For Eli - my other "Mistress"

Chapter 2

It was another five days before the doctors decided that Starsky's lungs had recovered well enough to take away the dreaded respirator. During that time, they'd kept him unconscious in the hope that his body and his mind would have some time to start to heal. Traff had been able to tell the doctors of the treatment the brunette had received at the hands of Quinn and Ryan and they were frankly amazed that he'd been able to withstand so much, but they were also pessimistic as to the outcome of the curly haired cop's treatment. While the burns and surgical interventions were healing well, they had yet to find out what his mental state would be.

Hutch had amazed everyone by his recovery. Since his initial talk with Mark, the men's doctor, where he could hardly string two words together without slurring his speech as though he'd had a skin full, he'd come on in leaps and bounds, to the extent where he had been formally discharged from the hospital. That didn't stop the flaxen haired cop from being back at this partner's bedside each day though, and the nurses had wryly observed that he was getting more attention since his discharge than he'd had when he was their patient. He'd refused on a couple of occasions to go home at night and so he'd been given his bed back and Mark had told him he could stay as long as he wanted just so long as he managed to get some rest.

He was there as the nurse held the curly head gently so that Mark could remove the respirator hose from Starsky's throat. It represented the last of the tubes and drains to be removed, only the drips remaining to give some nourishment. He'd seen the nurse take hold of either side of the head on the pillow. Although Starsky's eyes hadn't opened, he'd seen the fingers twitch as though they wanted to ball his hands into fists, and Hutch remembered how Ryan had held the brunette's head in a vice like grip, making him stare up at the lights above him. On some core level, his partner was reliving those moments and the blonde's heart bled for his friend.

The nurse was talking softly to her patient, soothing the brow with her cool hands.

'S'ok Dave. We're just taking the tube away. You might feel as though you need to cough. That's ok. You can do that. Just try to keep as still as you can….. Good…. That's good Dave'.

The doctor pulled the tube carefully out and the body on the bed twitched, a reflexive cough being wrung from the healing man, but there was no other evidence that David Starsky was at home. The nurse let go of his head, and Starsky's fingers stopped their convulsive twitching on the bed. Gently Hutch took hold of the nearest hand, rubbing his thumb gently over the back of his partner's hand.

'S'ok partner. It's all done now. You're safe. Just relax and sleep huh? I'm here…not going anywhere' he whispered, feeling small tremors running through the otherwise limp form. The blips on the monitor by the bedside, which had started to race, quietened again and went back to their steady, hypnotic rhythm. He rested his chin on his hand, wishing he could see those indigo eyes again, if only for a moment, as much for his own comfort as for his partner's.

As the injured detective settled down again, Hutch left him and went back to talking to Traff. The soldier was making a good recovery although he was still confined to his bed. The doctor had explained to him about a syndrome called Refeeding. As Traff had been starved for 12 days, he wasn't able to start eating normally again all at once, otherwise his body would react to the amounts of carbohydrates and glucose in his blood and shut down. At the moment, he was still on a drip feed and special drinks and until he could tolerate solid food without problems, he had to stay put. Although the usually active soldier didn't like the idea, he was still doing as he was told. His CO had been to see him to say that once out of hospital he could have two weeks compassionate leave and he looked forward to his freedom, but needed to know that his long term friend would be ok first.

The green eyes had been watching the respirator procedure from a distance and he'd noticed how the brunette had twitched as the nurse had held Starsky's head.

'He's not gonna have an easy time, is he?' he asked Hutch as the blond eased his weary body into the padded chair.

'No, he isn't. I just hope he'll be strong enough to fight it' Hutch said softly. He was so worried for his partner that he hadn't been sleeping, even with the aid of the pills the hospital had given him and the weariness was beginning to take its toll. Traff saw the dark circles beneath the ice blue eyes and the extra hole the blond had had to put in his belt to accommodate his weight loss.

'You need to look after yourself. We've been through a lot, but you haven't exactly had it easy yourself' he said, concern shining from his eyes. 'You'll need to be fit for when he goes home'.

Hutch sighed. 'I know, and I will be. And I know he's tough enough to heal his wounds. But its what's on the inside that concerns me. They fucked with his head so badly with all the lights crap'. He put his head in his hands.

'That's twice now' Traff said slowly.

'Huh?'

'Twice you've talked as though you know what went on in there'.

Ok, Hutch thought. Do I tell him? This is it, now or never. He knew he couldn't fool the perceptive man forever and truth to tell, he needed to tell someone, just to get it out of his head. He gazed levelly at the soldier in the bed.

'Ya wanna go with me on a leap of faith?' he asked, seeing the slight nod of the head.

The blond took a deep breath wondering exactly how to start. How did you tell someone that you had an out of body experience and managed to save your two best friends from certain death?

He ran his tongue over his bottom lip. 'OK. It's a long story and please…..its difficult enough for me to take in, so I don't expect you to believe a word. Just keep your questions to the end huh?'

'Whatever you say pal' Traff said gently. He'd seen the big blond struggling with his partner's condition and had known there was something Hutch was hiding from him. He settled back against the pillow and waited expectantly.

Hutch sat back in his chair and closed his eyes taking a deep breath. For the next hour he explained exactly where he'd been while his body was in that hospital bed, what he'd done, the arguments he'd had with the council and the antics of the bumbling but loveable Amaram, and Traff listened. At the end of the tale, Hutch was exhausted and Traff's eyes had widened to the size of soup plates.

'Jeez buddy! All that and we thought you were at deaths door?'

Hutch smiled a wry smile. 'I guess I was at death's door. Leilani told me that if I couldn't save the two of you my life would be forfeit. Apparently once they have you up there, they don't usually let go'.

'And what about Huggy?' Traff asked. The black barman had been Hutch's chosen contact when he'd had the opportunity to speak to someone to get the flakes who'd taken his two friends.

'Dunno. I haven't seen hide or hair of him since. He's probably in an alcoholic stupour somewhere thinking he dreamed it all!'

'And all that time you couldn't talk to any of us?' Traff sounded horrified as he thought about how he would feel having to witness Starsky being tortured without being able to do anything about it.

'Towards the end, I could talk to Starsk, when he was so sick' Hutch explained. 'But by then he was pretty far gone. He was just lost in a nightmare world and all I could do was try to reason with him and let him know to hang in there'. He paused. 'You aren't questioning any of this. I thought you'd have had a hard job believing me' he said truthfully. He'd worried himself sick thinking that most of his friends would think he'd lost it completely, and yet here was Traff, talking as though it was the most normal thing in the world to have a friend who'd visited the "other side".

'Hey, normally I'd have carted you off to the funny farm in a straight jacket. But the things your described……that's how it was. How could you have known that any other way? And…. there was something else too'.

Traff smiled sadly at the memory. 'When Curly was so sick, towards the end, I didn't think he'd m…..didn't think he'd survive. But he seemed happier somehow. He'd been in so much pain and there was sweet F.A. I could do about it, 'cept give him some water, and then he smiled. He wasn't really awake, but he smiled and mumbled your name. I thought he was just delirious, but maybe not'.

Hutch winced at the memory. At the end of the ordeal he'd entered a rainy, stormy dreamscape to find his partner sitting atop a cliff looking out to sea. Starsky had said he was waiting for Hutch to take him home and Hutch had tried desperately to convince his buddy that he was real, and that there was a way out of the whole sorry mess. But through it all, Starsky kept repeating over and again that he'd seen three lights. Just the three lights, not four, and no matter what Hutch said or did, he couldn't penetrate that part of the tortured mind.

'Oh he was delirious alright. They'd screwed with his head so badly that even in is dreams he was counting the damned lights' Hutch spat out, angry all over again at the assailants. He looked over at his sleeping friend. 'I just hope he can find his own way home' he said quietly.