CHAP 1- Reason to Believe

Hutch

I sighed as I watched my far too pale partner filling in overdue paperwork, without a word of complaint. He was looking very tired and drawn but I didn't dare tackle him about it. Didn't dare. How things had changed between us. For so long we'd depended on each other for everything, confided in each other, lived like two halves of a whole, and now we walked on eggshells around each other, being so careful not to upset the other. For Starsky seemed as nervous around me, as I was around him. Perhaps nervous wasn't the right word, but we weren't relaxed around each other and I didn't know how to recapture the previous ease that we'd always had. I wanted to just reach out and touch him, as I always had, but I was unsure of my welcome. Starsky almost seemed to be deliberately distancing himself from me and was snappy and bad tempered. I knew this was my fault for I'd slept with a woman that Starsky had told me he loved. I'm not even sure how or why it happened, although it was obviously time to work it out, if I wanted to get my best friend and partner back, and I did. We hadn't talked a great deal about what happened and I was beginning to realise that was a mistake. We needed to sort things out, resolve the issue once and for all.

What had happened? Why had I done it? Slept with a woman that my best friend and partner loved.

Starsky had nearly walked in on me with Kira, he'd hit me and stormed off. I hadn't hit him back. How could I? How could I defend myself, or be angry with him for hitting me? I could only pray that I would be forgiven, for I'd realised at last, how important Starsky was to me and how I needed him in my life. I'd known this all along, but somehow I'd lost sight of it, lost sight of Starsky.

For so long, I'd been feeling tired and burned out. All we seemed to be seeing was the worst side of life and as hard as we worked, we weren't making a difference. At first I'd deceived myself into believing that this wasn't so, that we did make a difference. The facts remained, innocent people kept getting murdered, and the drug scene was as bad as ever. Nothing seemed to improve despite our efforts. We were constantly getting shot at, beaten up, abused, but still the crime and chaos continued. I tried, God knows I tried, but it didn't seem to matter that Starsky and I were constantly risking our lives to put the scum in jail, and then with a blink of the eye, they were out again. I started asking myself what was the point? Surely there was more to life than this. I'm not even sure at what point the disillusion became depression and disenchantment with my life in general.

My personal life was a disaster, where my relationships fell apart, hell, they barely even started. I knew this was my fault. My moodiness and depression would be hard for anyone to deal with, anyone except my best friend and partner, Starsky. He took the blows that I kept dealing, and stuck with me. However, instead of appreciating him, I found myself starting to resent him. For as much as I loved him, the one constant in my life, I started to resent the fact that

he seemed to cope so well with all that we had to face. I lost sight of the fact that his resilience and strength were what I treasured most about him. The resilience that enabled him to bounce back after being tortured by some of the most dangerous lunatics I'd ever had the misfortune to come across. The strength that enabled him to survive a deadly poison that was injected into him, and the same strength of character that had seen him shoot the only person who could provide an antidote from the same poison. To save my life. My friend, the best friend a man could ever wish for, had been prepared to die, to save my life. How I could have forgotten all of that, I'll never understand. In my depressed state, I found myself pushing away the one person in this world who cared enough about me to want to help.

Sleeping with Kira had been the single most stupid act of my life. I had come so close, so very close to losing Starsky then, and the devastation in his eyes would haunt me for the rest of my life. I'm not even sure why I had slept with her. She was attractive but nothing spectacular and she should have been off limits for me – because Starsky loved her. I'd like to say that I sensed that she was bad news and had gone to see her to protect Starsky. He'd been so hurt in the past and deserved so much better. Helen and Terri had been taken from him, Rosie Malone had walked out on him. Rosie had been a disaster, although if she'd chosen Starsky I would have accepted her. So why had I ended up in Kira's bed? Was it a chance to prove to myself that I could have any woman that I wanted, during a time that I was feeling particularly low? I just don't know. It's all a blur and something I'd very much like to forget. I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to answer that question satisfactorily, but there was one thing that I knew for sure. If I'd been low before, the sight of Starsky's heartbreak and anger brought me to my knees as nothing else could have, and I knew it was a mistake that I'd regret for the rest of my life. I certainly recognised the damage I'd done, the pain I'd caused, there was no mistaking that.

I would do anything for Starsky, give my own life, or do whatever it took to keep him safe, kill to protect

him. Why had I risked a friendship that was so precious to me? Ours wasn't a casual friendship, we were truly partners and brothers. Kira hadn't been worth it. She was a shallow, self serving bitch who hadn't deserved Starsky's love. But then did I? After what I had done to him, what right did I have to sit in judgement on Kira. Kira had enjoyed the challenge of breaking us up and she'd come so close. She could even succeed now. Where had that thought come from? Easy, the distance that loomed between us since we challenged Kira, the distance that seemed to be growing rather than lessening.

The distance that prevented me from talking to Starsky, from finding out what was wrong with my obviously unwell friend. For it was clear that Starsky was ailing.

For a few days after Kira, things had been okay between us. We'd managed to laugh and get drunk together, and if there had been any restraint, it had barely been noticeable. I was still consumed

with guilt but I'd done my best to put it behind me, as Starsky seemed to be doing. That's what I'd thought at first anyway. I'm not so sure now.

Starsky had started to look tired and pale and snapped at me when I tried to talk to him, even walking off on one occasion. Once, not so long ago, I would have ignored the snapping and just hauled Starsky off to the doctor, but now there was this distance between us, a distance that seemed to be increasing rather than decreasing, with Starsky looking less and less well. He lacked his usual energy and unless I was mistaken, was suffering from pains of some sort. I caught him grimacing and wincing at times but Starsky simply denied everything and painted on a false smile, not even close to being convincing. I was lost and confused and wanted things back to how they'd been, but I had no idea how to get there.

I was so scared of what was happening to us. If I made a wrong move and alienated him, it could be the straw that broke the camels back. What if he walked out for good? I couldn't bear the thought that I'd lose my best friend. I valued our partnership and friendship more than anything in the world and was more sorry than words could express that I'd risked it in the first place. A life without Starsky was not a

life, not for me. We lived such high risk lives and seemed to attract the hatred of every known nut

in LA, and the chances were always there that one of us wouldn't come home one day. It made us value each other so much more, or it had until I nearly blew it. Starsky had told me that we'd be okay and that our friendship was still in tact, but how could I believe that? If things were normal, why was there this distance and why was Starsky not talking to me like he used to? I needed to talk to him, for I wanted my Starsky back and would do anything to achieve this. It was killing me, this distance. I wanted to reach out and hold him, beg him to forgive me. I'd explain to him what happened, as best I could. I wanted and needed my friend back. I needed to believe in our bond, the invincible bond that had forged the "me and thee" team. I know I stuffed up big time but I'd make it up to him. We had to talk, there was no option.The question was, when. Starsky had taken to pulling disappearing acts and these scared me even more. He'd

disappeared for a few hours yesterday and came back looking white and strained and this morning he didn't look much better. It was difficult to work out whether the strain of recent events was catching up with him, or whether there was something more sinister going on and Starsky wasn't making it easy for me to find out. Our relationship was deteriorating again and I didn't know how to fix it. Oh Starsk, what's going on here?