First posted March 1, 2003 at Love of Me and Thee and The Pits

Important Author Note: This is a sequel to "Affirmation." Please read that story first.

Also, "Affirmation II: Life and Death" was conceived and written before the tragic fires in Rhode Island, New York, and Connecticut, and the Alabama shooting took place. Since the events in my story differ significantly from those tragedies, I decided it was safe to post my story unaltered. My heartfelt sympathy and prayers go out to those affected by the recent disasters, and any similarities in "Affirmation II" to current events are wholly unintentional, so please excuse them. Thank you.

By Kaye Austen Michaels

Contact for feedback/critique: kam2003sh@excite.com

A second round of special thanks go to Karen-Leigh for beta-edit and to Ellis Murdock for encouragement, medical edit, and tech support in uploading the files. You ladies rock! A special thanks to VenicePlaceList, as well, for a discussion thread that inspired me to give Sally Hagen the position and respect she never received in Canon.

Affirmation II: Life and Death

 

The unbroken string of lights in the night-blackened city rained down on the speeding car in appropriate colors for the Season: green, gold, and red in rapid succession. Starsky barely noticed. As long as the other cars allotted the Torino a few feet of space, red and green lights at the intersections meant the same thing to her driver. They meant even less to her passenger. 

Hutch practically huddled in his seat, a disturbing reversal of his usual lanky sprawl. Starsky spared him glances in the split second intervals between dodging traffic obstacles and frowned at the ghostly clamminess of high fever. The glossy whiteness was most pronounced around Hutch's lips, now gray instead of healthy rose, but Starsky knew that fever had help in producing the effect. The distracted blond, staring blankly out the windshield, murmured sentences that held no meaning for Starsky, who only caught a few words out of the jumble. AV block…ST elevation…Lasix contraindicated in patients sensitive to sulfanomide… 

"Hutch?" 

"…Ventricular arrhythmia secondary to MI indicates--" Hutch jerked in the seat and half turned, licking his lips and smearing a droplet of blood on the chapped bottom one. "Hm? What?" 

Starsky forced a smile to battle his intense divided worry for the man at his side and the man who waited for them to bring rescue and medical salvation. "Love ya, know it?" 

Hutch's lips twitched, but his eyes did the smiling. "Drive faster." 

Starsky's foot slammed harder on the accelerator of its own accord and the Torino lunged crazily close to the Volvo station wagon ahead before careening around it with nothing but spit and a prayer to guide the car back into the safe line before the oncoming Ford F-150 flew by honking its horn and flashing lights in protest. 

"Jesus, Starsky!" 

"You said drive faster," Starsky said grimly, attention focused on the road. 

"That I did. Starsk?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Love you, too."

The wail of a competing siren impacted each man differently. Hutch flung a hunted look out the rear window; Starsky balled his fists and beat them against the steering wheel without a touch on the brakes. "Shit!" 

"Any hope he's been ordered to ride escort?" 

"Nah," Starsky said. "He's in pursuit mode." 

"You can outrun him." Though shaky from fever and tension, Hutch's voice held marked respect for his lover's driving skill. "Can't afford to pull over and explain the situation." 

"Outrunning him's not the problem." He didn't elaborate, for Hutch knew the danger as well as he did. "Helluva time for the Mars light to malfunction." 

"It's out of practice," Hutch remarked wryly. "You'd think the siren would give them a clue." 

"Not with this car. Not anymore." Starsky gripped the wheel tighter, muscles tensing along his arms, and hoped Hutch couldn't hear the regret. It was sobering to have proof that the Torino no longer commanded the immediate respect of every law enforcement vehicle on the streets. "Only got one chance." 

"Starsk?" Hutch's eyes widened as Starsky spared one hand to grope blindly for the radio mike. "Oh, hell, might as well put our necks into the nooses," he conceded and slipped the mike into the questing hand. Flipping the appropriate switch and adjusting the volume, muttering his certainty that the "antiquated" device wouldn't even work, Hutch gasped at the resulting squawk and growl of police radio traffic. 

Starsky cleared his throat. "Zebra-7. Come in, Zebra-7. This is Zebra-3 calling Zebra-7. Repeat. Zebra-3 calling--" 

The radio chirped and gurgled, and a disembodied voice crackled, "Zebra-what?" 

Another voice followed this with a raspy shout, "Christ's birthday, is that you, Starsky?" 

Hutch laughed. "That's Babcock, all right. No one else swears that creatively." 

The first voice came again through static but recognizable as Jeff Simmons, "You and Hutch taking a walk down memory lane this Christmas Eve?" 

"Not exactly. There's a medical emergency at the captain's that I'm trying to get Hutch to ASAP, but we've picked up a black-and-white tail heading west on Oak and wiseass won't take a siren for an answer. You think you could radio in to Control and get this guy off our backs before he has one of his buddies cut us off down the road? We're racing the clock as it is." 

"That bad?" Simmons sounded disturbed. "Sure thing, Starsky. We'll take care of it. You just get the doctor there in one piece so he can work his magic." 

"Magic has nothing to do with it," Hutch muttered when Starsky re-cradled the mike. He sneezed, sucked in a short breath and clutched at his forehead. "If I could just think without exploding my sinuses--!" 

"Ah, Hutch." Starsky couldn't risk eye contact, but he could manage the wheel one-handed and devote his spare to caressing Hutch's thigh, rubbing firmly through the thin green poplin and feeling as much heat as if he'd grasped naked flesh. He frowned again.  

"You're burning up." 

Hutch sniffled but made no comment until a black-and-white unit displaying full lights and sirens shot out of the upcoming cross-street and took the lead. With a backward glance at the patrol car that remained on their tail at a more judicious distance, he smiled. "We're in the cradle. Full escort. Simmons and Babcock came through." 

Starsky grunted. "Well, the guy up there better glue his foot to the pedal or I'm gonna leave him in the dust." 

Hutch lay back in the seat and covered his eyes. "More likely we'll be sitting in the dust when the Torino remembers she's too old for this rough treatment. I wish we hadn't left my car at Memorial tonight." 

"Your car might be younger, and far be it from me to knock the first decent car you ever owned in your life, but the Torino can still outrun her standing still." 

~~*~~

The Torino produced a screechy rumble on its whiplash stop at the base of the Dobeys' driveway. To Hutch it sounded eerily like a warning not to expect a repeat performance. Through the pulse of pressure above and behind his eyes, he forced himself to focus on the sedate, yellow and chocolate-trimmed Colonial, its casually neat lawn and shrubs, and the Christmas candles in the windows, reduced to specks of light by the newly arrived and flashing County fire squad. Hutch nodded approval. Firemen-paramedic first responders would be easy to work with; they were used to carrying tough calls. 

A heartbeat later Hutch was halfway up the walk beside the paramedics, having introduced himself as a licensed Memorial resident and a friend of the family. Starsky had acknowledged and dismissed their escorts before the added police presence could alarm Edith; now he hurried to catch up and brushed past Hutch and the firemen to greet her at the front door, wrapping an arm around her and pushing her gently back into the warmth of the house. 

Another figure replaced Edith as vigil-holder at the door. She allowed the firemen to pass through but blocked Hutch's path, looking in her worry years older than fifteen. Her enormous dark eyes pleading and her hands clasped at the velvet bodice of her Christmas pleat-skirt jumper, she said, "Oh, Hutch. Please do something for Dad." 

Hutch had to blink. Ten years slipped away and he was sitting in a stairwell holding a tiny soon-to-be five-year-old worried about the "bad man" wanting to hurt her daddy. He remembered so well, he could have sewn a replica of her little robe if handed the proper materials. From that moment, Rosie had been partly his little girl. She might pal around with Starsky and adore him, but Hutch was second only to the captain in paternal trust. 

He didn't have time to reassure her. He didn't have the words. Honesty made him want to explain, to soften the potential blow, but how could he tell her this was a different expectation she had of him? This wasn't police work shared with Starsky, who completed him and doubled their capabilities. This was a strange alchemy called Medicine with countless variables and a formula almost as shadowy as the recipe for turning plain rocks to gold. So many things out of his control…. 

Perhaps ten seconds had passed, but Hutch felt he'd been rooted to the spot minutes on end. He shook himself and, one-arm hugging Rosie to his side, left her standing in the small, dimly lit foyer. In the open living room entrance, Hutch paused and donned the sterile mask he'd brought with him; there was no sense in taking chances. A sneeze he couldn't control immediately proved his point. 

The living room never changed and its homey comfort hit him in the face like a blast of painful heat in the current circumstances. Edith's plush, walnut-appointed couch and chairs and matching foot stools would never go the way of the dinosaur like fad furniture. Hutch had played countless tunes on the piano in the corner, stretched out with Starsky on the floor in front of the TV as part of the family to watch Cal's first televised college basketball game. The star of that happy memory, appearing at the entrance while Hutch adjusted his mask, looked far too young for his Bruins team sweatshirt, but at twenty he had four-inches height advantage on his blond 'uncle'. 

Cal was a young man of few words, the result of years under the noisy umbrella of Dobey's bluster, but his expression said it all: fear, uncertainty, the awkwardness of a boy trying desperately to be a man and shield his mother and sister from something he understood no better than they did. Hutch clasped him by the scruff of his neck and offered a nod of solidarity. Cal joined Rosie in the foyer, and Hutch schooled his face.  

Stretched on the couch, Captain Dobey's appearance and struggle for pain-free breath nearly wrecked Hutch's mask of control, but he knelt at the older man's side and patted his arm. Dobey couldn't see a smile through the mask, so Hutch opted for humor to put the patient at ease. "Hi, Cap'n. You just wanted to put Starsky and me back to work on Christmas Eve for old times' sake, right?" 

The firemen looked astonished and slightly uncomfortable, and even Starsky's eyes were wide, but Edith's knowing smile was reflected on her husband's face.  

The younger paramedic, as blond and baby-faced as Hutch has been in uniform, recited the vitals he'd taken during Hutch's brief delay in the foyer, "BP 190/120, respirations 28, pulse 130. Marked diaphoresis with labored breathing and severe chest pain. Sublingual nitro administered per standard." 

"Any drug allergies?" Hutch asked Edith, who shook her head. "Let's get a saline IV with D5W and 5 mg morphine sulfate loaded and put him on 6 liters oxygen. EKG strip?" 

"Coming up, Doc," said the older paramedic, attaching the final lead on Dobey's bared chest. Hutch fixed the oxygen mask himself while the other fireman delved into his drug box for the appropriate meds and IV bags. Stethoscope in place, Hutch bent over and listened, hoping against hope not to find what he suspected, but the rales and wheezing he heard weren't encouraging. Clamping down on a frown before it could show in his eyes and be visible to Edith, he glanced up and caught Starsky's penetrating gaze. He had to shake it off--he could never hide anything of consequence from his lover--and focus on Edith. "When was his last physical?" 

"In October. He received a clean bill of health, didn't you, dear? The usual lecture about losing a few pounds and taking his fair share of time off work, but nothing alarming." Edith stared down at her husband in a desperate demand for agreement, but Dobey was beyond adding his two cents worth, caught in a semi-conscious world of his own pain. 

The fireman in charge of administering meds handed his partner the IV bags to hold aloft, and Hutch nodded at Starsky. He needed no words. Starsky offered him a brief look of unconcealed admiration and confidence, and took Edith gently by the arm. "Why don't we--?" 

"No!" she said, pulling at Starsky's hold. "No, let me stay--" 

"EKG strip, Doc," said the blond fireman, taking over for his partner. 

Hutch took the thin strip of paper and stretched it out for legibility. He called his cardiology rotation to mind in a continuous stream of charts, EKG interpretations, and patient files. Wide QRS complex, S-three abnormality, left ventricular gallop by palpation… "Seventy-five mg lidocaine IV bolus." 

Noise in the foyer announced the arrival of the ambulance attendants, who wheeled in a gurney. The fireman relegated to holding IVs turned the task over to one of the white-clad new arrivals and assisted his partner in getting the new IV med loaded in haste. The speed didn't matter. In the time it took Hutch to wipe his watering eyes with his arm, Dobey's head lolled to the side and the EKG recorder emitted a stentorian beep.  

"V-fib!" Hutch shouted, grabbing at the EKG strip to confirm. "Starsky!"

Starsky took the order at face value and tightened his hold on Edith's arm, propelling her with him out of the room while one of the attendants and the senior fireman quickly moved Dobey to the firmer surface of the floor for resuscitation procedures. Beginning chest compressions immediately after Dobey was situated on the CPR board, Hutch had to forget Edith's cold, terrified eyes. This was the woman who had saved her son and daughter from a would-be assassin and refused to be sent away from the danger that remained--no doubt she felt it betrayal to be shuffled aside while her husband fought for his life. Hutch couldn't explain that it was his feelings more than hers he needed to spare. No hardened doctor with years of experience in tragedy under his belt, he couldn't devote his entire attention to the patient under the scrutiny of a desperate wife. On Hutch's command, the paramedic took over the chest compressions, and Hutch grasped the prepared defibrillator paddles, willing himself to project calm and patience, and doing his best to disregard the voices rising at the edge of the foyer. 

"Get back in there, David!" 

"Edith--" 

"My Harold needs him, and Hutch needs you. You've always soaked strength off each other. I'll--I'll stay out here like he wants. I have my children--we'll be…fine." 

"One hundred…two hundred…" the fireman chanted, watching the defibrillator dial. 

"Oxygen off! Clear!" Hutch ordered, placing the paddles and preparing for the upcoming jolt of Dobey's body. Dobey's chest spasmed from the paddles' discharge, his upper body lifting off the floor in an arc from the electricity, and Hutch waited breathlessly, paddles aloft, for the conversion. None came, and the EKG machine's beep merely underscored the tension while the paramedic resumed compressions. "Three hundred," Hutch said after a minute, hating the sneeze that followed on the heels of the order. His head screamed under the steel band of sinus pressure. 

"One hundred…two hundred…three hundred…." 

"Clear!" In the ensuing silence, Hutch's fever turned to a layer of sweating ice. He had no time to consult Mannigan via the paramedic radio; his lifesaving decision had to come within seconds, no margin for error; and he couldn't let his panic show: the unconscious hesitation in the firemen's actions that might result could be fatal for the captain. 

"Asystole!" the blond paramedic announced.  

"Standard Sodium Bicarb IV; give me 0.5 Epi intracardiac." While the paramedics split the duty, Hutch noted via peripheral vision that Starsky lingered well out of the way by the piano.  

"Here, Doc." The senior paramedic handed Hutch the prepared syringe in exchange for the paddles. With barely a second for thought, Hutch pinpointed the precise location on the captain's chest and pushed the needle through the chest wall. He heard a soft gasp behind him, recognizable in the back of his mind as Starsky's voice, but he tuned it out, thrusting the emptied syringe to the side and initiating CPR for the third time.  

After the eternal, obligatory minute, the paramedic monitoring the EKG said, "No conversion." 

"Four hundred watts/second," Hutch ordered, shocked at how cold and flat his voice sounded. The whole room was chilled, he thought feverishly, as if Death were making its entrance by diffusion. He took the paddles and waited for the fireman to announce the proper charge. 

"Four hundred!" 

"Come on, give me a little help here, you're not a quitter!" Hutch begged his captain, careless of what the paramedics thought. He gave the all-clear command and held firm through the third jolt of Dobey's chest. 

"Rhythm captured!" the young fireman announced triumphantly. 

"BP is 80 palp, Doc," the other one said. "He's in sinus rhythm." 

Dobey's breathing sounded oddly like the repeated crushing of cellophane in someone's fist. Hutch clutched at his forehead, shaken, and rose slowly from his uncomfortable kneeling position.  

"Give me a new set of vitals and let's get a lidocaine drip on board, but we need to transport now. There's nothing else we can do for him here, and if he arrests again, I'm not--" Hutch bit off his uncertainty and took a deep breath.  

Joining his partner at the piano, he spared no time to remove his mask and wipe at his runny nose with the tissue his all-knowing Starsky handed him. Starsky's eyebrows lifted in a silent question Hutch couldn't answer out loud. He watched the paramedics and ambulance attendants rapidly prepare the patient for transport and suppressed the urge to cling to Starsky for even one second to absorb some of his partner's strength and tensed vitality. Never one to ignore Hutch's silent needs, Starsky took the tissue from Hutch's hand and dabbed his pouring eyes.  

"Don't want Edith to mistake sinus dripping for tears," Starsky whispered with an encouraging smile. "Amazing work, Doc." 

"It's not over," Hutch replied through a snuffle. "We're walking on the edge. Stick close to Edith and the kids, Starsk." The implication hung heavy in the air above them both. 

"I'll be right behind you," Starsky nodded at the recessional of the paramedics and gurney.  

"Drive safely," Hutch whispered, snatching one final moment of intense eye contact to hold him during the ride to Memorial when Starsky would be out of sight. Starsky squeezed his hand and winked. It was their special signal to take courage and brace up. At Starsky's angriest or most frustrated during their years of police work, one wink from Hutch had melted the iron into something that could flow freely from Starsky's system. The gesture in reverse worked wonders; Hutch walked out of the living room under a refreshingly cool second wind. 

He needed it. Once settled in the back of the ambulance with the captain and the senior paramedic, he knew he had to call in for help to keep Dobey alive long enough to reach the trauma center. The paramedic's handling of the onboard radio system gave Hutch a chance to gather his energy and assess the captain's condition.  

~~*~~

Thoroughly exhausted and wondering if her husband had settled Lena to sleep for the night--a four-year-old asleep at this time of night on Christmas Eve would be a miracle worthy of record! --Nurse Caroline Maxwell waited for the tall, slate-haired doctor to release his MVA victim into the care of the surgeon who would try to salvage the patient's liver and spleen. When Dr. Mannigan turned, removing his disposable trauma smock and tossing it into the nearby waste container, Maxwell wished she had a way to soften her words. Middle age meant nothing to Mannigan, who had a seemingly endless supply of energy that irritated his med students and peers alike, but the unusually busy night's strain showed in subtle ways. A fresh Mannigan wouldn't leave a patient's side until the gurney and surgeon were out of his sight. 

"You're needed at the radio base, Doctor. Hutch is en route with an MI patient, cardiac arrest, three charges prior to conversion, secondary pulmonary edema--" 

"Hutch! How-- not David!" Mannigan's face remained as controlled as ever, but his green eyes could always express a thousand emotions, and the mixture of worry and alarm in them now was striking. 

The nurse hadn't anticipated this assumption. She shook her head fervently. "No, not based on the patient's age given by the paramedic." 

Mannigan's eyes showed his relief. "There's no telling, then. Hutch's Good Samaritan impulse is probably registered with Guinness, and his inability to recognize when he's ill is equally phenomenal." He pushed past her on a straight line for the radio base. 

"The hallmarks of cops and trauma specialists," Caroline called after him, laughing. 

Mannigan threw a hand in the air without looking back. "The hallmarks of burned-out cops and trauma specialists. Have Bambi set up Trauma Three. Dammit; thought I got rid of Galahad for the night." 

Caroline smiled and went in search of Bambi. She found her consoling a pre-teen whose Christmas Eve had been irrevocably ruined by an allergic reaction to his grandmother's fruit cake. Caroline winced and decided the boy could realistically portray The Hive in a documentary on skin conditions. She tugged on Bambi's white tunic sleeve.  

The strawberry curls were wilting, a true sign of Bambi's fatigue, but they bounced when she tossed a glance over her shoulder. "What you need, Caro?" 

"Mannigan wants you to prep Trauma Three. Hutch has an MI patient--" 

"Hutch is back!" Bambi said loudly. "For heaven's sake, couldn't Starsky convince him to stay in bed--" she broke off, eyeing the youngster, and flushed from curls to chin. 

Caroline smirked, but Bambi's austere, minimal headshake silenced her planned innuendo. She turned serious. "He's not back on shift. He's en route in an ambulance with--" Bambi paled and brought both hands to her mouth. Caroline sighed at allowing The Assumption to happen twice. "It's not Starsky unless he aged fifteen years since he left with Hutch tonight." 

"God," Bambi breathed through spread fingers. "You just about gave me a heart attack."

With one more tousle of the young patient's sandy mop, she headed in the direction of the trauma rooms. Pediatrics not her forte, and feeling the annoying urge to sympathy itch just from looking at the boy, Caroline returned to the main nurse's station. 

She was there, sharing a ten-minute coffee break with Maureen, the receptionist still rigged out in full elf's costume, when commotion around the corner at the Receiving Entrance interrupted their conversation about the changing trend in nursing apparel. 

Maureen cocked her head to the side, listening. "Sounds like we've got a new arrival. Anyway, my cousin is an ICU nurse in Madison, and she wears these chartreuse pants and neon pink lab coat ensembles. They can even wear sneakers instead of nursing shoes, provided the sneaks don't have any colored trimming." 

"You're kidding!" Caroline was shocked. "God, when I came out of nursing school, my first nursing manager wrote us up if our caps were pinned an inch to the wrong side. I think she thought it was evidence we'd been tumbling with a doctor in a broom closet somewhere. That was her mentality--" 

"Holy Mother preserve us!" Maureen burst out, and Caroline knew the sentiment wasn't directed at her first nurse manager. She followed Maureen's gaze as an attendant-pushed gurney finished rounding the corner on breakneck pace for the trauma rooms. "Is that--?"  

"Yes, he came back on an ambulance."  

Hutch stood on the bottom rail of the rapidly moving gurney and leaned over the heavyset black man, his hands flashing from the man's arms to his legs while Mannigan, standing on the opposite rail, performed chest compressions in counterpoint to the paramedic operating the bag attached to the patient's artificial airway. 

"What's Hutch doing?" 

"Alternating tourniquets," Caroline answered, scrunching her brow. "This is a bad one. I'd better go lend a hand. Bambi's good, but she's not two people." 

Maureen put down her Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer antlered mug. Her face was troubled and didn't match her weak smile. "I'm headed back to Reception to do some Starsky-watching." 

Caroline didn't scold her for frivolity in the face of human trauma. It was simply Maureen's way of coping with an atmosphere of pain and suffering she hadn't been trained to view clinically. "How do you know he's here?" 

"If Hutch is back in his condition, you can bet Starsky isn't far behind, and he'll have to cool his heels in the waiting area while Hutch is in Trauma." 

"Maureen." 

"Hey, it's a harmless hobby." 

"And a hopeless one," Caroline said, squeezing the tall elf's arm in passing.  

~~*~~

"I just don't understand how this could happen," Edith said for the third time since they arrived at Memorial. "He's been fine. Just a couple hours before--before…he was singing carols while Rosie played the piano." 

Starsky tightened his arm around her shoulders, covered the fists she clenched on her knees with his own unsteady hand. He was at a loss for words he hadn't already said three times during the lengthy wait. Rosie curled in her chair, not caring about the ladylike way of sitting in a pleated skirt, and rested her head and shoulders against Cal's chest in the circle of his embrace. Cal hadn't budged an inch except to massage his sister's back and wipe her eyes. Starsky had never been more proud of the young man.

He felt numb. He and Hutch had teased Dobey through the years about his various diet attempts, the long hours he kept, the weight of the department he carried on his shoulders. Wisdom that came of reaching forty years and facing his own potential for frailty in his mid-thirties told him those taunts had often bordered on cruel and diminished his humanity. But Dobey's very invincibility, rather than a perceived weakness, had made him a perfect target. The captain was a permanent fixture, a monolith of strength and character that couldn't be moved any easier than someone could pick up Metropolitan Division and deposit it in the suburbs. Seeing Dobey in full arrest was like watching a god proven mortal.  

And Hutch. Starsky shivered, but Edith was too absorbed in her fear and anxiety to notice. He'd never seen Hutch so on fire. Even in Hutch's detective heyday, that aura of a divine calling hadn't spilled off him in waves like tonight. It was beautiful, breathtaking…terrifying to watch. It was the first thing that had ever made him regret keeping Hutch close to him on the streets for a decade. Was it a mortal sin in some cosmic religion's book to keep a butterfly in a cocoon? 

A glimpse of green tights forced Starsky to look up into Maureen's concerned eyes. She held out two Styrofoam cups of coffee and whispered, "You think the young ones might like a soda? I didn't--uh--wanna--" 

Starsky glanced to the side and understood Maureen's aborted comment. She hadn't wanted to disturb their rigid, silent vigil with mundane questions about soda pop. He started to reach for the cups when Edith twitched beneath his arm and Maureen stepped back.  

Holding his mask limply at his side, his scrub top liberally sweat-stained, Hutch walked with the precision of having to think which foot to put in front of the other. He stopped a foot from their chairs and moved a lead-heavy arm to brush through his hair and wipe his brow. 

He smiled. 

Edith started crying, trembling with silent sobs and a lone trail of tears down her right cheek. Cal jumped off his seat, hauling Rosie with him. Maureen showed both her dimples. Starsky heaved a sigh of relief that had to be heard a mile away. 

"He's stable," Hutch said slowly. "The consulting cardiologist is about to come down, Edith, and you can be with him for that. Katrin Huber is on call tonight. She co-founded the Neue Kardiologie Institut in Geneva and did research at Beth-Israel in New York and the Cleveland Clinic before she came here. Dr. Mannigan, the captain's primary ER physician, thinks she walks on water--" Hutch swayed in place and gripped his forehead. 

"Hutch?" In his alarm, Starsky released Edith less gently than intended and hurried to his feet, arms thrust forward to steady the exhausted man. Before his hands made contact, their target buckled at the knees and crumpled to the floor. 

Stunned into forgetting his whereabouts, Starsky screamed, "Medic!" 

~~*~~

Hutch wasn't sure he was awake. Pitch black gave way to darkness then turned to shadowy dimness but grew no brighter. His ears picked up a vague hum of noise that sounded miles distant. He held his breath… and heard the one thing that could reassure him: the sound of breathing he would recognize anywhere under any circumstances. 

"Hey gorgeous man, welcome back," said a soft, loving voice. 

Hutch turned his face to the indeed welcoming sound and even more comforting sight of Starsky's eyes sparkling their own light, his handsome face a bit drawn and wooden with fatigue but no less pulse-quickening. "Starsk--" 

"Well, it's nice there's no fever-induced amnesia," Starsky teased, stroking through Hutch's hair. Hutch thought of a snappy retort but promptly and purposefully forgot it. Starsky's humor rang more like shaken relief than an invitation for joking one-upmanship. 

Blinking rapidly, Hutch tried to make sense of his surroundings. Still in his scrubs, he shared a bed with Starsky, who wore the same green denim and red sweater that--Hutch tried to sit up at the moment of realization. Hospital bed. What the--? Dobey! 

"Dobey!" 

"Easy, Hutch. He's in good hands. That cardiologist lady came; Mannigan's in and out; and I've been back and forth between here and checking on Edith and the kids until her sister arrived. They're moving him shortly--" 

"To Telemetry. Right. And what--?" Hutch swallowed hard and strained his throbbing eyes to see beyond the bed in the dim lighting. They were obviously in an observation room, the panel blinds closed for privacy. Starsky lay on his side to give Hutch the lion's share of the bed. "What happened?" 

"You fainted, superman. Mannigan said it's no wonder. Runnin' on fumes, high fever, chock full of meds, and single-handedly beating death--" 

"Single-handedly, nothing! I'll bet those are your words not Mannigan's. When I can stand on my own two feet again, he'll cut them right out from under me, and rightly so, because--" A hand over his lips stopped the tirade. Starsky chuckled. 

"Nope. Won't wash. The great man himself said you gave Dobey the chance he needed to survive. Edith swears their first male grandchild will be named Kenneth." 

Hutch couldn't conceal his horror at the fate awaiting some future child. "God, no!" he mouthed against Starsky's hand. 

"Ken, maybe?" Starsky suggested, grinning a return of the fiery spirit within. 

"Blecch." 

Starsky laughed and pretended to shake his hand dry. "Watch the spit. I'd rather us swap it than get decorated with it. All right, I'll let you argue the point with her." 

"How long was I out?" 

"After you fainted? Just a few minutes. You came around when they got you to an exam room, but you didn't seem to notice anything, and you conked back out. Asleep. So you were hauled in here to get some rest. Bambi's been by a couple times to check your vitals." 

"Starsky, how long have I been out?" 

"Oh, a few hours. It's almost three a.m." 

Hutch frowned at the narrow bed space and the wall-length observation window covered only by thin flaps of glorified paper. "I'm awake now, so we need to--" 

"Uh-uh," Starsky pushed him by the shoulder back down on the bed. "Bambi said she'd slap you with a sedative if you tried to vacate the premises before daybreak, and she promised something too horrible to repeat if you worried about us being in here. She said, and I quote, that Mannigan doesn't care if you have the Rams' entire defensive line in bed with you as long as you get well enough to help with the patient-load in a few days." 

Hutch lay back on the slab of boulder masquerading as a pillow and stared at the ceiling. Fingertips caressed his brow, traced over and beneath his lashes, rubbed at his temples. "Say, where's the guy who crawled in my hospital bed once upon a time? We weren't even--" 

"That's right," Hutch interrupted in a strange voice. "We weren't even. Now, we are." 

"And Bambi knows it. So does Mannigan, apparently. You heard her tod--yesterday." 

"I'm thinking about the people I work with who don't know or haven't figured it out. Starsky, it was bad enough what we would've had to deal with on the force. Yeah, it might've been dangerous for us, but not for anyone else. Not really. Here, I'm afraid it could impact patient care. If I'm treating a patient and assisted by someone who doesn't take kindly to following orders from a queer--" 

"Jesus, Hutch! You think you're working with people--even one person!--who'd let a patient suffer 'cause of something petty like that? That's a heavy accusation, buddy." 

"I'm not accusing anyone. I don't want to take chances." 

"So, what're you gonna do? Start dating nurses as cover?" Starsky gripped both his shoulders this time and pushed him down onto the mattress with insistence born of hurt Hutch could see etching lines beneath Starsky's eyes. He saw the kiss zeroing in, and expected harshness he deserved, but Starsky's mouth was soft, pliant, and affectionate. A lit match to long dry brush. He had no choice but to cross his arms over Starsky's back and let the man ravage his mouth as only Starsky could. No fever in the world could compete with the heat of this intimacy, the unmistakable mutual hardening trying to touch through scrubs and denim, the masculine pressure of desire-roughened hands holding his shoulders like a ladder out of flame. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Starsky murmured into the corner of Hutch's mouth. "It's just… It's Christmas, darling, you're here with me, and Dobey's alive largely 'cause of you, and--" 

"And I'm an asshole to let homophobia intrude at a time like this," Hutch finished, smiling and loving that Starsky would feel the smile with his own lips. He moved his mouth to feel the laughter bubbling in Starsky's throat. Starsky arched his neck in sheer instinct, and Hutch's breath came in a sharp gasp of appreciation and desire. "Starsky, you know I don't want cover, or need it--" 

"I know." 

"All the same--" 

"All the same," Starsky agreed, glancing over his shoulder at the door. "The present accommodations inhibit me too." 

Hutch snorted. "I didn't think God or man had invented anything that could inhibit you, lover." 

"Well, the thought of Bambi trying to knock discreetly on the door--or someone not knowing to knock discreetly--" 

"Or Mannigan," Hutch laughed. 

Starsky looked adorably embarrassed. "Oh, jeez. I can just see it. He'd stand there in the doorway with that left eyebrow of his shooting up into the perfect triangle. That damn eyebrow can say more'n Dobey's yelling ever could." 

"No kidding." Still, Hutch regretted Starsky resuming his safe position at the far side of the bed. He wished he'd initiated a second kiss during that brief moment of abandonment. 

The wish vanished at the door's opening. Mannigan peeked his head in with an air of considering it beneath him to knock on this particular door. Finding the proprieties observed, he entered the room and closed the door behind him as an unmistakable afterthought, not desire to conceal the room's occupants. He didn't smile, but his left eyebrow remained level with its mate. "Feel better?" 

Hutch knew his fair skin was giving away his discomfort. "Yes, I can't believe I--" 

"Believe it," Mannigan cut in firmly. "I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. It's not, as you should know, an uncommon side effect of severe sinus infection. I thought you might appreciate an update on Captain Dobey's condition, and Mrs. Dobey agreed." He waved Hutch back to his resting pose when the "patient" tried for the third time since waking to rise. 

"How's he doing, Doc?" Starsky asked clearly to deflect Mannigan's attention from his embarrassed subordinate. Hutch shot him a quick, barely visible but grateful smile. 

"He's resting peacefully. Unfortunately, his tests have revealed worrisome damage to his heart. He'll undergo catheterization, but I strongly suspect he'll need bypass surgery and a fairly stiff regimen of drugs along with a drastically altered lifestyle. I'm afraid his days as a police captain are over. An easygoing, low stress retirement is his best chance of a normal lifespan." 

Hutch cleared his throat to relieve the tight sinking in his chest. Why did people who beat the odds and survive always have the farthest to go? "I know I won't be well enough to scrub in and assist if he does need bypass, and I wouldn't dare intrude on Dr. Huber's team, but could it be arranged for me to be in the observation room during the captain's surgery? I'd like to be there, and perhaps it might put him at ease, on some level, if I'm in close proximity." 

Mannigan nodded. "I'm sure Katrin would approve. She believes in giving a patient every chance for a flawless operation. Your presence in Observation certainly wouldn't threaten the OR environment or her team rhythm." 

"The captain doesn't know that about retirement yet," Starsky guessed, his face darker than the room's ambience. "You need to be careful how you spring that on him. He'll have a tough time with that one." 

"Discussions about long-range recovery won't take place until he's ready for cardiac counseling," Mannigan said. "Most heart attacks that fall into the 'massive' category are fatal. I admit I don't know Captain Dobey, but I think once he realizes that, he'll be grateful for any chance at life. I've found that a common reaction. Even someone I thought would've had tremendous difficulty coping with the limitations of life-changing injury is flourishing." 

Starsky's cheeks took on a hint of pink visible to Hutch because he knew how every possible mood and emotion was physically represented on his lover's face, but he wasn't sure of the cause, and the possibility that occurred to him made him remember Starsky's earlier words and tone. Not this car. Not anymore. Concerned, he looked quickly away. 

But he couldn't escape Mannigan's piercing green stare. "Katrin credits Captain Dobey's survival with the care you gave in the field--" 

Hutch dared interrupt. "Thanks, Trevor, but I can't take all the credit. I had an excellent paramedic team, for one thing. And once it got to a certain point, I was out of my league. Without your assist over the radio in the ambulance, not to mention here--" 

"Hutch, when it gets to a certain point, it's out of all our leagues. Katrin's point, and one I agree with, is that it's a credit to your skill as a physician that the captain made it to the ambulance in the first place. You've got a long way to go, and I'll stick you doing sutures and sponge baths if you dare take a case like that unassisted here while still in residency, but the truth is, I just might turn you into a first-rate emergency physician yet." His lips moved and showed off a speck of white enamel. "Now get some rest. Bambi's observing you until seven, and I'm not about to get on her bad side by releasing you a minute earlier." With a final nod at Starsky, Mannigan left, and once more the door drifted casually closed without his conscious effort. 

Hutch let out a pent-in sigh. "I'm--stunned. I think he actually smiled there at the end!" 

Starsky's grin widened dangerously close to a smirk. "He's the only guy I've ever known who can act like he's wearing tie and tails when he's in mismatched scrubs." 

"He acts more Norman British than Irish, I'll give you that." 

"I like him," Starsky announced. "He could've come in and acted like I wasn't here, spouted a bunch of medical terminology and left it to you to translate for me later. But he didn't." 

"That was a high compliment he paid you," Hutch said, watching Starsky closely. "Not what you said--I mean, that too, but what he said about you flourishing." 

"Huh?" Starsky looked blank. 

"You knew he was talking about you, right? When he said--"

"Oh, yeah, that. What's so big about that?" 

Hutch focused on the ceiling again, certainly safer than Starsky's confusion. "That day--" and neither man needed to voice the May 15^th that loomed in front of them like a mark on a calendar page. "Dr. Bachman, your surgeon, didn't believe you'd live. Even after he'd pulled you out of--of cardiac arrest in ICU he didn't really give you a chance. But he told me you wouldn't have made it onto his operating table without Trevor Mannigan's treatment in the ER. So I came down here shortly before you woke up. I needed to see Mannigan. Needed to hear something from him about your chances, I guess. And you know what he said? Of course, you don't know, but--" 

"Tell me, Hutch." 

"He looked me straight in the eye and said, 'He'll live, but he won't thank me.'"  

Starsky frowned. "I don't understand." 

"Don't you? Mannigan knew you, Starsk. Bambi's right: the man could probably put together a scrapbook of our careers based on the times he patched us up. He couldn't see how you'd face a world without police work, and he knew your career was over the minute he saw you wheeled in. He didn't think you'd have that 'common reaction' of being glad to just be alive." 

"Oh."  

"Of course, he didn't know you like I do. I might've agreed with him if I'd believed your career was over. But I knew if you lived, it wasn't. I've learned there's no such thing as impossible when it comes to you. I knew just weeks into your recovery that you'd make it back to the streets in spite of--of everything, whether you should or not. Mannigan thinks you're flourishing because you accepted the changes in your life, but I wonder--I've always wondered since…damn it, I can't help but remember you told me you wanted to work at the Academy after I told you how I felt about going back to med school." 

"Hutch--" 

"You knew I couldn't do this if you were still doing the Job, if there was a chance I'd have to face…." For an instant, the memory of holding the paddles over Dobey's chest escalated from frightening and painful to nightmarish-- dark brown skin morphing to paler tan and soft black pelt interspersed with the remnants of scars…. 

"I get it now! I should've known there was something else to your so-called career crisis. I thought this was the first thing we settled six years ago. Look, we both chased Lady Luck up and down those alleys, caught her, married her, had a couple kids by her, and then she started thinkin' about a divorce. Why keep pushing it? That's what I thought six years ago, before you said the first word about med school. I wanted us both out of the firing line. We went through all this, why's it coming back now?"

"Because I know--" 

"Yeah, you know." Starsky rolled over, braced his palms on either side of Hutch and rose up to peer down at him from scant inches away. It was erotic, dominating, and distracting from everything except the man hovering above him--exactly what Hutch knew Starsky intended. "You know, or you oughta know, that being with you is where it's at for me. That's been the bottom line since about this time in '69. If someone told me that to live, I'd have to be without you, I'd balk like hell and swallow my hemlock a happy man. Giving up police work? That was a slice of pie." 

"I heard you tonight in the car, and what was beneath what you said to Mannigan about Dobey." Hutch sighed, tired of drowning in the eyes that wouldn't release him. He thought of pleading the very real sinus pain throttling his head, but couldn't form the words. It wouldn't be fair to Starsky to beg off the discussion he'd started himself. 

"Damn." Hardly more than a whisper, the word still bounced painfully in Hutch's ears; it sounded too much like an admission on Starsky's part. Then Starsky's lips were pressing against his forehead, the side of his nose, coming to rest on his mouth with gentleness and understanding that made Hutch want to cry. Let the entire ER staff come in to watch, who was he to care?  

The kiss ended too soon for Hutch's taste, but Starsky had things to say. "You're no dummy, Hutch. You know there'll be things that make me think or remember the old times. And sometimes I'll miss the way it used to be. Doesn't mean I don't prefer the life I have now." His eyes closed, and his face took on a look Hutch had never seen before.

"You have no idea what it felt like watching you tonight…." 

"Watching me?" 

"I've never seen you in action before," Starsky explained, showing no sign of opening his eyes and facing Hutch's puzzlement any time soon. "The part of me that wasn't panicked over Dobey and worried about Edith and the kids, the part that could just stand back and watch, oh man. Knowing I get to be the man to hold you…who has the chance to make you happy…shakes me to the core…." 

Hutch kissed him then.  

  ~~*~~ 

 

Hutch banged both sides of the vending machine in brisk cadence. This machine didn't settle for a few kicks and taps. You had to play Radetsky on the thing before it forked over the Quaker granola bar that always lodged between the shelf and glass and refused to fall. 

"Tomorrow is the magic date. February 14^th. Hearts and Flowers Day," said Caroline Maxwell behind him at the ER staff-lounge's smaller table. "So tell me, Hutch. What do you get a guy for Valentine's Day?" 

Hutch swore fervently at the machine and the granola bar gave way. Grinning over his victory, Hutch ducked and retrieved his snack. "You're asking me for ideas on what to give Luke?" 

"Of course I'm not asking you that," Caroline laughed. "I can shop for my hubby without any help, thank you very much. You know what I'm asking you." 

Hutch turned around slowly, unwrapping the snack bar. "You've known me for over two years and you're asking me this now?" 

"Well…" Caroline smiled and spooned another mouthful of minestrone. "February '84, you were a graduating med student who used to be a big shot police detective, and I hadn't yet heard through the grapevine that you were living with your former partner. I mean, present partner, but…oh hell. You know what I mean. Last February you were the top intern and soon to be Mannigan's resident protégé, which made you slightly sacrosanct. But now…." 

"But now, what?" Hutch asked, amused. 

"But now you're just Hutch, who passed out in the waiting area on Christmas Eve from a sinus infection. Makes you much more approachable." 

Hutch laughed and dropped down into the chair beside hers. "And that makes me fair game for personal questions about my love life? Wonderful. Will I have to strip for the staff party next year?" 

Caroline's eyes bobbed. "Oh, don't give me ideas. I'm human, for God's sake. So tell me already." 

Hutch swallowed his bite of granola prematurely and coughed, beating a fist against his chest. "Excuse me. Caroline, it's no big revelation. This year Starsky is getting a new car stereo that he's going to put in a ten-year old car that might drop any day from sheer exhaustion and a hard life." 

"And--" Caroline probed, brown eyes gleaming. 

"And what?" 

"Oh, come on. You're getting him more than a car stereo. You're a closet romantic; got it written all over you." 

"How can I be closet if it's written all over me?" Hutch raised a hand at her smirk. "No, don't answer that question. Yes, there are a couple little odds and ends…that you wouldn't want me to tell you about even if I had the inclination to." 

"Try me." 

Hutch stared, reddening. "Caroline! I swear, you, Bambi, and Maureen. What's with all the brazen hussies running around this place? And I know you. If you're hitting me up for fodder for that Kirk and Spock stuff you write, forget it!" 

Caroline pouted prettily, then grinned and ruffled his hair. "We have a gay resident, the asexual but sexy Mannigan, not one but two Afro-American Buddhist nurses, a vegan Attending who lives in a tree-house, and a passel of post-feminist brazen hussies. I love diversity in the workplace." 

"You forgot Dr. Westley, the surfer, who shows up for his shift straight off the waves." 

"Yeah, and you look more like a surfer and he looks more like--" 

"No stereotyping!" Hutch warned, smiling. 

"This the first time you had a chance to catch your breath all day?" Caroline asked, pitching her crumpled styrofoam soup bowl with perfection for three points into the trashcan on the other side of the room. 

"Impressive shot." Hutch yawned. "Yep, I've been running all day. Waiting right now on the labs to come back for Mr. Desmond. I sign out in--" He consulted the wall clock above the vending machine. "Twenty minutes." 

"Is that your secret?" Caroline pointed at the half-eaten granola bar. 

"My secret?" 

"Oh, I'm just wondering if I feed Luke granola bars every day will he look like you do when he's forty." 

Hutch came close to choking again. "Last time I saw him Luke was a brunet so you'll need to invest in some bleach along with the granola bars." 

"I don't mean like you, I mean in your shape. You could pass for thirty. So could Starsky. Is there something rejuvenating about gay love?" Caroline looked honestly curious and expectant of a legitimate answer. "That's something I could weave into a story. The fountain of youth found through same-sex communion. Star Fleet starts wondering why Kirk looks younger and younger…."  

Hutch gave up on finishing his granola bar. "Love is love is love, Caroline. Who needs categories?" He reared back in the chair and stifled another yawn. "In about five seconds, I'll wake up and realize this conversation was a weird dream brought on by eating Starsky's cooking late at night after a shift." 

The door flew open and Bambi rushed into the room. "I caught a glimpse of the Police Academy on the waiting area's TV. Some breaking news story." She knelt and tinkered with the lounge's ancient television until a slightly fuzzy, overly loud transmission smoothed into aerial video of Elysian Park, zooming in on Academy Drive hazy with smoke and crawling with various police and emergency vehicles.  

Lurching to his feet, Hutch felt he was watching the images from the opposite end of a very long, narrow tunnel. He caught words and phrases only. Fire…explosion…employee shooting… 

The granola bar fell unheeded from his lax hand and struck the floor with a clumping noise somehow louder to him than the reporter's voice striving to drown out the sirens. 

"Oh, Hutch," Bambi breathed. 

Hutch pulled a shaking hand across his face. Caroline reached for his arm, presumably to offer comfort, but he shook her off and stumbled to the door. 

"Hutch, you haven't signed out and given report--" Bambi's voice died away when Hutch turned around. 

"I have to--I have to be there," he said hollowly. 

"We'll be the primary receiving trauma center for the victims," Caroline pointed out.

"Hutch, Mannigan'll demand your firstborn for this." 

"As you well know, he'll be waiting a long damn time, won't he?" Hutch snapped, slamming out of the lounge on a dead run. 

~~*~~

Lost in a time warp tour through all the times Starsky had been in mortal danger, Hutch passed his own car in the parking lot, pulled up short and realized, shocked, that he was looking for his old LTD. He doubled back to his wheels grateful that he didn't have to coax a temperamental automotive problem child. When his last rattletrap car had died in '83 from an expensive transmission failure, he'd decided in a near reversal of his entire car philosophy to go for something snazzy. Snazzy meant a twenty-thousand-mile used, twilight blue '81 Thunderbird two-door. When Starsky wanted to taunt him, he called the car a "sports sedan" and laughed at Hutch's immediate bristling.  

Fighting the rise in panic, Hutch cursed his outsider status for the first time since quitting the force. He had no authority, no power to cut through the police perimeter blockade he knew he would run headlong into on arrival, and the one ally who would have understood and smoothed his path was at home recovering from open-heart surgery and hopefully shielded from this nightmare.  

In the weeks since his heart attack and subsequent bypass operation, Dobey had shown a fierce desire to heal and live in the present instead of the nebulous future, but Edith took no chances. She prepped every department affiliated visitor and ordered them to leave shop talk at the door, and she'd been a stone wall between her husband and Chief Ryan until the latter, less than graciously, informed the interim Captain of Detectives that he would have to take over the reins without consulting Dobey on either the smallest matter or the most important. 

"Dr. Hutchinson!" 

Gripping the car door handle, Hutch wheeled at the voice and the formal address. Mannigan usually placed no value on formality. "You are still a doctor, I presume?" Mannigan asked. "If you're planning on rejoining the police force, I should probably know." 

"What--what do you--Look, Trevor, I have to--" 

"No, you don't." Mannigan slid his hands into his lab coat pockets and stood firm. Hutch's equal in height and solidly built; the trauma specialist had a way of commanding space and blocking people's perception of anything around him. Trapped in this mesmerism, Hutch couldn't look away or complete his descent into the car.  

"Professionally, you are no longer Detective Starsky's partner," Mannigan continued, brutally calm. "You're needed here, and your top priorities are this ER and the patients who depend on you. In this case, the multiple traumas we expect. Can you really leave us shorthanded and in doing so threaten the lives of those victims? It's your choice." 

Years of attachment to Starsky urged Hutch to tell Mannigan to take his psychological manipulation to hell, but the new Hutch, the Hutch who had so recently learned that his hands and mind could offer life and hold death at bay, recognized the truth in Mannigan's words.  

He grit his teeth and stared straight into the shimmering sun. Starsky had never known-- or hadn't ever let on that he knew-- one of the reasons Hutch decided to quit the force early in '79. Lionel Rigger was the final straw and the necessary impetus, but the underlying cause had been fear. Fear of his focus on Starsky, who made up the entirety of his world. He'd thought he was splitting the partnership when he tossed his badge in the ocean, but Starsky outmaneuvered him and kept them closer off the force than they had been in the months preceding their resignation. He had wanted to be able to care about something--anything--more than he cared for Starsky just to prove he could. Now, seven years later, when the Hippocratic Oath and a group of nameless, as yet faceless patients could turn him from running to Starsky's side, Hutch hated himself for having to choose. 

Shutting the car door so forcefully the window rattled, Hutch rubbed his sun-blinded eyes and nodded. "Of course, I'll stay." His heart seemed to splinter at the loss of his Starsky-centric outlook, but he determined not to let it show. 

Mannigan's grim expression softened. "You've made the right choice for David's best interests as well. It wouldn't help him for you to race out to the Academy only to learn he was one of the critically triaged already en route to us." 

Hutch frowned. If he was doing what was best for Starsky, why did he still feel like a traitor? Aloud, he said, "I didn't even think of that." 

"Under the circumstances, it's understandable." 

~~*~~

"Hutch!" Bambi took his arm and pulled him to the side beside the supply closet. "You have no idea how much respect Mannigan has for your work." 

"What?" 

"Any other resident who left the ER without signing patients out to the on-call team, especially with multiple incoming on the way, wouldn't even be allowed to apply for the Trauma Fellowship. Out of the applicant pool no questions asked. Bad recommendation, the works. The unlucky soul would be looking for a nice, cozy little family practice to join after residency." 

Hutch stared down at her, disturbed. Mannigan had seemed understanding in the parking lot, but he also needed Hutch's help with patient load. Afterwards, though…."How do you know that's not still going to happen?" 

Bambi cocked her head to the side and even her curls quivered with disbelief. "Are you kidding? Because he went after you, Blondie, and brought you back. Haven't you been here long enough to notice that man doesn't ever leave this place? We all figure he sets up a cot in this supply room and migrates between here and the cafeteria when he's off shift. Hell, I've worked here for twenty years, and I don't know his home telephone number." 

Hutch couldn't help but laugh. "Now you're scaring me. Are you sure he consumes food and depends on oxygen to breathe?" 

"Well, we've never locked him in a vacuum to make sure, but--" Bambi smiled. "Hutch, he's the best there is. If he's on your side, you will be a trauma doc one day--unless you pull another bonehead stunt." Bambi tugged on the hem of his scrub tunic. "Don't go all freezing indignant with me, Doctor, I understand why you left. I also know Starsky would kick your ass for jeopardizing everything you've worked for." 

"Bambi, if he's brought in…the minute you see--Starsk--" Hutch's voice broke. "You come find me." 

"Shh, like you have to tell me."

New arrivals and harried, smoke-stained paramedics greeted them just minutes after their chat in the corridor. The first two cases Hutch assisted were burn victims. Caroline showed up in the middle of treatment, another resident in tow, and pulled Hutch away. 

She shook her head at Hutch's protests. "Mannigan said to turn it over to Oates. He needs you in Trauma Seven. Multiple thoracic GSW--" Hutch stumbled over his own feet, and Caroline gripped his arm. "Damn, I'm sorry, why am I always the one who does that? It's not Starsky. I saw them bring the GSW in, and it's not Starsky. Mannigan wouldn't even let you in the room if it were. Okay?" 

A nurse tech thrust a clean trauma smock at him, and Hutch swiftly changed into it on the way, flinging his soiled smock to the side so he could concentrate on getting his used gloves off his trembling hands. Outside the trauma room, new gloves in place, hands steady, Hutch took a deep breath and plunged in. 

Mannigan was barking orders at Bambi and Peter, one of their best techs. The tang of copious blood assaulted Hutch, and he jumped into action only to freeze with his hands outstretched. His vision had strayed to the patient's face.  

"Christ, no! No!" 

Hutch would never forget the following minutes, each weighing on him like an entire day. The relentless bleeding, the collapsed left lung they had to temporarily ignore in deference to the blood pooling around the heart. He didn't have time to mentally transform the patient's features to those he knew best in the world. Split-second decisions and following Mannigan's lightning orders allowed no flashbacks. Hutch had to forget the identity of the patient and concentrate on every move in the life and death ballet, knowing that Mannigan would expect him to take the lead in the next similar case. That was the process by which medical knowledge trickled down, master-apprentice fashion: watch it, do it, teach it. 

"Call it, Hutch." Mannigan yanked off his gloves and backed away from the table. 

"No, no, I can't." 

"It's been thirty minutes. Asystole for most of it. He's dry. It's over. Call it." 

Hutch stared at his bloody hands, unable to face Jeff Simmons' lifeless repose. "Maybe if we--" 

"There's no one home," Mannigan said. "He's gone. Even if you could capture a feeble rhythm, there's no brain activity to sustain it. Pronounce him, Doctor." 

Hutch cast a swift glance at the wall clock then shut his eyes tightly as possible. "Time of death 5:42 p.m." 

"I'll see about notifying next of kin." 

"No, you won't." Hutch's eyes snapped open, and the stony hardness in his face didn't crack. "I pronounced it; I'll break the news." 

Mannigan met his eyes squarely. "You don't have to." 

"I've known Detective Simmons for fifteen years. Worked with him for eight of them. You wanted to toughen me up? Punish me for walking out? Lesson learned, Dr. Mannigan." Viciously tearing away his blood-smeared trauma smock and crimson gloves, Hutch dumped the resulting shreds in the proper container and banged the swinging doors to the limit of their hinges on his exit. 

~~*~~

Lieutenant Hagen barely waited for the automated doors to slide and allow her entrance to Memorial ER. In the terror grip of another close call, she burst through, already scanning the expansive waiting area for her significant other. She had to bite down on tears and her need to beg Mike to leave the street. Hypocritical, of course, considering how hard she'd worked once to achieve plainclothes undercover status, and inappropriate in this case, because Mike and Jeff were guest speakers at the Academy, not caught in the crossfire of a gang war, when disaster struck.  

Just last week on her birthday, Mike had proposed again, and the argument that followed echoed inside her head now. She'd told him the brutal truth; she didn't want to be a street cop's widow. He'd logically countered by questioning how she'd mourn him any more as a wife than she would as his five-year live-in lover. She couldn't explain the difference to herself, much less to him, but it was there, real and frightening. Though never voiced by either, Sally knew Mike suspected she had her eye on a Vice captaincy which marriage would quietly and unofficially place out of her reach. He was wrong, but Sally couldn't bring herself to accuse him of thinking that way, so the air remained stagnant between them. 

She gave a sharp, low cry when she spotted him in front of the coffee vending machine. Her relief was short-lived. Even from behind Mike had a shock victim's appearance and mannerisms, and he leaned against David Starsky, who operated the machine awkwardly with one bandaged arm. 

"Mike!" 

Both men whirled in unison, Starsky's natural color diminishing at the tug on his injured arm and Mike reaching for the cup of coffee before it could splash over the side and burn his supporter. Sally rushed across the lobby and helped steady them. Starsky ended up with the coffee and stood off to the side, leaving Mike in care of Sally's embrace. 

"I was in a closed door meeting with Captain Phillips when the word came in. I got here as fast as I could. Mike, God, Mike are you all right?" She pulled back to see his face, moving her hands to cradle it and thumb soothing circles on his cheeks. 

"Mild smoke inhalation," Starsky answered for him. "He was on oxygen for a while, but he's been cleared." 

Michael Babcock said, "Jeff. Jeff was…shot." 

"Shot?" Sally pulled his face down and pressed her lips to his forehead. "Oh, God. How bad? What--I thought it was a fire, an explosion?" 

"You only got half the news, then," Starsky choked out, voice hoarse. "I suggest we sit down, Sally. You won't be able to support his weight for long, and he's--" He broke off with his words strangling in his throat, his eyes watery, though Sally couldn't tell whether from tears or smoke irritation. 

"Yes, let's sit down. Here, hon, easy does it." She guided Mike a few feet to the side where he could sit down in a pseudo-soft, metal-trimmed hospital chair. Sitting beside him and sliding an arm around his back to maintain contact as well as support, she leaned forward and looked across at Starsky. "How--Were you burned, Starsky?" 

Starsky shrugged. "I caught something between a nick and a graze. Barely broke the skin." 

Sally said nothing, but she knew better. A wound that barely broke the skin didn't cause someone to turn the color of raw papier-mâché when pressure was exerted on the injured arm. Mike said, sounding miles away, "Starsky jumped him." 

"Jumped whom? Do you have any word on Jeff's condition--Starsky you haven't been able to pull some strings here? Has Hutch seen you? He must be frantic." 

Starsky frowned. "No, I can't pull any strings today. Memorial's fielding most of the injured, so they're swamped. I haven't been able to catch a glimpse of Hutch. I'm sure when he has a chance to catch his breath one of the nurses will tell him I'm out here." 

Again Sally said nothing. She saw the strain in Starsky's rugged features. It was indeed a strange, new world in which Hutch wasn't draped over an injured Starsky like a shock blanket. Yet, Sally could tell the worry in Starsky's eyes was for Hutch, for Jeff and Mike and others, too, but not for himself. She couldn't ask either man to relive the events, but she saw another source of information nearby. With a warm kiss on Mike's cheek and reassuring squeeze of his hand, murmuring that she'd be right back, she rose and wove through the chairs to the reception desk where Sergeant Nedlow spoke in quiet tones to a tall redhead whose eyes kept roving over to Starsky's and Mike's section of chairs. 

Sergeant Nedlow turned and offered her a smile and nod. "Lieutenant." 

Sally returned his smile. "Give it up, Jim, I was in uniform with you, remember? You have a minute?" 

"Sure, Sal." He led her to the bench just inside the main entrance and waited for her to sit down, smooth her slacks and brush the bangs from her forehead--nervous gestures that helped her bring worry under control. "What do you need?" 

"I need someone to tell me what happened. What has Mike in shock, how his partner was shot, why David Starsky looks like a block of wood…. Were you a responding officer?" 

Nedlow obviously was, because he didn't ask her to clarify. "Yes. You know how it is. We're still piecing everything together from start to finish, but I can give you a basic rundown. The fire started in the café kitchen--apparent equipment malfunction. But the responding firemen believe there were improperly stored cleaning agents--highly flammable--that caused a flash fire and explosion and involved the main complex. The instructors were able to get the cadets and personnel out to the designated fire safety area, and they were all standing around, counting heads, when one of the instructors who had his firearm with him lost control." 

"Lost control?" Sally shook her head, confused. 

"Had some sort of breakdown. Starsky said he thinks the guy is a 'Nam vet who flashed back and thought the place was under siege or something--started firing live rounds into the crowd around him." 

"Oh, my God!" 

"Nobody had any warning. Detective Simmons took two slugs in the chest; close-range impact knocked him back into his partner. That probably saved Detective Babcock's life. That and Starsky launching himself at the guy before he could turn the gun on a group of cadets." 

"He launched himself at a maniac with a loaded gun! Jesus, how in hell did he come out of that with just an injured arm?" 

Nedlow lifted his head and stared across the waiting area at the man in question. "Uh, he actually jumped the guy after he'd taken a nick from one of the rounds. We talked to one of the cadet witnesses who said that Starsky thrust himself at the shooter and put his hand behind the man's ear. The man went down on his knees and Starsky was able to get the gun free. Damndest thing. Starsky refuses to talk about it. Personally, I think it was more than just putting his hand behind the guy's ear--that's just what the cadet could see. I think it was something Starsky learned in the jungle. He was over there too, you know. But Starsky sure isn't acting like a hero." 

"What do you mean?" Sally tried to read Jim's face but the black man's solemn expression gave nothing away. She tried her luck at reading Starsky from a distance but failed at that as well. No one could read David Starsky from two inches away if he didn't want to be read. No one but Hutch. 

"He acts like he committed some kind of crime. Begged us to keep the press away from him, asked me to make sure no one played up what happened. You asked why Detective Babcock's in shock? He saw his partner shot right in front of him by one of our own and didn't have a chance to draw his weapon. Then, he sees his friend throw himself at a loaded gun. That about sums it up, if you ask me. I'm just glad Hutch wasn't there: he would've had a hemorrhage." 

"Absolutely." Sally shuddered. "I should get back over there. What's happening with the shooter?" 

"That's why I'm here," Nedlow answered. "Soon as the ER clears him and he's transferred to Psych, I'm his guard. This is a touchy situation." 

"Cleared by the ER?" 

"Yeah, ever since he went down on his knees, he's had some weird paralysis in his legs. I tell you, the damndest thing." 

Shaken, Sally jumped to her feet and started toward the chairs, promptly colliding with a tall, thin splash of color too bright for an ER. When she'd recovered from his neon mesh shirt, turquoise baggy pants, and the multitude of pastel jelly bracelets on his dark arms, she dared look him in the face--and did a double take. "I'm sorry; do I know you?" 

She mentally kicked herself for using what sounded like a staple come-on line, but he just smiled. "I'd be lucky if you did--" 

"Huggy!"  

Sally noticed that Starsky had risen to his feet and was gesturing at the skinny man. Memory snapped into place. "Huggy Bear, of course! I'm Sally Hagen. I used to work with Thunder and Lightning." 

"So did I in a manner of speaking," Huggy said, still smiling brightly.  

He greeted Starsky with a careful clasp of his shoulder. "Hey, bro, I saw the news on the tube. Didn't know which one of you I'd need to offer moral support once I got here. Sure am glad to see you in one piece, relatively speaking. Has Blondie seen you yet?" 

But Starsky was staring over Huggy's shoulder, and Sally, watching him, turned her head, too. Mike stiffened beside her. Hutch walked toward them, and his steps dragged. He looked startled at the cluster of people, but his eyes locked on Starsky. The look was as emotionally passionate as a kiss, a cocktail of relief and love, and Sally found herself instinctually averting her eyes to offer them privacy. But Hutch's face slipped back into a professional's mask and he kept a physical distance from Starsky as if afraid that a mere, friendly touch would have him wrapped around the man. With a brief nod for Huggy, Hutch turned to Mike. 

"Do you have the contact info for Jeff's family?" 

Mike trembled, and his voice rang out harsh and loud compared to Hutch's soft tone. "Don't pull that family stonewall with me, Hutchinson. His ex-wife is in Portland and he has a brother in Fresno, but Sally and I are his only real family. I have medical power of attorney. You know how it is." 

Hutch flinched. Sally gripped Mike's hand and whispered words of comfort she knew weren't coherent. 

"I'm sorry, Mike." Hutch visibly struggled to keep his face clinical and detached. A dam, Sally thought, against a flood of emotion he couldn't afford.  

"No," Mike barked. "No! Don't tell me he's dead. Don't you say those words! He's tough. Besides, I've seen worse. Hell--" he thrust a hand at Starsky. "He took three slugs in the chest from an automatic, and he's still standing here years later." Mike wheeled fully on Starsky, suddenly livid. "What's with you, man?! Jesus friggin' Christopher, you jump a nutcase with his finger glued to the trigger, and you walk away from it, but Jeff--" 

"Mike, don't, hon." Sally hugged her lover from behind, trying to still his frenzied verbal attack before it could do more damage. Hutch had blanched and turned panicked eyes on Starsky, who appeared set to dig a hole through the floor and escape. 

"I'm sorry, Mike." Hutch cleared his throat, casually wiped his eyes with the heel of his palm. "Gunshot wounds are hard to judge. The--the p-patient's overall state of health prior to injury also factors in, but the placement of Jeff's wounds were such that…."  

Hutch took a deep breath, and Sally wondered if he were trying to remember a learned speech to guide him. "We resuscitated Jeff twice, but the blood loss was catastrophic, and when he arrested the third time, we were unable to--We did everything--" 

"No!" Babcock shouted. "Don't you hand me that 'everything medically possible' bullshit! Not you. Don't you ever say that to one of us. You wouldn't have wanted to hear it. There was a time you would've knocked a doctor down for saying it, and you know it, Hutchinson."  

"Mike, baby, Hutch isn't the enemy." 

"I know, I--" Mike twisted in Sally's arms and sobbed against her neck.  

"Dr. Hutchinson! Trauma three's crashing!" 

"On my way, Peter," Hutch called over his shoulder. "Sally, Mike, I--" 

"Go on, Hutch, I've got him," Sally said. She watched through tears as Hutch took one second to rest his hand against Starsky's cheek before he left in a semi-jog. Starsky brought fingertips to his cheek. Shocked and grieving for Jeff Simmons, her entire world thrown out of focus, breathless with gratitude for Mike's pounding heartbeat, she couldn't help but wonder at the silent drama before her. What was it like to have a relationship in which one second of touch and eye contact could say so much? Could she give that to Mike? Could she be enough to deaden his pain?  

~~*~~

Caroline caught up to Hutch just inches from the staff exit. "Mannigan wants to see you in his office." 

"Mannigan can go to--" Hutch started, but thought better of it. "Office?" he asked instead. "I didn't know he had an office." 

"It's not well known," Caroline chuckled. "I worked here for three years before I realized he had one. It's the door between Trauma Eight and the men's room." 

"Damn. I really need to get out of this place." Hutch hated to smell himself. Today of all days he needed to shower away the odors of blood, sweat, and death. Alcohol and latex were perfumes in comparison. More than a shower, he needed Starsky. Desperately. The thought of sitting in his arms on their comfortable sofa had kept him sane for the past few hours. 

"I know," Caroline said, smile wide and gentle with sympathy as if she'd read his thoughts. "Would you like me to call Starsky and let him know you'll be later than you thought?" 

"No, thanks. This meeting won't take long." Hutch said it like a vow, and meant it. Mannigan had already taken his pound of flesh. He stalked back down the hall and didn't pause on his way to Mannigan's office, ignoring a tech trying to stop him for a signature, merely waving Bambi aside when she thrust a cup of coffee at him. He would've walked right into Dobey's office, but he stopped outside Mannigan's door and knocked. 

A stiff-voiced "come in" made Hutch roll his shoulders and brush the hair from his face before he opened the door. Mannigan was bent over a small desk sorting through lab reports. Hutch repressed a sigh. Why couldn't the man at least have normal middle-aged presbyopia and require reading glasses? Any small sign of human vulnerability would be welcome, Hutch decided, sitting down in the ubiquitous waiting room style chair opposite his boss. Mannigan was obviously going to finish his reading undisturbed, so Hutch looked around. This was hardly an office, more like a converted linen closet. No wonder Bambi joked about Mannigan setting up a cot in the supply closet. He certainly couldn't sleep in here unless he curled up on top of his desk. That image brought a slight twist to Hutch's lips at the exact moment Mannigan looked up from his work. 

The trauma chief lifted his left eyebrow and remained eloquently silent. On the whole, Hutch preferred Dobey's fisted desk banging. He cleared his throat. "You wanted to see me?" 

Mannigan nodded and settled back in his chair, elbows propped on the metal arms and hands clasped in his lap. "I'm sorry about your friend." 

Hutch shivered. He didn't want to talk about Jeff Simmons. Not until he could decompress and feel the grief. Until he could forget how selfish and childish he'd sounded, flinging accusations at Mannigan when a man had lost his life. "Thank you." 

"I wasn't punishing you. I didn't know at the time that he was a friend of yours." 

"I know. At the time, I--" 

"At the time," Mannigan interrupted, "you were under a fair amount of stress. I didn't ask you here to apologize or to demand apologies from you. I want you to understand why I called you into that trauma." 

"At the risk of stating the obvious, it wasn't just because you needed another pair of hands." 

Mannigan let the sarcasm stand in silence long enough to make Hutch uncomfortable. "Any good supervising physician knows where a resident's weakness lies. You've been developing an impressive mental block against multiple gunshot cases. That's a detrimental shortcoming for a trauma physician in metro LA. What I did today was put a cliché in practice. I threw you in the deep end of the pool and expected you to swim." 

"But I didn't swim!" Hutch sat forward, gripping the desk's edge. "Are you saying this afternoon was some form of psychological experiment? Fell short, didn't it?" 

"No, it didn't. Your fear was fielding a multiple GSW and losing the patient. You saw your greatest fear realized, but you didn't give in to it. You worked solidly through the rest of the evening. We saved more than we lost today, Doctor, and you were a part of that. I think you'll find your mental block is a thing of the past." 

"At what cost to Jeff Simmons!?" Hutch stormed, wanting more than anything to break through Mannigan's infuriating coolness. "I could've hesitated at a critical moment. Seconds count with injuries like that. You took one hell of a risk with a patient's life--" 

"I'm sorry to say, I knew the second we got him on the table that the patient had less than a five percent chance of survival. That's precisely why I sent for you." 

"You--" Hutch wiped his mouth, stabbed his forefinger in Mannigan's direction. "You're a piece of work." 

Mannigan didn't move. "My job isn't to make you like me or approve of my methods. My job is to train you for a career in emergency medicine. Are you still interested in applying for the Trauma Fellowship?" 

Hutch subsided in his chair, rage drained. "Yes." 

"I'm glad. I think you have, by and large, what it takes to succeed in this field." 

"By and large?"  

"It's a personal prejudice I can't implement on an official basis, but I believe the best trauma specialists are unmarried." 

Hutch smiled coolly at this intrusion in his personal life. "Legally, I'm not--" 

"I have no time for hair-splitting, Dr. Hutchinson! You're in a committed relationship with the same distractions, time demands, and responsibilities of a legally recognized marriage. That relationship is none of my business or concern--except when it interferes with your dedication to patient care. This is the best trauma facility in the state, one of the finest in the country, and we owe that reputation to our patient care. Take today's crisis for instance. Limiting the number of fatalities to three was a remarkable achievement we might not have been able to accomplish without all our available medical personnel. You could've tipped the scales out of our favor if you'd left. Should I expect a repeat performance of your temporary defection?" 

"No." 

"Then I think we understand each other, and I'm sure you have somewhere you'd rather be than here."  

~~*~~

Starsky chopped vegetables with ferocious efficiency, unconsciously following the beat of the pounding Tears for Fears song on the kitchen radio. His injured right arm hung limply at his side, but he'd removed the bandage as soon as he got home. Who needed a bandage on a mosquito bite when a good cop had taken two slugs in the chest? His knife slipped on the disturbing reminder and the onion chose that opportunity to roll for escape across the cutting board. Starsky corralled it and chopped harder and faster. Those Tears for Fears dudes had a good philosophy, Starsky decided, lifting the cutting board and trying to get the onion bits into the pot of spaghetti sauce without using his other hand to scrape them. Shout…Shout…Let it all out!! He replaced the cutting board and snagged a carrot. God alone knew why Hutch liked multi-veggies in his spaghetti sauce, they ruined a perfectly good Marinara, but at the moment Starsky was grateful for the excuse to drain some of his rage by wielding his knife like a machete. 

Machete. 

Micah. Helpless with fever under the machete slicing away his life. Hutch. Helplessly distracted while two kidnappers-turned-snipers emptied a rifle into his vest. Simmons. Helpless with no warning before bullets slammed into his… 

"Shout!! Shout!! Let it all out!!" Starsky screamed to the ceiling…and realized the music no longer provided back-up vocals. He turned to the heart-skipping sight of Hutch propped against the counter beside the kitchen doorway. The blond had his hand on the radio power button and his head tilted in the adorably quizzical manner that usually stirred Starsky's sensual juices. At the moment Starsky's hormones were buried under a layer of pain and sadness, but he could still feel a jolt of love. 

He crossed the short width of their galley-style kitchen and enfolded Hutch with his good arm. "Beautiful," he whispered. "So beautiful." He sighed as Hutch's hands stroked his back. Ominous bubbling in the background suggested the element was too hot and the spaghetti sauce intended to splatter itself from the stove to the fridge, but Starsky ignored the sounds. He had Hutch's pulse beneath his lips, tasting the smooth skin of his neck just below the first wisps of blond. 

"Whoa, where's your bandage? Here, let me see that--" 

Starsky broke away, frowning. "Don't, Hutch. Don't play doctor with me." 

He regretted the words as soon as the intense pain registered on Hutch's face. "Oh? Why not? Because I did such a lousy job with Simmons?" 

Unable to answer with words sufficiently potent or comforting, Starsky returned to the stove, found the spaghetti sauce in full revolt and slammed the lid down on the pot, cursing. 

"I'm gonna grab a shower," Hutch said, as if to a rent-sharing roommate. He was gone before Starsky could reach for him.

"Dammit! I didn't want us to do this!" Starsky yelled. The echoing slam of the bathroom door wasn't encouraging. "Shit!" Starsky stalked over to the counter and punched the radio's power button. The love theme from St. Elmo's Fire didn't help his mood. He and Hutch had once done their own version of the film's erotic shower scene with the music as inspiration. Ridiculous film, good shower scene. Any other day he'd be tempted to cart the radio to the bathroom and entice Hutch into an encore. 

Not on this day of grief and emotional electricity. Starsky went back to exorcizing his demons via the Julia Child method. 

He had the tiny, intimate kitchen table set, plates piled high with steaming spaghetti and garlic bread hot to the touch, and the wine poured, when Hutch emerged from the bathroom in his robe. Hutch still looked like a storm cloud, but the storminess seemed inwardly directed, and he sat down meekly at the table. 

"The Barolo '82?" he commented, pointing at the bottle. 

"Yep." Starsky tried a smile. "I know we were saving it for tomorrow, but I thought, hell, we could both use it right now." 

"Agreed." There was no offer of a toast, as there normally would've been with such a special wine. 

"Hutch, I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't mean what you thought." 

Hutch twirled his fork tines in the spaghetti and didn't meet Starsky's eyes. "Right. I wasn't angry with you. You just happened to be the recipient of some shit I couldn't toss at Mannigan and keep my job." Starsky opened his mouth to voice concern, and Hutch must have expected it, because he shook his head. "No, I don't want to talk about him. I'll have to face him bright and early tomorrow. Until then, I prefer to forget he exists." 

"Understood." Starsky started to say something sweet and lighthearted just to watch the crease in Hutch's brow ease, but the phone rang. Hutch rose and Starsky waved him back down. "Let the machine get it. Please." 

Hutch stared, wide-eyed. "Starsk, this time of night it could be the on-call team calling about a patient's chart." 

"I doubt it," Starsky muttered. "You can hear if that's what it is." 

Dabbing his mouth with his napkin, Hutch left the table and walked into the living room. Starsky propped elbows beside his plate and cradled his head in his hands. Hutch returned moments later, sat down, and breathed heavily. 

"Why is a reporter calling you at eleven o'clock at night?"  

"Probably the same one, or one of the same ones who've been calling every hour." 

Hutch took a long sip of wine. "I can't believe it-- I should set up a special school for assholes! Here I've been focused on my lousy evening, and you're the one who lived through a crisis today. Starsk, what happened, love?" 

Starsky didn't raise his head. "You heard Babcock." 

Hutch reached over the table and nudged Starsky's wine glass closer to him. "Yes, I heard, and I think…I think I buried it under a mound of disbelief and denial just so I could get through the rest of the day. Why don't you finish your wine, and tell me." 

Starsky nodded and gripped his glass careless of the fragile stem. "I could so get plastered right now. And I don't think fine wine's enough to do the trick, but it's a start. 'Least it'll taste good goin' down." That said, he polished off his glass and poured another. Nursing it, and letting the spaghetti grow cold, he told Hutch the unvarnished truth. 

Probably to keep himself from exploding before Starsky could get the words out, Hutch made quick work of his dinner during the recital. He stared into his wine for a full minute after Starsky fell silent. When Hutch finally spoke, his words were icy, a defense mechanism Starsky recognized. "I can't think about how close I came to--to losing you today, or I'll--" Hutch let the sentence dangle as he swallowed a full half of his wine.  

"Hutch, I'm here." 

"I can't think," Hutch continued, "about the risk you took, or I'll break something, possibly your head, which would really put me in violation of my Oath." He offered Starsky his brightest smile and set down the glass in favor of grabbing Starsky's left hand, holding tight. "God, I love you. What you did was selfless and heroic. I shouldn't expect anything less from the amazing man I fell in love with. I know how you feel about reporters; I'm with you all the way on that; but you don't have to be in hiding." 

"Are you insane!" Starsky snapped. "Publicity is the last thing I need. Yeah, they think I'm a hero. Won't take 'em long to figure out I'm a hero in a long-term gay relationship. Long time since Johnny Blaine, but the LAPD still ain't ready for that." 

Hutch tightened his grip on Starsky's hand. "Use your famous common sense, Starsk. They won't fire a guy who threw himself at a deranged gunman to protect a group of cadets. It'd be a PR nightmare for them." 

"Yeah, and it sucks the big one that my job security is based on that instead of my work record." 

"Katrin Huber said she had to save fifteen more lives than her male counterpart at the Neue Kardiologie Institut before she was acknowledged to be a successful cardiologist and thoracic surgeon." 

"Yes, right, gays aren't the only ones with gripes. Thank you. Maybe I feel it worse since I used to walk in the sunshine of straight male bliss." Starsky laughed at Hutch's smirk, but his laughter fell flat and darkness consumed him again. 

"Now that you've got the surface gripe out of the way, why don't you tell me what really has you hiding from the telephone?" 

Starsky wrenched his hand free and pushed back from the table. Grabbing the wine bottle and his glass, he headed for the sofa. His solitude didn't last. Hutch sat down beside him and took him into his arms, careful to avoid pressure on Starsky's injury. 

Starsky clung to him without shame. "You helped me bury 'Nam back in '79. I didn't want--I can't live through all that again. I don't want to end up like Bob Martin. He was having a classic flashback, Hutch. Once I got the gun away from him, I could see exactly what was going on." 

"I know, babe. I won't let you go through it again." 

"Never in my life could I have let Martin turn his gun on those kids. My--my training just took over, and Martin's lucky he's not dead. I can't afford to answer a bunch of questions about it. It's better for me if people just figure I perfected some kinda Vulcan neck pinch, y'know?" 

"Listen, Starsky-mine, if I have to graft some special ears on you to convince people, I will," Hutch murmured into Starsky's hair. 

"Always knew med school would come in handy," Starsky chuckled, loving the warm breath tingling his scalp. 

Hutch's arms tightened, but they had fine tremors that Starsky felt immediately. "Not handy enough," Hutch said, voice gone ragged. 

Starsky's eyes misted. "I'm walking the same road. If I'd just seen Martin pull his gun before he emptied a few rounds--Oh, God." 

The two men held each other against the onrush of raw loss. And the Barolo '82, ignored on the coffee table, grew tepid as the hour passed. 

~~*~~ 

Starsky drained his bottle of beer and gave the TV screen a few seconds of undivided attention. The NCAA sweet sixteen basketball game was really just comforting background noise. Cal Dobey's Bruins hadn't lived up to their dynasty heritage this season and were long since out of the running, so Starsky was reduced to pulling for his top bracket choice out of mercenary motive. He, Hutch, Dobey and Huggy had filled out brackets, and the one who correctly predicted the most teams in the Final Four won dinner at the establishment of his choice. Starsky knew that regardless of the outcome, a restaurant would be chosen with an eye to Dobey's remaining safely on his heart-healthy diet. Still, the anticipation and friendly needling made March Madness basketball more exciting in a year when Cal wouldn't be participating in The Big Dance. Best of all, Starsky felt confident he already had Hutch beat. The gorgeous idiot had picked LSU to end up in the Final Four. An eleventh seeded team, no less. Starsky snickered. Then sobered. The Tigers had made it to the sweet sixteen, so maybe Hutch was on a roll. 

Exchanging the empty beer bottle for a sheaf of mock police reports he had to mark for the following morning's class, Starsky tried to alleviate the tedium by ranking them according to his own private grading system. Some received Ds for Dragnet, others BC for Bad Comic--thank you, Captain, for drilling that one in my head--and a few merited the "coveted" S in honor of Sam Spade.  

Starsky flung the papers at the coffee table and sprawled on the sofa, resting his head on the plush cushioned arm. Nothing helped. The minute he thought about Hutch, he was lost. Fantasizing was as close as he got to Hutch these days. The month since the Academy tragedy reminded Starsky of the movie cliché of lovers watching each other from two trains going in opposite directions. They had made almost obligatory love on Valentine's Day, still shell-shocked and not really into the passion, and Hutch had hovered near during his scant time off for a few days afterward. Starsky knew he was watching for evidence of jungle nightmares. When some expected crisis didn't present itself, Hutch pulled away…farther and farther…. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. 

Right. Problematic, though, when Hutch was just as absent three feet away in the recliner as he was on shift at Memorial. They shared living space, bumped into each other occasionally in the kitchen, and debated which take-out to order. Starsky had the frightening feeling that Hutch's attitude around him the last few weeks could be termed tolerant, not comfortable. There's nothing worse than pointed tolerance in a relationship. 

His passion for Hutch hadn't cooled since the glorious July his life changed forever. Familiar contentment didn't mean the fire burned any less hot. They had dry spells, certainly, especially when Hutch was in med school. Then his internship, exhaustive and draining, made their bed more a place for sleep than sex play. And residency was no better. Hundred hour workweeks didn't make for newlywed conditions. But their snatched moments of lovemaking gave new meaning to the word sizzling. Sometimes they could wreck the whole bedroom. Starsky called it Gatorade love. They often had to split a bottle of the stuff when the afterglow faded just to replace electrolytes lost through sweat and exertion. 

But the last month was more than just a dry spell. Something besides sex had gone missing. Something else was wrong between them. The unidentified "something else" worried Starsky more than the sex, so he concentrated on the physical to avoid outright panic.

The other night Hutch had come home from a double shift, ferreted some old Chinese out of the fridge, and curled up in the recliner with a medical journal, surprisingly not bothering to shower or change out of scrubs. Starsky didn't know when he'd developed a fetish for medical wear but, watching Hutch, he'd wanted to pull the journal out of his hands and go down on him right there. He'd been seconds away from acting on the desire when Hutch looked up and made eye contact. Starsky knew immediately that Hutch read his mind, could feel the electricity flicker in the air between them, and then those Caribbean blue eyes had turned distant and sad. Starsky was proud of his legendary libido, but even the best lovers lose ardor at the sight of a brick wall and Do Not Trespass signs. 

Starsky hurled the remote at the television. Perfectly aimed, the gadget connected with the off button and the TV fell dark and silent. Tonight, Starsky vowed. If Hutch managed to get away from the ER tonight, he would have to answer a few pointed questions. 

~~*~~

Harold Dobey brought the end table lamp closer and peered at a yellowed photograph, scribbling notes on a steno pad. He noticed Edith's departure from the couch, heard her say something about a car in the driveway, and grunted something in response. Probably the neighbor's car. Cal was out of town, taking advantage of the basketball team's failure to reach the NCAA finals to indulge in a spring trip with teammates, and no one else would show up at nine thirty for an impromptu visit. 

"It's Hutch," Edith announced in the foyer.  

"Hmmph," Dobey said, but he smiled and set aside his steno pad and photo album. He heard the door open and Edith's joyous greetings trying to drown out Hutch's deeper voiced apologies for the lateness of the hour. She ushered him into the living room, and Dobey noticed Hutch's pause in the entrance. Since the night they all tried to forget, Hutch always hesitated before entering the living room as if afraid he would relive the events. Dobey frowned. He still wasn't used to seeing Hutch in green scrubs and white lab coat, but he was even less used to the drained, somber expression Hutch often wore these days. Well, he'd shake the man loose.  

"Dangerous business, dropping by unannounced on me and the pretty lady here when Rosie's at a sleep-over. Never know what you might find going on." 

"Harold!" Edith put a hand to her mouth. She grinned slyly at Hutch. "I tell you, the things he says lately. He seems to have shed twenty years." 

Hutch laughed. "What kind of trouble have you been causing, Cap'n?" 

"Well, I almost ended up in the dog house when I told Edith she has fine--" 

"Harold!" Edith warned. She waved Hutch into her spot on the couch. "Hutch, I have some sugar-free hot cocoa and low fat coconut pie with your name on it if you're interested." 

"More than happy to help you find a home for them, Edith." When she left for the kitchen, Hutch shifted to face Dobey. "I was on my way home and--" 

"And you wanted to visit one of your success stories," Dobey finished. Hutch looked ready to splutter, so Dobey rescued him. "Son, I can't count how many times I did that at Metro. Looked over a file from a case that went particularly well. Positive reinforcement, they call it. I'm not saying that's the only reason you visit me, just that it's the reason you're here tonight." 

Hutch smiled. "Nothing gets by you, Captain." His eyes fell. "Does it bother you when Starsky and I use your title now?" 

"What, because my ticker decided it didn't want me spending the rest of my late middle age steering that department through a new generation of bureaucratic nightmares? Hmmph. 'Course not. It's how you've always known me. It'd feel strange hearing you say Harold, and if you called me Mr. Dobey, I'd look over my shoulder for my father." 

"Early retirement seems to be working for you," Hutch said, sounding hopeful. 

Dobey gestured at the pile of steno pads and photo albums on and beneath the coffee table. "Does this look like early retirement to you? You and Starsky aren't the only ones who can explore new careers. I'm writing a book." 

"That's right," Edith confirmed, carrying a small tray into the living room. "I've never seen him more thrilled with a project." She handed Hutch the mug of cocoa and sat down in the chair at the end of the coffee table.  

"It's worthwhile," Dobey said proudly. 

"He's writing about the unsung accomplishments of minorities in the LAPD," Edith explained while Hutch sipped his cocoa. 

"Elmo Jackson among them." Dobey nodded at the open photo album. "Isaac Douglas wasn't officially affiliated with the LAPD, but his work for justice qualifies his own chapter, too." He smiled. "Really, this is a grand excuse to spend time with my pretty research assistant and co-author." 

Hutch swallowed hard and coughed. Edith gasped, "Harold, you'll have the boy choking on my pie. He isn't accustomed to this new you." 

"I mean Edith of course," Dobey said. "Bet you didn't know she has a B.A. in English. She was the ghostwriter for a book a few years ago. Amalouise Parker's. Amalouise wanted to relate her experiences as a child during Watts, but she needed some help organizing her words." 

Swinging to stare at Edith, Hutch nearly upset his plate of pie. "I read that book. Starsky and I both did. It's excellent." Edith beamed. "Why didn't you tell us?" Hutch asked, indicating simultaneously with a gesture that the pie was equally excellent.  

Edith shrugged. "I didn't even tell Cal and Rosie at first, and I still refuse to make a big deal of it. I want Amalouise's words to stand on their own power. It's her spotlight, and a spotlight on the events of the times. They are her words. I just helped fit them together--like a puzzle. I suppose I felt--" The shrill of the hall phone at the stairwell interrupted her. She smiled. "That will be Elaine, I'm sure. Excuse me, Hutch." 

Dobey tapped Hutch on the shoulder. "We don't have to wait for her to get back. Edith and her sister can chat for two hours running even when there's nothing going on, and I suspect Elaine's calling to ask for advice about that nephew of mine. Why don't you tell me what's bothering you?" 

Hutch put down the remnants of his pie and finished his cocoa, and Dobey could tell he was lost in thought. "By April 30th, I have to turn in an application for the 1987 Trauma Fellowship at Memorial. The residents who apply have to attend special seminars and mini-rotations during the final year of residency, which starts in May and ends May '87, when the resident will be chosen for the Fellowship." 

"So what's the problem?" Dobey asked, cutting immediately through the extraneous information. Hutch scratched his forehead, brushed his hair back. 

"I'm not sure. When I first heard of the Fellowship, it was all I wanted. Then I had a minor career crisis about medicine, but Starsky helped me over that. Last month, though…." Hutch's face darkened. 

Dobey grunted a sigh. "Lots of people aren't over what happened last month, Hutch. It shook us all up. Edith shielded me from some of it, bless her heart, but she couldn't keep it at bay forever…especially Jeff Simmons. That's what this is about, isn't it?" 

"Partly. I've lost patients before him, and I've lost them since. That's never easy. It's harder because he was a friend and worst of all, he was indirectly intended as an object lesson for me." Hutch met Dobey's shocked expression evenly. "Mannigan's 'straighten up and fly right' sessions involve more than traffic duty in uniform." 

Dobey nodded, understanding. "Let me ask you something. You've seen both sides of a doctor's life. I wouldn't--" he coughed against a fist and commanded the waver out of his voice. "I wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for you. Simmons' death was a tragedy you couldn't prevent. Do you still want to be a doctor?" 

"Yes," Hutch said emphatically, pounding his fist on his knee to punctuate his answer. "I want to do emergency medicine. I want to do trauma work. But where does that leave--" Breaking off the sentence with a snap of teeth, Hutch looked around the room, his gaze lighting on several places that were as good as photos of his thoughts for Dobey, who shared some of the memories. 

"So that's it. That's what this is really about." Dobey nodded to himself. He should've known all along. Hutch sitting here talking to him about this meant the one person he normally sought for advice was too close to the situation. He cleared his throat and prepared to wax eloquent on a topic he didn't discuss very often.  

"I'll let you in on a little secret," he began to get Hutch's attention. When those serious blue eyes focused on him, he continued, "I was really shaken back when you and Starsky told me you weren't going to shoot for his reinstatement. Somehow, I thought I'd get you both back good as new and things would return to normal. When I realized you were really walking away for good, I didn't know how I'd ever replace you two…or replace what your partnership did for Metro. Best, cleanest, most real team I ever saw in action." 

"Thanks, Captain." But Hutch didn't sound especially grateful, and Dobey knew he was having trouble with this glimpse into the past. 

"But," Dobey said, placing loud emphasis on the word, "since things had changed between you and Starsky. Or," and his smile was shrewd, "perhaps I should say things had developed to their inevitable conclusion? Well, I selfishly supposed it was for the best. I would've grown myself ten matching ulcers trying to keep your partnership out of IA's wastebasket. The day you came to resign you both had lovey-dovey written all over you." 

At this, Hutch laughed, cheeks flushing a soft pink. 

"Almost seven years have passed under the bridge since you left, and I've come to an important conclusion. I've seen Starsky help turn out some of the finest cadet graduates to wear the uniform at a time when the LAPD desperately needs dependable, honest new blood. Last year a Starsky-protégé made detective after one of the shortest stints in uniform on record. I've heard about all the new ideas he's bringing to the Academy. 

I ordered in lunch for the whole squadroom the day you called and told me you'd gotten into med school. Sent out for ice cream and cake and had 'Congrats, Dr. Hutchinson' streamers put up in honor of your graduation. And when I see what you've become--" Dobey heard his voice turn gruff. 

"I don't know what to say," Hutch's voice was also overly gruff with emotion.  

"What I'm trying to say is that I've seen you two accomplish a lot of things separately during your years off the force, but you've always been undeniably together. And I came to see that you're better partners at life than you ever were at work. Now go on, get out of here and go talk to your partner about all this. When Edith gets off the phone, I'm going to take her out in the backyard to look at the stars." 

"At the stars? In LA?" Hutch grinned. 

Dobey chuckled. "Precisely." 

~~*~~

Starsky opened the door at the first scratch of Hutch's keys and didn't give the startled blond chance to recover before he sandwiched his face in sweaty hands and kissed him until they were both dizzy and Hutch threatened to topple backward off the front stoop.

Starsky expected his lover to push past him into the living room and go dead silent, but he was mistaken.  

Hutch licked his lips and stared at him. "Christ, Starsk!" Then Starsky was grabbed and their mouths fused again. Starsky unleashed several weeks' worth of repressed passion in the kiss and reached around to clutch at Hutch's ass, pulling him closer and closer in some attempt to draw Hutch inside his whole body, through clothes and skin. Hutch squirmed, dragged his lips over to Starsky's neck, and matched his wild movement. The image Starsky knew they presented in the glow of the outdoor lamplight--an undulating tangle of jeans, T-shirt, scrubs, and lab coat, dark and blond hair blending--only made him thrust harder into Hutch's groin. 

"Got to…take this--God, Starsk!--inside…."  

"Why?" Starsky was breathless, desperate to give more of his oxygen to the man in his arms. He covered Hutch's mouth again, crushing the lapels of the lab coat in one fist as he yanked Hutch repeatedly up against him. 

"Yes, yes!" Hutch groaned against Starsky's lips. "Faster." 

"Got me crazy, Hutch!" 

Hutch rubbed his groin in fierce, rhythmic circles answering Starsky's thrusts, then grew soft and heavy in Starsky's embrace, pleading with eyes gone midnight for him to take control. Starsky nosed through the blond hair he loved so dearly, cradled Hutch's ass, and pressed hard, quickly, into the hot, tightness he could feel through Hutch's clothes. Once, twice, and Hutch found his mouth, screaming into it and bodily jerking in Starsky's arms.

Hutch's lips turned slow and light on Starsky's, and the blond panted between kisses. "You've…made me come…on our front doorstep. Can we please go in now before the neighbors call the cops on us?" 

Dazed, Starsky stepped back and found the control had changed hands. Hutch slammed the door behind them and pushed him over to the sofa and down on it, daring him with liquid blue fire to move an inch. The clatter of falling keys sounded on the coffee table and Hutch was on his knees on the floor between Starsky's legs. Cheeks rosy from sexual need, chest heaving, he grasped and clawed at Starsky's belt and jeans zipper. 

"Oh yes, baby, suck me, want your sexy mouth…." 

"Why the hell else would I be down here?" Hutch growled through laughter that hushed when his frenzied effort had Starsky naked from waist to thigh. The light in his eyes, the rough gentleness of his hand circling Starsky's cock, were those of a man stunned in the face of love for the first time. "Starsk, hung so beautiful, oh man." 

"Oh, OH!" Starsky cried helplessly as Hutch's mouth covered and slid down his cock, teasing, gripping and pulling with the mere hint of teeth. "So much, oh, need it so much!" 

He clasped handfuls of sofa, realized he wanted more contact with Hutch and moved his hands to the white-clad shoulders within his reach. "WantYou!" A ragged scream, the plea spoke clearly to his equally impassioned man, who massaged Starsky's bared thighs and trailed his fingernails like kitten claws up to more sensitive areas. He scratched lightly at Starsky's scrotum, squeezed, and held Starsky unmoving in his mouth. Stillness and wet heat after the power of suction broke Starsky's willpower to last and linger in this paradise. Hips dancing, his hands pushing Hutch's shoulders back with the momentum, he cursed mindlessly at the joy and release. 

Hutch was still in love with him! Nothing is quite as honest and silently informative as a blowjob between longtime lovers. Starsky felt weak in the knees from relief.  

"I could…suck you…from here to eternity." 

"Isn't that the name of a film?" Starsky teased, unwilling to open his eyes and cease floating. "You give incomparable head, Blondie…. It's almost worth a dry spell to end it like that!" 

"I wanted us to talk, but I think we both needed to do it your way first." There was a soft dreaminess in Hutch's voice Starsky hadn't heard in a while. "Why don't we shower and get comfortable before we start anything heavy?" 

Starsky opened one eye and peered at his fresh-faced lover. "After that orgasm, your wish is my command, oh venerable blond sex god of the incredible mouth." 

Hutch burst out laughing. "That good, huh?" 

"Yeah, but I was talking about yours. I've never been so hot as I was watching you get off on the front step!" 

"Well, you ought to meet me at the door pawing and kissing more often." Hutch rose and reached out to pull Starsky to his feet. "You know I overheat when you turn into a wild man." 

Starsky caressed his smooth, flushed-fair cheeks, brushed fingertips up into damp blond strands. "I can't be a wild man if you aren't playin' along, sweetheart. It'd be too much like forcing you--something I'd never do." 

Starsky didn't mind standing in front of the sofa with his jeans around his thighs. Hutch held him warm and loved, kissed him in that slow, sensual, melting way that promised imminent frenzied passion. Starsky vaguely wondered if they would make it to the shower. Good thing they had several bottles of Gatorade in the fridge.  

But Hutch was now pinning him with his serious eyes. "I know. I know what I have in this relationship, and it's not something I take for granted." 

~~*~~

They lay naked and clean, curled together, on their bed in the "master suite". The smaller spare room that housed Hutch's old brass bed might be referred to as "Hutch's room" in situations demanding discretion, but this brighter, open room with its simple, mission-style bed they purchased during their first Christmas as homeowners was where they slept, played, and held their most serious, planned discussions. 

Starsky was enjoying tucking blond hair behind Hutch's ears, stroking flyaway, drying threads of gold off his handsome forehead, any excuse to touch Hutch's face satisfied Starsky--especially when it motivated Hutch to drag his fingernails lightly down Starsky's thigh and over the curves of his ass. 

"The day of the Academy crisis, I tried to get to you," Hutch said. 

"Oh, buddy." 

"No, really, all I wanted was to get to you. I saw the breaking news story on the lounge TV and rushed out of the hospital. Didn't even sign out. I made it as far as my car." 

"What happened?" Starsky asked, sensing that he was about to receive a vital clue in the mystery of Hutch's behavior over the last month. 

"Mannigan caught up with me. Fed me a speech about priorities and risking patients' lives by leaving them shorthanded. I turned around and went back inside like some meek lamb corralled by a sheepdog." 

"Hutch, you're many things, but a sheep of any kind is not one of 'em." 

"Later that night, right when I was about to leave, he called me into his office and continued the lecture. In plain terms, he let me know our relationship was none of his business except when it interfered with my patient care. He told me I basically have the goods to be a trauma specialist, but it's a drawback in his estimation that I am, for all intents and purposes, a married man with distractions and outside responsibilities." 

"What the hell is he?" Starsky demanded angrily. "Some kind of space-age robot who feeds on computer chips? You wanna tell me he has no outside responsibilities? At all? Bullshit. The only people who don't have outside responsibilities of any kind are the creeps we used to bust, or the inmates of a different kind of hospital." 

Hutch laughed. "He sounded convincing to me." 

"I'll bet he did. He has some kind of hypnosis thing going on. I'm serious! Quit giggling at me. He spreads those shoulders, spears you with those eyes and, God forbid, the eyebrow from hell, and then you hafta move forward or fall over." 

Hutch was by now convulsed in mirth. Starsky smacked his rump. Hutch subsided, grinning. "Thanks, Starsk, that helped. It doesn't change the issue. I hated myself that day. I couldn't get to you, couldn't be with you when you arrived at the ER, and had to leave you hurting with a grieving Sally and Babcock. Couldn't even drive you home." 

"Hutch, I was fine. I stayed with Sally and Babcock while they made phone calls and arrangements, and Huggy stayed with me. Maureen brought us all hot coffee and sandwiches. She even talked Babcock into eating one. I think she's learning Mannigan's hypnosis; she has Huggy smitten. He drove me home and hung out for a while. I missed you, yeah, but I knew you were where you had to be. Point is, don't you know you were where you--" 

"Yes! I know I should always be where I can do the most medical good. That's where I want to be. But Starsky, you've always been my top priority. I don't know any other reality. It feels all wrong to live with a reality that yanks that choice out of my hands." 

"I know what you mean. It was the same choice I had over that thrift shop years ago. I don't regret going to you, but losing Lionel because of the choice I made hasn't been easy to live with. I wouldn't want you to go through that now, Hutch. Besides, lover, you show me that I'm still your top priority in here." Starsky covered Hutch's heart with his warm palm. "You wouldn't be worried about this if I'd slipped off the throne." 

His smile was contagious; Hutch's lips curved sweetly. "You're super-glued and welded to that throne, partner." 

"Ouch!" Starsky laughed. "That's right, Hutch, I am your partner. Don't get all twisted up thinking that our separate careers will mean totally separate lives. I bitch to you about wayward cadets and soundboard my crazy ideas for instruction off you. I'm the man you come home to looking for a little love and comfort after a crazy shift. If your--" Starsky snickered--"sports sedan ever broke down, I'd be the one to make sure you got to work. We know the same people. We still take vacations together--or we will if Mannigan ever lets you out of his sight again. And no one else makes you make that little noise…." Starsky moved his hand down below Hutch's waist to tug gently on wiry blond-gold curls, and Hutch gave a delighted squeak-gurgle. "Yep, that noise. I love it. Big, tough ex-cop, soon-to-be hotshot trauma doctor sounding like a little mouse under my spell. Bwah hah hah." 

"Partners at life," Hutch said when he'd recovered his voice. 

"I seem to remember us touching on this subject back on Christmas Eve. Is this what this past month's been about? For someone worried about me being a top priority, you've been giving me a wide berth." 

Hutch sighed. "I wouldn't be me if I didn't do some of the most important things bass-ackward." 

"I'll give you that."  

"I think partly I was--trying to take Mannigan's lecture to the limit of the law to see if I could handle it." 

"And?" 

"And I can't hack it for shit," Hutch responded, smiling. "All medicine and no Starsky make Hutch one unhappy boy bordering on nervous breakdown. Plus, I've been trying to figure out if I want to go for this Trauma Fellowship." 

"Figure out? Hutch, that's what you've been working for all along--or have I missed a couple important chapters?" 

"It's just so…crazy. I remember how I used to bully and scorn some of the docs who treated us over the years--especially the ones who treated you. Babcock's right: I would've smacked a doctor who tried to hand me the speech I gave him when Jeff died. But now I know there's not much more a doctor can say in those situations, although I'm sure they can say it better than I did then. Do I really want to spend my life having to deliver those speeches?" 

"Come to a decision yet, or are you still open to Starsky-wisdom?" He received a slurpy Hutch-kiss and wondered if that was an answer. 

"I visited one of my success stories tonight," Hutch replied, nuzzling Starsky's cheek. Starsky listened, rapt, while Hutch told him of the captain's book project and new lease on life. "And if I can give hope to a few more Edith Dobeys along the way, then yes, that's the life for me." 

"Damn. Guess you don't need Starsky-wisdom after all." 

Hutch shook his head and pulled Starsky closer. "Always need that, buddy. If I'd come to you instead of trying to work my way solo through the last few weeks, we both would've been happier." 

"The road of life wouldn't be a road without a few speed bumps." 

"Is this your night for whimsical sayings?" Hutch dropped kisses on dark eyebrows moving down to cheekbones, and tightened his hold when Starsky wriggled against him. "I love you beyond reason." 

"That's good to know, considering how nuts I am about you." 

"It won't be easy, babe. The last year of my residency will be twice as tough if I shoot for the Fellowship--" 

"Which means this past month was a dress rehearsal," Starsky said. He smiled to soften the worry on Hutch's face. "I'm kidding. Seriously, Hutch, it's okay. We'll make the most of every minute we have together. Just don't clam up on me again. Let me in on your rough spots--that's where we're really still partners. That day at the Academy, you were there. When I rushed Martin, all I could see was you…right in front of me, with your arms open. I swear." Hutch's rigid expression made Starsky feel a twinge of self-consciousness. He had seen his beautiful angel that day, that moment, but saying it in the cold artificial light of their bedroom wasn't easy. "That may sound silly--" 

"If it's silly," Hutch said in his most loving tone, "then let's be silly the rest of our lives." 

"Deal." 

The phone rang. 

"Damn," Starsky said. "Damn. Damn. Explain to me again why the hell those damn things were invented?" 

Hutch rolled over and snagged the phone from the nightstand. "Hutchinson. Bambi? What do you need?" Starsky couldn't see Hutch's face, but the tilt of his head indicated irritation. "No. I was on call night before last, was there 'til nine tonight, and I go on at seven in the morning. I'm on call tomorrow night, Bambi; that means you tell Mannigan to pick on Oates for a change tonight. Well, I'm glad you're glad to hear it. Good night, Bambi." He slammed the receiver down and returned the phone to its proper location. 

Starsky stroked fingertips up Hutch's tense back. The muscles visibly relaxed and Hutch rolled over until he sprawled on top of Starsky. "That was one choice I could make with a clear conscience."  

Starsky let out a hungry moan he knew would heat Hutch's blood. "Is that your way of telling me we're gonna make love again?" 

"Why don't we go out in the backyard and look at the stars?" 

"In LA? You kidding?" 

"Precisely." 

Starsky laughed. "I'll bring the Gatorade." 

Hutch held him fast. "On second thought, you stay right where you are. What I want to do to you can't be done in a backyard no matter how dark and private it is." 

"Why don't you give me your own special anatomy lesson, Dr. Hutchinson?" 

THE END…FOR NOW 

Another Important Author Note: Starsky's Vietnam experience and special training alluded to in this piece are dealt with in more detail in my story entitled "Revelation," which takes place in LA, July 1979. I wanted to re-use that plot point, so I crafted "Affirmation" and "Affirmation II" to fit into the same universe. You don't have to read "Revelation" to appreciate and understand the Affirmation stories. There will be future stories in this Affirmation universe that take place between the time of "Revelation" and "Affirmation" as well as stories that take place after "Affirmation II."

In this story, I used medical terminology and procedures found in medical literature and textbooks circa 1984.