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Chapter 6

For the first time in a long time both men had a mostly quiet night. When the nurse came into the room at midnight to check on her blond patient, she found the Starsky too was still fast asleep, his curly head pillowed on his arm and his face relaxed into a smile. Hutch was sleeping peacefully too although he still had a slight temperature and the catheter bag showed that his kidneys still weren't functioning as well as they should. But there seemed to be a slight improvement and the nurse duly noted it down on her patient's chart before tip toeing out of the room.

Hutch had vivid dreams that night. He dreamed of himself and his partner driving through Bay City looking for Calendar, of a beautiful young doctor with auburn hair and a scrawling red name plastered across the window of his room. He watched the procession of his dreams as if from a great distance, but towards morning they changed from their happy relaxed flow and he felt hot and uncomfortable again.

He tossed his head on the pillow as he watched the dreams change from happy recollections to painful visions. He was battling through traffic on the main highway. But instead of cars, vans and buses on their way to work, the traffic consisted of the bacteria he'd been shown pictures of by Doctor Meredith They cut him up, slowed him down and boxed him in at lights. As his battered brown car stood in the line of traffic, they attached themselves to the side of the car and blocked his view of the outside world. He desperately tried to block off the air intake, but the bacteria were everywhere, pushing tendrils through the small openings in the dash until they were surrounding him, smothering him with their slimy bodies and threatening to choke him, battering again and again at his back, sides and stomach.

Starsky woke from his own dreams to hear the moans from the other bed. In a flash he was off the bed and at his partner's side trying to soothe the blond. Hutch's hair was once again darkened by sweat and the flaxen eyelashes were dark and spiked. Starsky was unable to rouse him from his nightmare and in desperation, he reached for the nurse call button.

Moments later, the nurse and Judith Kaufman came through the door.

'He's burning up again' Starsky said, his hand still on Hutch's brow. Judith examined the sick man, checking his central line, the wound on his back and the catheter. The bag's contents were dark with traces of blood.

'He's got a kidney infection' she said, asking the nurse to go and draw up a dose of Amoxycilin. She looked at the worried look on the brunette's face. 'It's OK Dave. It's to be expected. His body was so damaged by the initial infection that this sort of thing was bound to happen. He'll be in pain for a while but we can up the dose of antibiotics'. She took the hypo from the nurse and injected the contents into the central line.

Hutch's eyes opened and he looked at the three people gathered around his bed

'Oh boy' he mumbled as a lancing pain through the small of his back arched his body off the bed. It passed and he lay panting. 'Not a good day' he gasped as he held on to the brunette's hand. His head was pounding and he felt nauseous and hot.

'You've got another infection' Judith said gently. 'We can fix it, but it'll just set you back a while'.

'Y ya th think' he grunted closing his eyes as another pain threatened to take his breath away. 'Ungh……thirsty'.

'I'm sorry, I can't let you drink anything at the moment. We need to measure your fluid intake and I'm going to set up another drip into your central line to help. And now that your chest infection is clearing nicely, I should be able to write up some pain meds for you. Can you hang on for a while?'

She smiled as the blond nodded tightly

Judith looked apologetic. 'I have to go now, but I'll be back after to see how you're doing'. She patted his shoulder gently and he tried to smile at her, but his face creased once again in pain.

As Judith and the nurse departed, Starsky sat on the side of the bed. He felt as though this saga would never end. First the diagnosis of the plague, then the pleural infection and now this. He watched his partner arch back against the bed again and reached out to take his hands, locking eyes with the pain filled ice blue ones.

'Easy buddy. Just try 'n' take it easy huh?'

Hutch tried to smile. 'F feels like I'm pissing razor b blades' he said through clenched teeth as his blond body shivered uncontrollably. 'Ach…..s sucks'

'I know it does Blondie, but Judith will get ya the pain meds soon an' then it'll get easier. What can I do?'

'B back……hurts' Hutch let out an involuntary cry and then clamped his mouth closed. 'S sorry Gordo….hurts a lot'.

Starsky moved around to the opposite side of the bed and put his hands under the blonde's body, rolling him onto his side. Sitting at the side of the bed he rubbed small circular motions across the middle of the tanned back, digging his thumbs in when the body arched back in pain. Between the blonde's pain and the brunette's effort, before too long they were both soaked in sweat. Starsky stopped a moment, wiggling his hands in the air to get the circulation back into his wrists.

'How's that?' he asked softly as Hutch rolled back onto his back with a groan.

'Felt good' he mumbled. 'Just wish the suckers k kicking my guts around would l leave 'em alone. Just need something to t take my mind off the p pain'.

'Yeah, I know. Ya know I was thinking. It always makes me feel better when you read to me if I'm sick. You want for me to read to ya?'

Hutch fixed his eyes on his partner. 'I don't think they got c copies of the Dandy here'.

'Ya know even when you're sick you have to mock me!'

'F force of habit' the blond replied, biting his lip as another pain assailed him

Starsky wasn't to be defeated. He got up and went to the door. 'Just hold on there partner. Be right back'. He left the room and padded down the corridor to the nurses' station. Most of the staff were used to the two men now and most also had a secret soft spot for the cops. Having young virile men to nurse made a curious diversion from their usual middle aged and older patients. As Starsky appeared at their desk, a young red head looked up.

'Dave? Is everything OK?'

He gave her his best lop sided smile. 'Yeah. I just erm….What have you got to read around here?'

She looked at him quizzically. 'Read? Well we have the magazines in the day room'.

'No, not women's magazines and Golfers Weekly. I mean books. What books do you have to read?

'Well none. We don't have a library. Just medical books'.

'Can I see?' he asked, bending down behind the counter with her.

She rifled through the shelf and brought out three books. 'We've got Blacks Medical Encyclopaedia, Surgery for Nurses and Epidemiology – a brief insight'.

Starsky looked at the three heavy tomes. 'Not what you'd call riveting reading. It might put me to sleep but it ain't gonna help Hutch none' he muttered. He stood slowly and was about to head to the day room for the newest copy of Golfers Weekly when the nurse stopped him.

'Erm, Dave? There's this. One of the girls left it behind. Is this any good?' she waved a leather bound book at him and he took it reading the title and thumbing through the fine pages. The words were stilted but had a certain rhythm to them and he liked what he saw.

Slowly he smiled. 'Thanks honey this should be fine' and he trotted off back to Hutch's room. When he got back there he found the blond curled up on his side, panting and gasping in pain as he balled his fists up in the sheets on the bed. Starsky rushed to the bedside, easing his partner back onto his back and rubbing along the line of his chest.

'Hey Blondie, just relax huh? That's it…..easy buddy, easy….right here now. I won't leave again'.

Slowly Hutch's body relaxed back onto the bed and he lay panting. Urts….' he managed to gasp.

'I know, I know. I've got something to take your mind off of it. Ok. Gonna read you a story'.

Hutch saw the determination in the indigo eyes. 'What s story?'

'Jane Eyre'.

'S a girls s story' Hutch gasped.

But Starsky was sitting himself comfortably on the chair by the bed. He opened the book at the first page. 'Don't knock it till you've tried it. You're a captive audience, so ya gotta listen' he smiled and started to read.

'There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question………..'

Hutch smiled despite the pain. It seemed so strange to hear a quintessentially English novel read in Starsky's inimitable New York drawl, but he found he was listening to the voice and not really to the words. He closed his eyes and listened as his partner read on, stumbling sometimes over the old fashioned words and trying his damndest to put in the voices of the characters .

An hour later, Starsky's throat was dry as a bone and Hutch's eyes had been closed for at least half the time he'd been reading. The blonde's body seemed a little more relaxed and although his face still grimaced in pain occasionally, Hutch hadn't groaned or clutched convulsively at the bedclothes for a while now. He paused and looked at his partner before slowly closing the book. He shifted in his chair and was about to stand when he heard a soft voice from the bed.

'Don't stop'.

'I thought you were asleep' Starsky replied gently.

'No…..just resting. Feels good'.

'Has the pain gone?'

Hutch snuggled down a little in the bed. 'Not really gone. Just feels better. I like you reading'.

The brunette snorted. 'Thought I was only fit to read the Dandy'.

'Nah…..got a good voice. It's kinda mellow'.

'Yeah an' it's kinda dry. I was gonna take a rest'.

'Wanna find out what happened to Jane in the red room' Hutch mumbled sleepily.

'But this is a girlie book'.

'Yeah, I know. It's just …….feels good'.

The curly haired man sat back down on the chair again, his legs crossed in front of him. He squeezed the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb, then took up the book and opened it.

'OK. Where were we?' He cleared his throat.

"The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties".

The brunette's voice read on, and Hutch listened, cushioned on his friend's mellow tones as his mind drifted. Although the pain in his back was still there, it had altered in some way, becoming duller and less insistent and he felt warm and contented as though he'd gotten over the final hurdle and was finally on the road to recovery.

As Starsky started the fourth chapter of the book he looked up and realised Hutch had finally fallen asleep, his hands still clutching the sheets, but the pain lines on his handsome face had relaxed and there was no longer a flush on the skin. Very gently he got up, putting the book down on the table by the bed. He pulled the sheets up closer around the blonde's chin and padded back to the other bed. He lay down and closed his eyes, listening to the clear and unhurried breathing from the other side of the room and relaxed.