd taken it into him. Doctor Maybrouk had given him a mild sedative before leaving the hospital to help him rest, along with a painkiller and Starsky had been relieved to see that the two injections were doing their intended job. Starsky had sat at his friend's bedside for most of the day, observing how even in sleep he appeared to be in pain. He'd watched Hutch flinch as Doctor Maybrouk had gently palpated his abdomen during his physical examination, and the doctor had frowned as he'd evidently felt something abnormal. The ultrasound had been particularly uncomfortable and when Hutch had returned to his room his arm had been resting protectively against the left side of his abdomen as though it hurt him.
"I'm here buddy." Starsky had reassured him as Hutch had groaned as the nurses had helped him back into bed, and this had provoked a small smile from his partner. Starsky had tried to help by taking the bottles of IV fluid from the back of the wheelchair and he hung them back on the IV stand, before taking a seat at Hutch's bedside whilst the blonde had done his best to find a comfortable position to lie beneath the covers.
"How're you feeling?" He'd asked him when the two nurses had left.
"This is not one of my better days." Hutch had confessed weakly – echoing the same words he'd spoken to Doctor Kaufman two years earlier when he'd contracted the plague. That was the only other time in his life he could remember feeling as ill as he did now, and Starsky had gently put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it lightly in a reassuring gesture. In response Hutch had reached out the hand which wasn't still clutching his abdomen limply, and Starsky had placed his own within his loosely open palm.
Doctor Maybrouk had returned a short while later to discuss the results of Hutch's tests with the two men – they'd shown that he was in fact very unwell, but against his better judgement the doctor had kept his promise not to admit Hutch. He had reassured them both that with rest and by taking his medications accordingly he should eventually make a full recovery, but he'd advised them that this was going to take time, and he'd reemphasized the importance that Hutch take things easy – there was a high risk of complications if he didn't – and he'd scheduled him a follow up appointment for the following week.
Back at Venice Place Starsky had eaten his pizza alone and in silence, listening to the sound of his friend's heavy breathing in the room next door and ready in the event that he was to need him. Hutch had spent the past few months taking care of him – he'd prepared his meals, supported him in his physio, helped him wash and dress, and had managed his medication. He'd given up his bed for him, and had spent weeks sleeping on the couch just so that Starsky didn't have to stay in the hospital any longer than was necessary – now it was Starsky's turn to do the same for him. When he'd finished his meal, popping what remained of the melted cheese and peperoni into his mouth, Starsky had got to his feet slowly and had thrown the greasy pizza box away in the kitchen – feeling sad that he hadn't been able to savour and enjoy what had once been one of his favourite meals. His heart had been too heavy, and he'd stood in the doorway to the bedroom for a while just watching Hutch sleep.
'I know you're sick Hutch and you're hurting', he'd thought sadly to himself, 'but you can't just give up! You can't let them win! If you do that means they've broken us, and I won't let that happen!'
The congestion on Hutch's lungs was more obvious now than it had been earlier in the day, and aside from the slight wheeze he coughed intermittently in his sleep – a wet rattle which sounded painful and made Starsky cringe in sympathy – but Hutch didn't wake. He curled in on himself and Starsky thought how fragile he looked – pale and weak – he looked like a lost little boy. The only other time Starsky had seen his partner looking as frail as he did now was when he'd caught the plague, on the evening before the symptoms had first appeared. He'd stood at the window of his isolation room, watching him toss and turn in his sleep, as his body had started to lose it's fight against the deadly pathogen.
Starsky had spent half the night walking up and down between the couch and the bedroom – every time he'd heard Hutch moan, or cough, or his breathing had sounded a little more laboured he'd got up to check on him. He was himself worn out, and he'd have been lying if he'd said the thought of ignoring the ringing phone and turning over and going back to sleep hadn't crossed his mind – but he kicked the blankets off himself with a weary sigh and stretched to reach the phone on the coffee table, groaning as he felt the pull of the scars on his chest and stomach. The flesh there was still slightly tender.
"Yeah, Starsky." He answered in a voice heavy with fatigue as he picked up the receiver – the voice which responded however made him immediately sit up and rub some of the heaviness from his tired eyes.
"Davey?" Came the response at the other end.
"Oh, hi mom." He smiled. Inside every man was still a little boy waiting to be let out, and there was nothing like a mother for awakening the child within, vulnerabilities included. It was good to hear her voice, and he immediately felt some of the tension leave his body as he relaxed back into the pile of pillows.
"How are you son?" She asked him – her voice light but he also detected a vague edge of concern. It had been the same ever since the first time he'd spoken to her after awaking from the coma – it was as though every time she rang him she was still afraid of what she might find. "I tried calling you yesterday." She explained. "I was worried when you didn't answer."
Starsky couldn't imagine a woman more suited to being a mom than his own mother. Now in her late fifties she hadn't changed much over the years. Some people who had children in their early twenties – even at the height of a world war – could feel suffocated by finding themselves with a baby to care for. Starsky's father had joined the army in nineteen forty two – a year before he'd been born – and at the time of Starsky's birth Rachel had still had a few friends without children of their own. She'd never seemed to resent not being able to join them at the dance halls however, where they'd jitterbug and jive almost every evening, with servicemen home on leave. They hadn't been rich, and whilst his father had resumed his career with the police force after returning home from war Starsky's mother had worked a couple of different low paid jobs to bring a bit of extra money in – which she'd usually spent on toys and sweets for her two boys. She'd always been there waiting at the front door when they'd arrived home from school – her apron covered in the remnants of an afternoon baking – and a cake or a trey of freshly baked cookies cooling in the kitchen. In the shadow of rationing she'd made cooking and baking with nothing seem so effortless to them growing up. It was from his mother that Starsky had got his love of food – but most of all he remembered her commitment to making sure that her family was a happy one, and that her boys felt loved and safe. He'd hardly ever seen her without a smile before his father had died – although for a while she'd lost her way after he'd been shot and killed in the line of duty on the streets of New York. She'd raised her two sons with love – making sure that they never wanted for anything they needed, and never felt the need for anything they didn't really want. She was one of the kindest, most generous and loving people Starsky knew.
"Aww I'm sorry mom." He apologised – realising the anguish this must have put her through, especially in light of the fact that she too was also still getting over the trauma of his shooting.
"Is everything alright?" She pressed him.
"Hutch came home yesterday…" He told her.
"Ah, well, at least that's something!" She sighed in relief. Starsky knew how fond his mother was of Hutch. He'd spent a week with them in New York during their second year of the police academy together, before heading home to Minnesota to see his own parents, and she'd taken an immediate liking to the blonde haired, blue eyed rookie cop. She'd already heard so much about him from Starsky, who'd told her all about the new partner he'd been assigned – a man whom in many ways was so different to himself, and something of a mystery to her then twenty five year old son. But as days had become weeks and weeks had turned into months one thing which had become increasingly apparent to her was the depth of the two men's growing friendship. Following the death of Starsky's father a career in the police force hadn't exactly been her first choice for her son – but it had helped her to know that he at least had someone looking out for him – someone who loved him as much as she herself did, in his own way. Hutch had been happy and easy going, and had fitted right in with the Starsky family. She'd only had to see the way the two men interacted with each other to know that already theirs was a friendship destined to last a lifetime, and as the years had passed them all by she'd seen that friendship go from strength to strength. She'd heard all about how Hutch had risked his own life to save her injured son and the other customers when they'd all been taken hostage by hitmen at the Geovanni's restaurant, and how he'd worked himself into a state of exhaustion to find an antidote in time when Starsky had been poisoned by a vengeful college professor, and when he'd been kidnapped by followers of cult leader Simone Marcus. She'd known of the two men's involvement in the case, and had followed the progress of the trial on TV, but she hadn't known anything about what had happened to her son until afterwards. Hutch shouldered so much responsibility – his bond with Starsky was so close that he would die for him – and whilst she knew that this willingness to sacrifice one's own life to save the other worked both ways, she'd come to accept that that was the way the two men rolled.
Starsky's relationship with his younger brother Nicky had never been particularly close, and had become notably strained as the two boys had got older. She'd struggled to cope after her husband had been killed, and had sent Starsky to stay with his aunt and uncle in Bay City. Her eldest son – who'd always been the more confident and outgoing of her two boys – had seen it as an adventure, but Nicky had refused to go, and without the positive influence of his father in his life he'd become increasingly angry. She'd struggled to control him by herself and eventually he'd fallen in with the wrong crowd. Starsky had once said that Hutch was closer to him than his own brother, and as much as that remark had pained her to hear it, she'd known that it was true.
Like many mother's who'd spent time watching their children sleep, or had ever looked at their baby and wondered what the future held for the tiny life they'd brought into the world she'd preyed that her son would someday find a soul mate. Naturally she'd assumed that this would come in the form of a woman, and when Starsky had first told her about Terry she'd known that her son had found the woman he planned on spending the rest of his life with. It had ripped his heart out when she'd died – but Rachel Starsky now knew that true soul mates could come in many forms – including that of a best friend – and she loved Hutch like another son.
"I spent the day at the hospital with him." Starsky explained to her. "He has another chest infection."
"How's he doing?" She asked him, and he noticed that the concern still hadn't left her voice. He knew that she was worried about Hutch too.
"Doctors say his immune system is low and that he's got an enlarged spleen because of all the infection that he's fighting." He told her. "It's the reason why he's been so sick these past weeks."
"I wish you'd both come and stay with me for a while Davey." She sighed.
"We'd love to come mom." Starsky told her – and his mind immediately turned to thinking that there really would be nothing he'd like more than to take Hutch back to New York with him, where he knew that his mother would inevitably make a fuss of him, and her homecooked meals would be better than any culinary creation he could conjure up. "But I don't think Hutch is really up to travelling at the moment. They've got him on some pretty strong antibiotics for the chest infection, and he's been prescribed absolute bedrest for the next couple of days, but he's exhausted – we both are. I don't think he'll be up to flying anytime soon."
"Is he awake? I'd like to talk to him." She told him.
"I'll have to check and ring you back." Starsky said – the last time he'd been in to check on him Hutch had still been asleep, but he needed to wake him soon so that he could take his medication – and having not eaten anything since arriving back at Venice Place the evening before he realised that he really aught to be encouraged to eat something. "It's almost time for his anti-biotics anyway." He told her, looking over at the clock on the wall.
"It's alright Davey, I'll ring you back in about half an hour." She told him – that would give Starsky enough time to check to see if Hutch was already awake, and wake him gently if he wasn't, without having to rush him. He knew from first hand experience that strong anti-biotics also came with some pretty nasty side effects and he didn't want to risk making him feel any worse than he already did. Half an hour should also give Hutch time to eat something, so that he could take his medication without risking an upset stomach.
"Thanks mom." He said, blowing her a kiss down the receiver. They said their goodbye's, and she promised to ring him back before hanging up. He put the receiver down and yanked the phone cord from the jack in the wall, getting slowly to his feet and rubbing a warm hand over his weary face, trying to massage some of the heaviness from his eyes – before going to check on Hutch.
The blonde was just beginning to wake up, and Starsky watched him from the doorway for a moment as he yawned, rubbed some of the sleep from his eyes, and slowly started to sit up – his hand immediately reaching for his abdomen with a groan and a grimace as the movement clearly caused him pain. He smiled warmly as Hutch looked over at him.
"Morning sleeping beauty." He chimed cheerfully. "How're you feeling?" He asked him as he made his way over to the foot of the bed. He looked down at his partner – noticing that he still looked very pale, and his cheeks were faintly flushed from fever. His thoughts turned to what he had said to Doctor Maybrouk the day before – about how he'd thought a lot about what Gunther had taken away from him in the early stages of his recovery, but how he hadn't really stopped to think about the effect the shooting had had on Hutch. After the initial euphoria of realising he'd woken up from a coma, and injuries that should have killed him, the realisation that he wasn't just going to be able to hop out of bed and return to work had hit him hard. He'd been angry – frustrated by his initial inability to do the things he felt should come as second nature. One of the bullets had torn through his stomach, and he'd struggled with digestive issues for a time – but the hardest thing to accept had been his loss of independence. Before starting physio he'd been too weak to walk, needing help to wash and dress himself – dependant on pills to keep his broken body functioning, and his days dictated by a strict regime of drugs, physical therapy and plenty of rest. This phase may have been brief – after about three weeks of feeling sorry for himself he'd managed to snap himself out of it after seeing how much he was hurting Hutch with his self-pity. During one such angry outburst he'd happened to unthinkingly point out that he'd rather be dead than live on as a burden to his family and friends – and the pain in Hutch's eyes when he'd said this had immediately made him reconsider his words. He hadn't meant it, and had apologised straight away, but he'd been reminded then that he didn't just need to get better for himself – Hutch's life depended on his recovery too. By the time Hutch had been taken ill on the evening he, Dobey and Huggy had visited him in the hospital, it had already been too late. Hutch had been suffering in silence for weeks, and his own body failing under the weight of his broken heart. Looking down at his best friend now he could see the enormity of what Gunther had stolen from both of them laid out before him – their bodies were of flesh and blood and bone, and bruised easily – but one thing the man hadn't counted on was the strength of their hearts in each other, and a man incapable of love could never understand how it was that their love for each other would be what would see them through.
"Stomach hurts." Hutch confessed, rubbing the left side of his abdomen subconsciously.
"Well at least you're being honest with me finally." Starsky said, making his way around the edge of the bed. "That's what tends to happen when you have a spleen the size of a football inside of you."
"Don't exaggerate Starsk. It's not that big!" Hutch groaned – but he didn't have the energy to argue his point any further, and Starsky watched him struggle with his uncoordinated limbs to push himself the final few inches up in bed.
"It's nearly time for your medicine." He informed him.
"Starsk I want to get up." Hutch said breathlessly – his energy finally spent as he made it as far up the headboard as he could before deciding on a different tack and leaning forward in the bed. He grabbed a handful of blanket in his hand and started to try and throw them off himself, but Starsky firmly took them from him and gently covered his partner back over again, drawing them up to his chest, and placing a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"No, you know what the doctor said. You're on complete bed rest for another two days. No compromise!" He exclaimed.
Hutch sighed, and flopped back down on the bed again in defeat, sinking into the pillows before noticing the telephone in Starsky's hand.
"What's that for?" He asked him.
"Mom called." Starsky explained, as he got down on his hands and knees to plug the phone line into the wall jack underneath the bed, before putting the phone down on the bedside table next to Hutch. "She wants to talk to you. She says she's going to call back in about half an hour."
He then turned to look at the various bottles of medication on the top of a chest of drawers, before making his way over and picking up the bottle labelled penicillin – which Hutch had been prescribed to take four times a day.
"Here." Starsky said, handing Hutch the small orange and red capsule, along with the glass of water from the bedside table. Hutch took a small swig and swallowed down the pill. Starsky then picked up a second bottle of medication and tipped one of the small white tablets out into the palm of his hand. He offered it to Hutch who just looked at it at first but made no move to accept the medication.
"Painkiller!" Starsky asserted, not taking no for an answer, and raising his eyebrows in challenge to his partner when he met with resistance. Hutch could be as stubborn as an old billy goat sometimes but Starsky wasn't going to back down, and finally Hutch relented – taking the pill and swallowing it down with another mouthful of water.
"Hungry?" He asked him, but Hutch shook his head. "To be honest I'm feeling kinda sick." He confessed.
"Yeah, those antibiotics are probably knocking you about a bit, but you need to coat your stomach with something or you're only going to feel worse. Edith brought some soup over." He told him. "It's homemade – better than that canned stuff you keep in your cupboards."
"That's all old." Hutch pointed out. "I threw all the Clam Chowder out, but I haven't eaten canned soup since the botulism. I couldn't bring myself to throw out the rest though – I didn't want to waste food. I was going to take it all to a homeless shelter, but I didn't get around to it."
"Perhaps that's something we could do when you're feeling better?" Starsky suggested, picking up a third bottle of medication from the chest of drawers and examining the label carefully to check that it contained the right drug. "I'm assuming that I can trust you to take one of these so that you can keep the soup down?" He asked him as he handed the bottle of anti-nausea medication to Hutch. Hutch nodded, and Starsky left him too it whilst he went to prepare them both some lunch.
It was closer to forty five minutes later when the phone rang again, when both men's hunger had been somewhat satisfied. Hutch had managed to finish half a bowel of the soup with a small piece of bread, but Doctor Maybrouk had explained that the ultrasound had shown that his enlarged spleen was currently pressing on his stomach – and so he was unlikely to have much of an appetite for a while. The trey – bearing the remnants of his lunch – lay on the bed next to him, whilst Starsky sat in a dining chair, which he had moved into the bedroom so that he could sit and talk to Hutch whilst they ate, and keep an eye on him. Deciding that the blonde probably needed the soup more than he did Starsky had fixed himself a cheese and pastrami sandwich instead, with extra pickles – much to Hutch's disgust – but he couldn't deny that it was nice to see his partner enjoying the foods he liked for a change, rather than the bland diet he'd had forced upon him for the past few months whilst his digestive system had recovered.
Hutch reached across to pick the phone up as soon as it started to ring, clutching the left side of his abdomen again as the stretching motion caused it to throb, and Starsky discreetly withdrew from the room – collecting up the trey, and his own empty plate and the discarded napkins as he did so.
"Yeah?" The blonde said, clearing his throat as he picked up the receiver, and Starsky couldn't help but smile as he heard the faint echo of his mother's voice answer him down the other end of the line.
"Hutch?" His mother was quite a softly spoken woman but he heard her ask, shaking his head affectionately, as he thought about the fact that it could only be either himself or Hutch who had picked up the phone, and she'd spoken to the blonde enough times over the years to recognise his voice. He lingered for a couple of seconds with his back to the bedroom, pretending to readjust the plates and bowel on the trey he was carrying, whilst he waited to make sure that Hutch was OK – before withdrawing to the kitchen with a slight clatter of crockery in order to wash up.
"Oh, hi Rachel." The woman could hear the smile in Hutch's voice as he responded, somewhat breathlessly she noted – the chesty rattle as he exhaled audible.
"How are you feeling?" She asked him.
"Oh, I'm OK…" He sighed.
"Now come on honey," She admonished him kindly, "you should know better than that by now. You don't need to lie to me."
Hutch had always liked Rachel Starsky, although in many ways she was quite the opposite to his own mother. His father had been a doctor before he'd taken early retirement, and so just as had been the case for many families he and his sister had been predominantly raised by their mother. Their father had earned enough as a physician to mean that his wife never had to worry about having to find work, but she'd never been the type to spend her afternoon's baking cookies, and he could probably count on one hand the amount of times she'd been there waiting at the front door for them when they'd returned home from school. If anything, as they'd both got older, they were more likely to be met with an empty house – but that wasn't to say that his had been a childhood devoid of love. Whilst he couldn't deny the fact that his father had struggled with open displays of emotion, his mother was a kind and gentle woman, and had had her own ways of letting her children know how much she loved them. The lonely and repetitive life of a housewife may not have suited her, but Hutch still had fond memories of returning home with his sister Karen after school, hungrily eating the sandwiches which their mother had left out for them, before changing out of their school clothes and heading over to the local community hall to hear her sing and practice playing the flute. She could very easily have been described as undemonstrative or retiring – more likely to greet her children with a gentle smile and a peck on the cheek as opposed to a hug – but it had been when she'd sung to them that they'd both been able to hear the pure, unconditional love in her voice. It had been a musician friend of hers who had first taught Hutch how to play the guitar – and once he had got good enough at it his father had brought him one of his own – but there had been periods throughout his childhood when he had seen other parent's hug their children, and grip their hand tight as they walked down the street, and he'd longed for that kind of interaction himself – his heart left feeling empty by the absence of such open displays of love and affection by his own parents.
A dose of Rachel Starsky on the other hand was like a drink of hot chocolate on a cold day. A single hug from her could set off a warm glow in the pit of your stomach, and she seemed to instinctively know just how tight to hold a person to help them feel safe and loved. You couldn't help but smile if she smiled at you, and nothing ever seemed quite so bad when she was around. Hutch felt guilty to admit it, even to himself, but there had been some evenings when Starsky had still been in the hospital – especially after he'd woken up from the coma and he'd no longer felt the need to stay quite so close to his bedside all the time – when he had returned home, and called Rachel instead of his own mother. He'd realised that she wouldn't have known what to do to comfort him – she'd have tried to do something to make him feel better, but there'd been nothing she could do, and inevitably she'd have ended up saying too much. His father would have told him all about Starsky's chances of making a full recovery, talking about his partner as though his life was forever more now to be measured in the context of statistics, rather than by memories, how much he was loved, and all the good times which were to still come. Hutch had needed someone who wouldn't try to do anything, who would let him cry and understand his pain, but would just sit and listen – and there'd been many a night when Rachel had done just that.
"Well, I've felt better Rachel, but I'm getting there now." He assured her.
"My Davey's lucky to have you looking out for him." She told him, bringing fresh tears to Hutch's eyes and a lump to his throat.
"Well, I haven't been doing too good a job of that lately have I?" He almost spat – suddenly angry – his frustrations directed towards himself. He wanted to be there for Starsky – to be the one making lunch for him – even though he realised that he didn't need that kind of care anymore. There was still so much he could be doing to help him, but instead he was now stuck in bed himself. He felt as though he was letting him down all over again.
"Nonsense," Rachel soothed, "would anyone else have worried themselves sick about my son besides me?" She asked him. "The reason you're so ill now is because you've spent too long worrying about David, and not enough about yourself. You're exhausted Ken."
"Rachel, why are you being so nice to me?" He asked her, his voice starting to crack with the emotion which seemed to gather like a solid mass in his chest and which made it hard for him to breathe. When he did try to take a small breath his diaphragm went into spasm – trying to relieve some of the pressure from his midsection – and forcing the tide of emotion upwards. His throat constricted as it tried to ward off the inevitable release, but a small sob escaped him before he could stop it, and he closed his mouth and clenched his jaw tightly shut. His eyes were starting to sting.
"Why, don't you think you deserve a little loving too?" She asked him, as unseen tears started to trickle down his cheeks and he wiped them away quickly – not wanting to risk Starsky coming back in at that moment and seeing him cry.
"Well no… I mean… no…" He faltered. "I don't know… it's just so damn hard! I let him down Rachel. I let your son down! I should have taken those bullets for him… and I would have done given just half a chance… I wish it had been me Gunther gunned down that day." He choked on the words as he said them, another muscle spasm allowing yet another small sob to escape him, and a fresh flow of tears.
"And that's what makes you different… that's what makes you special Hutch." She told him. "But do you think it would have been any easier for my Davey if it had of been you? You seem to think that it would have been easier somehow, as though nobody would have cared… well I would! You're as good as a son to me!"
Hutch was taken aback by the generosity of the woman's words – he didn't know what to say. The conviction in her voice told him that she meant every word of what she said, but his body had already been taken over by emotion and he found himself unable to respond to her.
"Now you listen to me Kenneth, and you listen good!" Hutch immediately stiffened at hearing Rachel Starsky use his full name, instead of the nickname the family usually addressed him by. "I know that you're blaming yourself for what happened to my son, and that you've made yourself sick fretting about something which was not your fault, but I don't blame you, and Davey certainly doesn't – there was nothing you could have done to prevent what happened. Now I know that you don't feel up to travelling at the moment – David has been filling me in on how poorly you've really been – but I want you to promise me now that you'll listen to what the doctors say and do everything they tell you to do. With any luck you and Davey will be well enough to join us for Thanksgiving. You're very dear to all of us down here, you know that don't you?"
Hutch suddenly began to feel very dizzy. His vision began to blur and as it did so his heart started to race and his stomach felt as though it was doing somersaults, leaving him to fear that just might lose his lunch. He swallowed hard – a freight train of fatigue ploughing into him at ninety miles an hour.
"Uh… Rachel…" He faltered.
At that moment Starsky returned however, and realising what was happening and seeing the fear and incomprehension in his partner's face he quickly made his way over. Sitting down on the bed beside him he gently gripped his arm in a gesture of comfort – and he felt his body relax a little beneath his fingertips. Hutch's eyelids were starting to grow heavy and Starsky knew that he was likely to be experiencing some side effects from the pain medication he'd just given him. Doctor Maybrouk had advised him that the stronger medication might also make him very sleepy, but that that was probably a good thing in Hutch's case. He was running on empty – his body pushed to the point of complete physical collapse – so when the fatigue came he was powerless to resist. The antibiotics were helping to address the infection, but with his own immune system weakened he had a real fight on his hands. It was the reason Doctor Maybrouk had placed him on complete bed rest – Hutch needed to conserve what little energy he had for healing – but they also couldn't ignore the very real danger to his spleen, which was currently vulnerable to rupture.
"It's ok Hutch." He told him, trying to appear reassuring as he remembered Doctor Maybrouk's words. "The painkillers are going to make you feel a little sleepy. Don't fight it."
He'd initially been too physically weak after waking up from the coma to feel the effects of the drugs on his own body, but as he'd grown in strength he'd started to notice the difference in how the pain medication had made him feel – not just tired but dizzy and muddled. It had created a haze of obscurity which had forced him into sleep and he'd come to dread having to take them on some days, when all he'd wanted was to keep his wits about him – to be able to talk with Hutch, and Captain Dobey and Huggy. He'd felt frustrated to think of all the precious hours he'd lost to the fog of the medication – but at the same time he'd needed them to manage his pain – and on particularly bad days he'd known that not taking them simply hadn't been an option – just as Hutch didn't have a choice in the matter now if he wanted to get better. All Starsky could do for the moment was to reassure him and try and make sure that he was as comfortable as possible – which was exactly what he intended to do as he plumped his pillows and gently guided the blonde back towards them to lie down – not completely prone but slightly reclined to ease some of the strain on his aching lungs. He then gently took the phone from his slightly limp fingers. Hutch's eyes were beginning to close, and he already appeared much more relaxed to know that his partner was close by. Starsky hoped that he might fall asleep for another few hours – with any luck he might even sleep until dinner time.
"Hutch?" He heard the distant whisper of his mother's voice coming from the receiver in his hand, and suddenly remembered that she was still on the line.
"It's alright mom." He told her, lifting the phone to his ear and hearing the concern in her voice. "Yes everything's fine…" He assured her. "Hutch just needs to get some rest now… Listen, I'll call you tomorrow okay… Yes I'll tell him… I love you too… bye mom."
When he finally put the receiver down he unplugged the cord from the wall jack so that if the phone rang again it wouldn't disturb Hutch – who was still muttering in broken fragments of conversation.
"Heads spinning… don't go Starsky." He pleaded helplessly. "I don't want to be alone."
Starsky put a calming hand on his shoulder and squeezed it gently. "It's ok buddy." He reassured him. "I'm not going anywhere." He then moved his hand up to Hutch's forehead to check his temperature, feeling that he was still pretty warm – although he took note of the fact that he was a little cooler than he had been the day before – and that his fever had not yet broken as the infection continued to rage within him. He thought of all the hours Hutch had spent silently sat at his bedside when he'd been in the hospital, and quietly pulled the dining chair closer to his bed, easing himself into it.
When he'd been in the coma he'd been oblivious to everything going on around him – it was almost as though the world had stopped a split second after he'd heard Hutch shout for him to get down. He knew from what he'd been told that he must have been in pain – the worst pain he'd ever been in in his life – but he couldn't remember any of it, until waking up in the hospital and seeing Hutch standing in front of him. He'd still been too out of it to even begin to question then what had happened to him, and he had only a vague recollection of seeing his partner flinging his nurse, Marion, around in a joyous dance – but he'd sensed that whatever he'd been through it must have been bad by the look on the blonde's face. It was only later that he'd learnt the full story. Huggy had been the one to tell him of how Hutch had driven himself to the point of nearly ending up in the hospital himself – trying to find out who was behind the failed assassination attempt, whilst also spending every waking moment that he wasn't putting his own life at risk out on the streets, in the hospital at his partner's bedside. He hadn't been home, except to change, and had hardly eaten or had anything to drink for days unless the fluids had been forced into his hands – and even then he'd drank robotically, as though his body had taken over but his mind had been somewhere else. It had come as no surprise to either Huggy or Captain Dobey when he'd developed the infection in his wrist, although his first bout of chest infection had given them all a bit of a scare.
Apparently the Hutch who had returned to Bay City from San Francisco after arresting James Gunther had been very different from the man who'd left less than twenty four hours before. Despite Dobey's reservations that he was up to making the journey alone Hutch had insisted that he had to be the one to put the cuffs on the man himself, and the Captain had quite understood his need to be the one to read Gunther of his rights. His own partner had been murdered in cold blood, and he had finally been given the satisfaction of slapping the cuffs on the man responsible – thanks to the efforts of Starsky and Hutch. As Hutch had said himself at the time "never pick on a man's partner."
But Dobey had also understood that there'd been another reason why Hutch had had to be the one to make the arrest – because he had had to see the man being taken into custody for himself to know that it was finally over, and that he and Starsky were now truly safe. He would never be able to bring himself to believe it otherwise.
Starsky hadn't found it too difficult to put himself in Hutch's position, and to try and imagine how he would have felt if his partner had taken those bullets instead of him – although it was a thought he tried not to dwell on for too long. Both Huggy and Captain Dobey had said that he'd appeared to be in good spirits before leaving to catch his flight to San Francisco – happier and more relaxed than they'd seen him since before the shooting. He'd been unable to get a flight back on the same day however, and so had been forced to stay in the city overnight. When he'd arrived back at the hospital the following afternoon his energy levels of the previous day appeared to have left him – the adrenaline having now long since worn off – and he'd walked back into Starsky's room an exhausted husk of a man. It had been the first sign that perhaps not all was well with the blonde haired Detective, and the first time Starsky's doctor had been called to attend to him when he'd collapsed into the chair at Starsky's bedside – white as the paper on which Gunther's arrest warrant had been written.
It had been established that he was severely dehydrated, slightly malnourished and physically exhausted, and for the first time in days he'd finally allowed Starsky's medical team to tend to him. Doctor Maybrouk had himself changed the dressings on his wrist, and he'd been given a meal and plied with water to get some much needed fluids into him. Hutch had let the doctor give him an injection of something to help him sleep – although he'd refused the offer of a bed. After that he'd slept for about nine hours, unwaking, and had hardly even stirred.
Starsky stayed sitting with Hutch until he was sure he'd fallen asleep, before returning to the sofa in the living room – not forgetting to plug the phone back in in case anyone else should call.
It was only when he got himself settled beneath the blankets on the sofa again and rested his head back against the pile of pillows that he realised how tired he was himself. The scar tissue on his chest, which spread downwards across his abdomen felt sore, and it was only since taking on the responsibility of looking after Hutch that he realised how far he himself still was from making a full recovery, but also how far he'd come. There were still some tasks he found difficult, and he was now using muscles which hadn't been used properly for months – and as a result his whole body ached badly. He still had a prescription for painkillers – which despite now having been taken off all of his other medications, he'd been advised that he could be on for quite a while yet – but he didn't want to take anything which might make him feel too sleepy in case Hutch was to need him again, so he settled for a couple of aspirin instead. The pain wasn't so bad that that wouldn't be enough to take the edge off it.
He'd never thought that caring for Hutch before he himself was fully recovered would be easy – but it hadn't been easy for Hutch taking care of him when he'd been so ill either. As Starsky closed his eyes and waited for sleep to take him however he took comfort in the fact that at least now they knew the truth – and with truth could finally come healing for both of them.