For Higgy - because she insisted!

Chapter 2

Starsky walked into the deserted room that Dr Kaufman had been allocated to use as her office, needing time to be alone and gather his thoughts. He hadn't seen Judith since she'd gotten the blood and headed off to her lab and that was over four hours ago. Four hours during which his partner had almost died and left Starsky alone to carry on without him. Since his talk with the other doctor in Hutch's room, his head had been in a spin. For the first time in his life he faced the possibility of life without the blond and it not only filled him with sorrow, it also scared him too. Although he'd made detective a few months before his flaxen haired friend, he'd never really had chance to go out on the streets without Hutch at his side. The blond was calm, level headed, caring and the perfect foil to Starsky's temper. There had been so many times when Hutch had been there for him that he'd lost count - the shootings, the poisonings, and always the velvety voice in he background giving comfort and protection. And now it was Starsky's turn to help his partner. Neither man would ever fully trust another partner, not after the working relationship they'd formed, but now it may all come to an end.

With a shaking hand he picked up the telephone and dialled the number he'd jotted down on a piece of paper in his wallet for just such an occasion.

Both men had talked about the possibility of their deaths – it was an occupational hazard and Starsky was all too familiar with it. The job had taken away his father after a drive by shooting on the streets of New York and both he and Hutch were realistic enough to know that the same fate could await them. Because of that and in an attempt to make a painful situation a little easier, they had signed powers of attorney for each other and had made rudimentary funeral plans, hoping they wouldn't have to put them into practice for a long time. Both men knew the numbers of the other's parents, but whereas Rachel Starsky would have been on the first plane out of JFK if Starsky was sick, the brunette had no idea what reaction he would get from Hutch's parents.

They'd thrown their only son out onto the streets when he refused to follow in his eminent father's footsteps and had dropped out of medical school. They'd left him with his inheritance of a few thousand dollars, a money grabbing young wife and very little else. While Starsky had had no money but a world of love as a child, Hutch's upbringing was rich and sumptuous, but cold and lacking parental love. His mother had tried in the early days of his banishment to keep in touch and had picked times when Richard Hutchinson was not in the house to talk to her son. But gradually the conversations had become more and more stilted until finally Hutch closed the door on his family more or less for good and moved down to LA.

Starsky took a deep breath as he heard the telephone pick up at the other end and a female voice answered. He put on his best polite voice knowing Hutch's mother didn't like him and despised his background and faith.

'Mrs Hutchinson?' 'Yes. Who is this?'

'It's Dave Starsky, Ma'am. Your son's partner. I'm afraid I have some bad news' His voice shook with emotion and he took a moment to get it under control. At that point, if someone had been talking to Ma about him, he knew Rachel would have been yelling down the phone, but instead the voice said, in measured tones

'What sort of news?'

Cold hearted b…no "Oh my God". Or "is it Ken"? 'I'm afraid Hu…Ken has been taken sick….very sick. The doctors aren't too hopeful' he pulled the phone from his ear and took a calming breath. Just saying it seemed to make the horrendous situation all the more real and he felt dizzy and sick. He raised the phone again as he heard the voice continuing.

'Is he in the hospital?'

'Yes. Linoln Hospital, Ocean Boulevard' Starsky said quickly. 'Are you coming because if…' he was cut off by the answer.

'I'm afraid that's impossible at the moment. Richard has an important conference to attend and I have to escort him. Please, tell Ken we're thinking of him'.

'But you don't understand, he'd dying, he's in a coma. I can't tell him anything. If you want to say your goodbyes, maybe now is the time' Starsky said down the telephone, expecting a change of attitude, but instead the cold voice replied.

'Please keep us informed and thank you' the phone went dead.

'You cold hearted bitch!' the brunette ground out as he stared at the receiver in his hand. Slowly he replaced it and dialled another number.

'Sgt Starsky for Captain Dobey please……Cap, its Starsky. I'm still at the hospital. No, he's not good. They've got him on some kinda pump thing - a tube in his back. He's….he's got leass than a 50/50 chance. I need to be here with him'.

He heard his captain's voice tell him to take as long as he needed, that work would wait and that Hutch was more important and he blessed the gruff but compassionate man. He put the phone down and headed back to the isolation room, his body feeling tired and heavy as the emotions of the past two days caught up with him.

As he pushed open the door to the room he saw Judith standing by the bed. She had a trolley, draped in theatre greens and laden with more medical equipment as she pushed her hands into gloves, snapping the rubber around her wrists. She looked up and smiled tiredly.

'Have you done it?' the brunette asked quietly, eying all the paraphernalia laid out next to his friend. Some of it he recognised and some he didn't want to know the use of. It scared him and he hated the thought of the big blond body being invaded by more and yet more tubes and needles.

She nodded quietly. 'Calendar's blood was teaming with antibodies. I've got the serum and I have a massive dose for him. I need to start some IV's and get some fluids into him, but I've got to balance it against his output so that I don't compromise his heart function'. She saw the glazed look in the indigo eyes and tried to explain it in layman's terms the confused cop would understand.

'Basically he needs rehydrating because he's lost so much fluid by sweating and not being able to drink, but his lungs are filling with fluid and if too much surrounds his heart, it'll put too much strain on it. So I need to balance the amount we put in against what he puts out. I've inserted a catheter into his bladder while you were away, so we can monitor that, and now I'm going to start two IV lines so that we can accurately tell what's going in. The one thing I can't do is give him any pain killing medication because that affects lung function and we need to leave him with as much of that as possible. He's going to be in for a rough ride'.

Starsky gazed at the flushed face on the white pillow, now without the surrounds of the oxygen tent. Hutch's face was still lined with pain even though he was in a coma and Starsky felt sickened at the sight of his partner's vulnerable body lying quiet and broken and he reached to take a hold of the hand as Judith inserted the first cannula into a vein. The voice replayed in his head Hate needles There was not the shadow of a response at the painful procedure, although the brunette winced in sympathy for his friend. Hutch was too far gone however to feel the pain any more and as Judith inserted the second needle, he prayed he'd wake up soon. Life without Hutch calling him dumb or moron and lifting his eyes skywards at his latest fad was almost more than he could bear.

He watched as the woman completed her procedures, finally shining a light into the unresponsive eyes and holding the wrist to feel for the weak, thready pulse. She smiled again.

'He's holding his own. Try not to worry, he'll probably be unconscious for a while yet. You need to get some rest too'.

Tiredly Starsky smiled back. 'I'm not going anywhere. I need to be here when he wakes up, ya know?' he tented his eyebrows asking for understanding and she nodded back, having seen the extraordinary bond which existed between the two men. She'd never seen two guys so close. It wasn't a sexual thing, it was just a mutual love and respect which shone through everything they said and did. She gathered her things together and trundled the trolley towards the door. Pausing she looked back to see the curly haired, tough cop tenderly wiping his partner's flushed face with a cool cloth and murmuring comforting words into his ear. As she went out of the room leaving them alone, Starsky sat down on the chair at the bedside and rested his forehead on the side of the bed, next to the big blond hand. He was more tired than he could ever remember and he felt completely drained as he watched the blond struggle for each breath.

'Don't give up Hutch. Don't leave me. I can't do this without you. You make everything ok. You stop me when I'm going off the rails and put me back on track. Just hang in there buddy….for me?'

There was no response and he allowed his head to rest back on the bed as he slowly closed his eyes, going over the times when the positions had been reversed and he'd been laid in the bed with Hutch fussing over him. The time in the Italian Restaurant when he'd been shot, the time Bellamy had poisoned him and the time he spent those long hours recovering from Simon Marcus' goon's treatment at the old city zoo. All the way through there had been that blond constant. A familiar figure that comforted and cajoled, his voice there to help through the pain and the fevers.

Starsky had always found something oddly comforting about Hutch's voice, whether it was engaged in singing or talking. It held a comforting, mellow quality which soothed away his hurt. He tried now to emulate the voice as he tried to penetrate his partner's coma. He talked about their friendship, their girlfriends, the job and their vacations until his voice was raw and hoarse with emotion. Finally after hours of mindless chatter he gave up and stood stiffly, easing the kinks from his back and walking over to the window to stare out at the trees surrounding the hospital.

As he rested his head against the cold glass, his breath fogging the pane he saw people coming in and out of the hospital entrance, each wrapped in their own little world as they came to visit or came for treatment. They were all getting on with their lives without any knowledge of just how much his life and that of his partner was being ripped apart, a second at a time. He envied them their cosy lives and he sighed deeply. As he turned back to the bed to resume his vigil, however, he thought he saw a movement under the translucent eyelids and he rushed over, bending over the still body on the bed.