Chapter 4

Throughout the afternoon and evening of that day Starsky kept his vigil at his partner's bedside. Judith came back as she'd promised but her work called her away frequently and there were long gaps in which the two men were alone in the room with only the rasping of Hutch's breathing for company. After the oxygen tent had been taken away, it being too unwieldy to use when the medics needed instant access to their patient, the oxygen mask had been replaced over Hutch's mouth and nose. But even in his sleep, the blond rebelled against it, trying to knock the foreign object away from his face. Starsky knew from experience that it could itch, but he also knew his partner needed the life giving properties of the simple gas, and he reluctantly held Hutch's hands down, as the blond fought weakly with him.

Hutch was still sleeping although Starsky thought he saw a change in his partner now. There was a little more natural colour in the face which had been either flushed red with fever or white with exhaustion for the past 4 days, and he drew the chair up closer to the bed so that he could rest his head on the edge of the mattress and doze.

It was during one of those moments when he'd managed to close his eyes and filter out the interminable noise of the hospital when he felt the bed move a little and there was a feather light pressure on his head. He jerked awake and the hand dropped away from his chocolate curls. Starsky looked up into ice blue, tired eyes.

'Hutch! You're awake!'

'Should be……detective' his partner whispered with a slight smile on his face.

'Yeah? I'll consider it. How d'ya feel buddy?'

Hutch closed his eyes. 'Sore……the guy in the…….jack boots has ……gone from my chest. Back hurts'.

'I know buddy, its that tube. But at least it helped you to breathe again. Now ya just need to concentrate on getting well'.

'Starsk?...How long?'

'You've been asleep almost 24 hours. I need to tell Judith you're awake'.

'Judith?'

Starsky chuckled. 'Your number one fan, Dr Kaufman. I think she likes you'.

A small smile played over the pain ravaged face. 'What's not t'like?'

'Apart from the "smart alec" wit, the "always right" tone of voice and the ability to piss me off with a look? Nothin'. Starsky whined, good naturedly.

'Captain Marvel came through then?' Hutch panted, his eyes a little clearer although the brunette could only see a half of his face, the other being buried in the soft white pillow.

'Yeah, we did it. We got the serum'.

Hutch reached out weakly and took hold of Starsky's arm, his fingers cold and clammy. 'Not "we". …..You did it……saved my life'.

The curly haired man looked suddenly embarrassed. 'Aw shucks!. You would have done the same. Now you've got the hard work to do. You need to get well'.

'Just tired……don't go huh?'

'I need to tell the Doc you're awake. Then I'll be right back. Promise'. Starsky watched as the silky flaxen eyelashes dipped over the blue eyes again and Hutch's face relaxed once more into sleep. He got up from the bed and went to the window of the small room, gazing out at the passing parade. Nurses bustled along carrying files, trays and equipment. Doctors hurried past with knitted brows and stethoscopes around their necks and visitors wandered past, flowers, fruit and candies in their grasp. He could see the whole gamut of humanity from that window and yet he and his partner were completely cut off from it, cocooned in a womb of filtered air and gowns. Judith was just coming out of the room opposite and Starsky tapped on the window. She looked over and after changing her gown came into the room.

'He woke up for a while' he started excitedly wanting to tell the medic how much more alert Hutch seemed, but slowed down as he saw the expression on the Doctor's face. Judith looked tired, but more. Worried? Was that the expression in her big brown eyes?

'What is it?' he asked. 'There's something wrong isn't there?'

She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. 'His white cell count is still way too low and he has virtually no urinary output at all. He's developed septicaemia'.

'And that is?'

'It's a bacterial infection of the blood, commonly known as blood poisoning. Often it's a complication of another infection, such as of the lungs or kidneys, - in this case from the pneumonia and it occurs when the bacteria escape that part of the body and get into the bloodstream. Although his was a viral pneumonia, his pleura were infected by bacteria. In his current condition it ……' her voice broke and she heaved a deep breath.

Starsky quietly finished the sentence for her. 'It what? It could kill him?'

'I need to start a line with a massive dose of antibiotics. Fortunately it'll help with the infection in his lungs too. I'm going to put a central line in'.

Starsky's throat was dry. 'Central line? What's that?'

'A central line is a long, hollow tube made from silicone rubber. It's used to give the treatments he needs, like antibiotics and intravenous fluids but It can also be used to take samples of blood for testing, so at least we won't need to keep sticking him with needles'

Starsky let out a shaky breath. 'OK when do we start?' the brunette said looking back at his partner in the bed.

'Now. I know you're not going to go away to wait, but it does involve more cuts and needles and tubes. Are you ok with that?'

'Just do what you have to Doc'.

Judith went away to get her stuff together and Starsky padded back to his friend's bedside. He held on to the big broad hand and squeezed it. 'What else huh?' he muttered as he brushed a stray bang of flaxen hair from the face on the pillow. He remembered a similar time when the positions had been reversed and Starsky had been sick with Bellamy's poison. Getting into his car, he'd stumbled and Hutch had made some comment about wanting to drive. When the brunette had responded, Hutch had said it was always harder on the ones left behind.

'Remember that Blintz? Always harder on the ones left behind? I don't want to put that to the test. D'ya hear me?'

Judith came back a while later with yet another trolley laden with paper bags of equipment. As the nurse set out the stall, the Doctor gently shook Hutch's shoulder, rousing the ailing man from his sleep. His fever was up again and Hutch viewed his medic through pain filled eyes. But he tried to smile.

'Hey gorgeous' he rasped, his usually velvety voice raw with pain.

'Hey yourself' she smiled back. 'Hutch, we need to roll you onto your back for a while. The tube is still in your back and we need to keep it there, but you've got another infection and to save me having to keep pushing needles into you, I'm gonna set up a line in your chest. Is that ok?'

She saw the pain muddled eyes trying to assimilate the information.

'Central….?'

'That's it Doctor Hutchinson. Dave told me you were going to be a doctor. You know what I'm going to do?'

The flushed face on the pillow nodded. Hutch felt hot and shivery and he knew he had some sort of sepsis, but his head felt stuffed with cotton and he wanted nothing more than to drift away on a cushion of drugs. His joints ached, his head pounded and he felt as though someone had lodged sandpaper in his chest, making it rub at his insides each time he breathed.

'Do your worst' he mumbled looking around for his partner.

'Right here buddy' Starsky said, seeing the flash of fear in the red rimmed ice blue eyes. He took hold of Hutch's shoulders and carefully he and Judith rolled the blond onto his back. Hutch groaned and started to cough, the fit threatening to choke off his breath completely. Finally the coughing abated and he rested back against the pillow, his eyes closed and his face wet with sweat. Starsky took the cloth and dabbed the trickles away, muttering soothing words under his breath.

Judith snapped on gloves and picked up a small syringe with Lidocaine. Swiftly she swabbed an area just beneath Hutch's right collarbone and infiltrated it with the numbing drug, standing back to let it take effect.

Starsky felt the squeeze on his hand as the needle pushed into yet another portion of Hutch's anatomy and he briefly opened his eyes.

'Feel like….. pincushion' he gasped.

The brunette chuckled. 'Ya got so many holes in ya we could use you as a colander. You ok there Blondie?'

Weakly Hutch nodded, his eyes locked on his partner's as he waited for the procedure.

Judith continued her work. She took a small blade and made a small cut in the skin near Hutch's collarbone, wiping away the small ruby droplets of blood with a guaze pad. Next she waited as the nurse took the catheter and stripped it from it's packaging. Feeling for the correct angle, she took it and pushed the tip of the tube into the small wound and threaded it into the large vein. The end of the tube tunnelled it's way under the skin to reach the exit site about four inches further down the blonde's chest and once again, Judith wiped away the blood from the exit site.

Throughout the procedure, Hutch had held tightly on to his partner's hand, his eyes searchig the indigo pools above him. The local had numbed the entry site, but the presure of the catheter pushing down through his chest wall was odd and fairly painful and he was glad when it finally stopped and he could cease grinding his teeth together and relax. As she finished, the nurse put two more dressings over the wounds and taped them down.

Swiftly Judith drew off another phial of blood to send to the lab, then drew up and administered a large dose of antibiotic before easing her patient back onto his side.

Hutch wearly closed his eyes and within moments he'd drifted back into a dreamless sleep as Starsky went back to sit at his side, his legs shaky from witnessing yet another hle being made in his partner's tanned hide.

'Ya got chance for a rest Doc?' he asked, feeling shaken by the turn of events and having to watch yet another invasive process take place. His partner's body was a patchwork of tubes and dressings and he was unsure any more where he could touch and what would hurt.

Judith looked weary and she glanced at her watch. 'I should have been off duty an hour ago, so yes, I guess I can spare an hour for some down time. You look all in, though. Why don't you get some rest?'

Starsky shook his head. 'When he stops giving us the run around and starts getting well, I'll rest then'. He rested back on the chair. 'So, where did we get to huh? With the history of Hutch'.

She chuckled. 'History of Hutch part two, I think'.

'Yeah, part two. Ok' Starsky settled his head on the back of his chair, his eyes still on his partner.

'He went missing ya know. I had no idea where he was. Turned out that one of our fan club had ordered him to be killed. Some flake in a motor truck ran him off the road, up on the canyon road behind the city. He'd been gone almost a day when we realised he was missing. Dobey had an APB out on him an' I was goin' crazy with worry'.

'Anyway. A nice old guy from the local Vets. home found him, trapped by his leg underneath his car. He'd been trying to call in his position but the radio was fried. Sonny – that's the name of the guy who found him; Colonel Sonny McPherson. Well, Sonny came into the metro to try an' tell us, but we just took him for another crazy old guy who needed attention. It finally took a little boy with his radio and another call back to Sonny to pinpoint where Hutch was'.

The brunette paused at the sickening memory of finding his partner, bleeding, dehydrated and semi conscious beneath his battered car and his voice broke.

'He was in a bad way when I got to him. I thought I'd loose him then. It took a week in Memorial and then 7 weeks of intensive physio to get him fit again'.

'Was his leg broken?' Judith asked, amazed at what these two men had coped with in their work.

'Yeah. They'd done a real number on him, but he was lucky to be alive. He still feels it when its cold or raining, but he doesn't complain and he can still outrun me in a distance chase. He'd never tell me he was hurtin' He just goes kinda quiet and pale. Like he did just now'.

'He's a fighter alright' the doctor said softly. 'He's going to need to be to pull through this'.

Starsky put his head in his hands. 'He has to pull through Doc. He knows he has to. We've been partners so long he knows I couldn't do this without him'.

'He's gonna be sick for a while. What will you do?' she asked, trying to get the brunette to understand that maybe this time, Hutch back on the streets wasn't an option.

'Stay here. Be with him. Yell at him if he doesn't start getting well. Dunno……..just can't think about that right now' the voice broke and Starsky turned his face away so that she couldn't see the fear in his eyes.