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Lightning Ch#6

Starsky drove away from the curb and grabbed the radio mike and after receiving an answer, he requested information on the location of a veterinary office. Once he got the directions, he had dispatch connect him with Huggy. When Huggy responded, Starsky asked him to go to the hospital and sit with Hutch until he could get there himself. Starsky didn't trust the doctor duo and wanted someone there to keep an eye on Hutch while he dealt with the dog.

Starsky cast a jaundiced eye in the dog's direction. It lay curled up on the floor, covered with his coat. The beast was unmoving, save for its breathing. He returned his attention to the road ahead but kept one eye on the dog.

xxxx

Hutch listened as Starsky briefly talked to Huggy. So, his body was at the hospital. That was a good thing. He had a body to get back to. From what he little he overheard, he gathered that the dog was in his body. Crap. He tried to collect his thoughts and figure a way to get out of the dog and back into his own body. The pain from his ordeals of the past twenty-four hours nearly overwhelmed him. Everything hurt.

The pain was worth it though; he was glad that he had been able to keep Rosie from being run over. And the little girl in turnhad thrown herself on top of him and kept him from getting shot dead by his own best friend. It had hurt to have Starsky point the gun at him. Hutch understood why, and under the circumstances, even agreed, but still it didn't lessen the pain any.

Hutch tried to concentrate, he needed to think, to figure out a way to tell Starsky who he was and what had happened. But the pain was tremendous. He had gotten the wind knocked out of him from the car bumper. The impact had lifted him off his feet and shoved him forward. His whole right side had hit the car's grill. His left side had hit the pavement and as he skidded along the rough surface, he had lost patches of fur and now his left side was a road map of 'road rash'.

He must have drifted off for the next thing he was aware of was Starsky pulling into a parking lot. He lifted his head slowly and watched as Starsky got out and walked around to the passenger side and open the door.

"Uhhh, good dog, don't bite me, I'm just tryin' to help. Dammit, why couldn't you be a poodle or something?" The brunet slowly reached in and moved the coat over his head, presumably to keep him from being bitten.

It was strange, but Hutch realized something, he could smell his friend's fear. He clenched his teeth together in an effort to keep from yelping in pain as his partner lifted him out of the car. For all his grumbling, Starsky carried him with care. "Starsk, you are such a softy" Hutch thought with a smile.

xxxx

Starsky was relieved that the dog wasn't giving him any trouble, at least not yet. He hoped the dog would continue to behave. He readjusted the dog in his arms, trying to figure out how to work the door knob to enter the building while carrying an arm load of dog. He settled for lightly kicking the door a few times. Sure enough, someone came rushing to the door and opened it.

"What do we have here?" The vet assistant asked as she lifted part of the coat to see the dog's head.

"He was hit by a car-"

"Oh dear, follow me!" The assistant cut him off and walked briskly down a hall.

Starsky followed her and soon found himself in a little room that reminded him of a doctor's office. Huh. Somehow he thought it should look different.

"The vet will be in shortly. What's his name and how old is your dog?" The assistant scribbled notes on a clipboard.

"He's not mine, I saw him get hit-"

"Oh, you know that you are going to be responsible for the vet bill, right? I mean, if his owner shows up, he or she is under no obligation to reimburse you and you'll have to give them their dog back"

"Oh, huh, I hadn't thought of that" He looked at the dog. It was looking at him again, like it was worried about what his response would be. "Ummm okay, sure. Just tell me where to put him, he's kinda heavy"

"Here, on the exam table" She patted the metal table. "The vet will be here in a minute" She left.

After a few tense moments of waiting for the vet, a familiar figure walked in the room.

"Doctor Goldberg, I presume?" Starsky was getting that "Twilight Zone" feeling.

"Did you read that off of the sign on the front door or have you met one or both of my brothers?"

"Both" Starsky readied himself to grab the dog and leave. He wasn't going to tolerate any abuse from this Goldberg.

"So sorry, you have my condolences, you probably guessed that we are triplets"

"Identical triplets" Starsky shook his head. The past few days were strange already and now they had just gotten stranger.

The tall doctor laughed "Yeah, I'm the 'black sheep' because I went into veterinarian medicine instead of human medicine; I'm Stanley Goldberg, by the way"

"Your parents really like the letter 'S' huh?" Starsky decided that he liked this Goldberg better than the other two.

"Yeah, everyone in my immediate family has the first initial of 'S', okay, enough chit chat, lets have a look at your dog" The vet proceeded to look into the dog's eyes and ears, teeth and felt all over its body. "This guy has had a rough life, especially recently"

"I wouldn't know, it's not my dog. I just saw it hit by a car and brought it in." For some reason, Starsky felt disinclined to give the vet all the details. Maybe it was because of who the vet was.

"Well, that was nice of you to be sure; however, you don't know what this dog's background is. He has been in dog fights before and again recently. He has several bite marks on him. There are gouges singe and burn marks on his neck and some of the fur is melted, looks rather like electric burns, though I can't be sure of that. His paws are bloody. He has done a lot of traveling recently. If you were his owner, I would suspect you were abusing this dog. There is clear evidence of a history of abuse." The vet looked at Starsky over the top of his glasses. "What are you going to do with him?"

"Do with him?" Starsky looked at the dog. It was looked back at him. Unnerved by the pleading look the dog gave him, Starsky scanned the room as he mulled over what the vet had said. He felt sorry for dog. It hadn't asked to be owned by a piece of crap drug dealer. If he hadn't promised Rosie, he would just have the poor thing put out of its misery. He certainly wasn't going to send it back to his drug dealer owner. Well, he couldn't send it back anyway, the guy was in jail.

"Yes, do with him. You should take him to the pound or have me euthanize it, for I couldn't send it back to someone who abuses it. The pound wouldn't put this one up for adoption, too risky with its history of abuse; it could attack the new owner. Though" The vet looked speculatively at the dog "he seems well mannered now, of course that could be because he is a little shocky and is slightly malnourished"

"Not to mention dog-tired" Hutch kept his eyes on Starsky. His life was in Starsky's hands now. He kept as still as possible as the vet started cleaning his wounds. The antiseptic stung, but he managed to keep from yelping each time another wound was cleaned. "Please Starsky, please, I maybe different on the outside, but I'm still the same on the inside. C'mon partner it's me and I could really use your help now"

"Here, hold his head; I'm going to have a closer look at these bites on his hind legs"

Starsky took a tentative hold on the dog's head and as he did so, the dog tried to swipe his face with its tongue. "Ewww, you have got some nasty breath there partner" He started to stroke the velvety ears "Uhhh, nice doggy, just hold still" He felt the dog stiffen as the vet cleaned the bite wounds.

The vet cleaned the wounds and finished palpating for other injuries. "Well, no broken bones, as far as I can tell without x-rays. He has some scrapes, bruises, he's gonna be sore for a few days. Have you decided what you're going to do with him? I don't want to do much more if you're just going to have it euthanized" The vet looked at the brunet.

Starsky looked at the dog and found that the dog was looking right back at him. The tan eyebrow marks were crinkled in such a way that it reminded him of the way Hutch looked at him sometimes. He shook his head to shake the feeling of familiarity 'it's just a figment of my imagination. I'm feeling this way just because of what Rosie said and because I feel sorry for it and I'm tired. Yep, that's all it is'

"I don't mean to push, but please make your mind. I have other patients waiting."

Starsky looked at the dog again, than back at the vet "What do you think I should do?"

"I can't make that decision for you" The vet leaned against the counter as he waited.

"That's not really helping me much" He ran a hand through his curls.

The vet shrugged.

The dog shifted forward and nudged his hand, than licked it.

"You're not helping either" Starsky ran his hand over the dog's head. He could feel the bumps and ridges from old scars and looked at the ragged ears. It came down to if the dog had meant to harm Rosie or not. Had it been chasing Rosie? Or had the dog seen the car and had come to rescue her? It seemed ridiculous. Stuff like that only happened on the 'Lassie' show or maybe 'Rin Tin Tin'

"Do you think that this dog could turn on someone?" Starsky caught the vet's gaze and felt the dog gently shake its head back and forth in his hands, almost as if it was saying 'no'. He jerked his hands away from it and met the dog's soft brown eyes. He really didn't have much experience with dogs; but this one seemed to be pleading with him.

"Well, my 'off the record' opinion would be that he likes you. As you held his head while I cleaned his wounds, I felt his heart rate slow down. He seems to trust you and is comfortable with you. Also, he hasn't snapped or tried to bite either of us, even though some of what we have done to him must be painful. But again, that could be due to shock. It's hard to tell what he'll be like when he feels better. If you do decide to keep him, I would strongly suggest taking him to obedience classes. A big dog like that needs manners; he could hurt someone without meaning to. And, I would never trust him with children."

"Why?"

"If he was taught to dog fight, as in a ring fight, he would have been taught to kill small animals and other dogs. He might also have been fed gun powder."

"Gun power? Why would anyone feed a dog gun powder?"

"The theory is that it makes the dog meaner. What it really does is irritate the stomach lining and make them sick, this in turn will make some dogs more vicious because of the pain they're in"

"Good God! That's just sick" He ran his hand over the dog's head again. "Poor fella" the dog leaned into his caress.

"Could you make your decision now, please? Others are waiting" The vet moved towards the door.

"How bad is he hurt?" He eyed the dog, weighing his options.

"From what I could feel, nothing is broken. He'll be sore from being hit and some of his wounds were infected. He's probably never had a shot in his life. He'll need a tetanus shot and rabies for starters and later a parvovirus shot and he'll need to be de-wormed. I, in all seriousness, can not recommend that you keep him, given your lack of experience with dogs."

"You don't think I can do this" Starsky's brow knitted, he didn't like it when people told him he couldn't do things, it made him want to do it, just to prove them wrong.

"Correction, I don't think you should do this"

Starsky looked back at the dog. It was staring at him with wide brown eyes. It looked frightened. It saved Rosie and he had promised her he would help the dog. He hated to break his promise. Maybe he would look after it for a couple of days. He could talk to some of the K-9 officers and get their opinion. "I'll take him home for tonight and sleep on it"

"I don't agree, but it is your decision. Be very careful, you don't know what may trigger an attack. Move slowly around him and don't raise your voice or your hands. He may have been hit."

Starsky stared at the vet, absorbing what had been said. He had made a promise, he would keep it, but only if the dog behaved itself. He carefully lifted the dog off of the metal exam table and set it on the floor. It leaned against his leg and nosed his hand. He pulled his hand away from the moist nose; he had seen where dogs liked to put their noses.

"Alright, I'll send the vet intern back here to give those shots. I'll have someantibioticsand pain meds waiting at the front desk." The vet opened the door and started to walk through, then stopped "If you do keep him, you should get him neutered"

The dog yelped and ran behind Starsky's legs, where it stood there shaking, its butt tucked and its tail clenched down as tight as it could go.

"Starsk, please man, I am begging you, don't to do that!" Hutch thought as hard as he could all the while hoping that somehow, Starsky would pick up on it. "Please!" he leaned harder against his friend, fear making his legs weak.

The detective and the vet stared at the dog for a long moment "I think he understood you" Starsky chuckled.

The vet looked at him and the dog, then shook his head "That's the damnedest thing… he must have hurt something when he moved just now" The vet shook his head once more "I'll send in the intern back and I'll leave some instructions at the front desk for you, good luck," He than exited the room. "You're going to need it" he said under his breath as he closed the door.

Starsky looked and the dog and the dog looked back at him "I wish you would stop doin' that, your givin' me the willies" He paced the room "I better call a couple of the guys and them bring me the Torino and have them take Dobey's car back to him-" Starsky stopped pacing when the intern entered the room. The shots were given with minimum fuss.

After administering the shots, the intern left and Starsky made his call to his co-workers. He also put in a call to Huggy at the hospital. There had been no improvement in Hutch while he was gone. Huggy told him that he would stay with Hutch tonight. Starsky thanked him. He had been at a loss of what to do until Huggy offered to stay.

He grumbled when he saw how much the vet bill was. "You had better be worth this" He sent a dirty look at the dog, which nodded its head vigorously. Starsky stepped back a little, he must have imagined it or he was overtired yeah, that's it. He ran a hand over his curls.

Starsky sat down to wait for his car the dog leaned against him and tried to nose his hand. Starsky ended up folding his arms across his chest to keep the dog from touching them. He liked his fingers where they were, on the end of his hands. When the car finally arrived, Starsky got up and walked out the door with the big dog at his heels. He had had to buy a collar and leash for the dog before exiting the building since he didn't want it running away the second he opened the door. But the dog seemed content to stay by his side.

He opened the driver's side door and the dog painfully eased its way onto the front seat and sat down on the seat and leaned against the rider's side door and looked at him as if to say 'What are you waiting for? Let's go'

Starsky stopped off at a grocery store and bought some canned dog food and some dry food along with a few other things. When he got back into the car he looked at the dog "Having a dog is really expensive" He could have sworn that the dog shrugged in response.

Starsky pulled up to his apartment and was glad it was dark out. Hopefully no one would see him with a dog. He grabbed the bag of dog supplies and grabbed the leash "Uhhh, come doggy" He tugged gently on the leash.

"Come doggy? Sheesh Starsk, you really know how to insult a guy" Hutch rolled his eyes, which aggravated his headache. He slowly got to his feet and walked across the car seat to the driver's side and carefully stepped out of the vehicle. Everything hurt and after riding the car he had stiffened up.

The vet said nothing was broken, but it sure didn't feel that way. The vet had not helped matters by putting fear into Starsky about him. Of course the vet didn't know who or what Hutch really was. Starsky was taking a big chance on him and he wasn't gonna blow it. He had to convince Starsky who he was and he had to do it tonight.

TBC

Author note: To those who might be thinking "How come Hutch wasn't hurt more when the car hit him?" My dog, Kodiak (a Rotti, 29.5 inches tall, 125 lbs) was hit by a car. He was thrown 15 feet. I took him to the vet immediately. He did 625.50 worth of damage to the car. He didn't even limp the next day.