Reggie

   There were a few times he'd really missed having the light and siren in the Torino; mostly, it was when he was stuck in traffic on the freeway somewhere, or caught really late for class after another late night of studying - either his books, or Hutch. Somehow, it always seemed to be one or the other of those two things that kept him up nights.

   Now, he'd have given his right arm - or even the left - for the few minutes of allowable haste the siren would have provided him, but he satisfied himself with pushing the car as fast as it would almost-legally go. It was one of the reasons that he kept the car in top condition - so that it would give him what he needed from it when he needed it. That was something that Hutch had never really understood. Or maybe he had; Hutch understood a lot of things that he good-naturedly grumbled about. It was part of the patter of their friendship that Hutch needled him about his car and his appetite and he needled the big lug about his looks and his food and his music. It was what they did. He'd be lost without it.

   He parked illegally in front of the hospital and slid over the hood of the car, just barely acknowledging the sound of the door clicking shut before he was barreling through the automatic doors. Doctors and nurses milled around, like they always did; he eschewed the information desk where he was guaranteed to get the run-around, and instead looked around for a familiar face.

   The one he found wasn't who he expected, but he strode over to the starkly lit waiting area where Hutch's partner sat, head in his hands. Starsky put a hand on his shoulder to attract his attention and then spoke, slowly and deliberately. "Where's Hutch?"

   Mike Thomas finally looked up at him, and Starsky was struck once again by the man's youth; even the nascent mustache he'd grown in an attempt to look older and more 'street-wise' seemed to have almost the opposite effect on his puppy-ish looks. He was pale and seemed dazed and unaware of his surroundings; Starsky recognized the unfocused look in his eyes as the aftereffects of shock. "Dave," he said, softly, with a smile. "Hey. What are you doing here?"

   "Where's Hutch?" Starsky repeated again.

   "I guess Captain Dobey must've phoned you, eh? I think he's around here somewhere." Thomas looked around, a puzzled expression on his face. "He was going to get coffee, I think."

   Starsky glanced around the hallway, but didn't see the Captain anywhere, and returned his focus instead to the man in front of him. "Mike, you've got to pay attention to me, okay? What happened to Hutch?"

   "There were two of them, and then there was shooting - " Thomas said. "He was shooting at him, and - I didn't even see the gun, at first, and then - he was just shooting at him." He shook his head, resting it again in his hands.

   "Where's Hutch?"

   "I don't - I don't know." Thomas looked around again, like Hutch should have been sitting right beside him. "They took him - I don't know," he said, again.

   Finally at the end of his patience, Starsky pulled Thomas out of his seat, drew the man up to his full height and threw him against the wall. "Where's Hutch?" he shouted.

   "Starsky!" That familiar bellow stopped Starsky just short of slapping Thomas across the face to get him to snap out of it and give him some real answers. Dobey strode over to them with fierce, snapping anger in his movements, but Starsky knew it was the same as his own feelings - directed at the situation in general, and not at any person specifically. "He's going to be fine. I told you that on the phone."

   "You also told me he got shot, on the phone," Starsky said, painfully uncurling his fingers from where they'd dug into the front of Thomas' jacket. Once released, the young man sank back down into his chair. "I wanna see him for myself."

   Dobey just nodded. "Come on and sit down," he said. "He's been in there a while. They should be bringing him out of surgery soon." He pulled Starsky physically away from Thomas, and over to the opposite side of the waiting room, settling him in a chair before going to find a nurse who could give them some information.

   Starsky sat down and breathed in and out, deeply, and then stood up and paced, waiting for Dobey to return, deliberately ignoring the shaken form of Hutch's partner sitting silently across from him. Dobey came back with a couple of cups of bad hospital coffee and a nurse who repeated what he'd said about Hutch's injuries not being that severe and that he'd be coming out of surgery 'soon.' She even suggested that Starsky and the others go home and come back the next morning, but Dobey cut her off and sent her scurrying back to her post before Starsky could do more than get halfway to his feet. He slid back down into the chair, boneless, and held the coffee Dobey gave him until it went cold in the cup.

   Thomas stayed where he sat; Dobey walked over to him after a few moments and talked to him, but he didn't give any answers that Starsky could hear. He almost felt bad for the guy - he was still a rookie in the department, just a few months in, and despite all of the jokes Hutch made about the 'fetus', Starsky could tell he really liked the kid. Under different circumstances, he'd have gone over and talked to him; now, he knew he wouldn't be any good to anyone.

   Now, all he needed to do was talk to Hutch.

********

********

   'Soon' was a purely relative term in medical circles; it turned out, this time, to mean forty-five nerve-racking minutes later. Finally, a surgeon came out in scrubs to give the information Starsky had been praying they'd hear: Hutch came through the surgery with flying colors, and the doctor gave him an excellent prognosis of recovery from the clean shoulder wound. The bullet went right through, leaving relatively minimal damage in its wake. All and all, it could have gone a lot worse; of course, not having been shot at all would have made things a lot better.

   Dobey turned out to be the fairy godfather Starsky'd always suspected he'd was; after he had a few words with the nurse they'd spoken to earlier, Starsky was amazed to find himself being led back into the recovery room - which was almost never allowed, except for close family members. The fact that there was nobody else closer to Hutch than he was usually didn't make much of an impression on other people.

   Hutch was still out, lying unconscious but breathing evenly under the stark hospital lights. His golden color was now faded to a pale pallor, he was smothered in a few layers of warm thermal blankets, and he was hooked up to a couple of beeping monitors and an iv. His blond hair was matted, his face was bruised, and there was a bundle of bandages around his right shoulder, still surrounded by messy splotches of iodine. All in all, Starsky was sure he'd never seen anyone in his life who looked more beautiful.

   "Two minutes," the nurse warned him, letting him know by her tone that she didn't agree with this visit at all, and he nodded automatically, without even looking at her. She withdrew reluctantly and closed the curtains around the bed.

   "Hutch?" Starsky went around the bed and stood at the side opposite his injured shoulder. He gingerly lifted Hutch's hand from under the covers and squeezed. "Hutch?"

   Hutch's eyelashes fluttered and his eyes opened. Starsky's heart leapt when he felt the hand in his squeeze back and caught the quirking of his lover's lips in a tiny half-smile. Hutch opened his mouth to speak, but no sound emerged.

   "Easy," Starsky warned him. "Don't move, don't try to say nothin', okay? You pull anything, and that nurse'll have my hide. You remember the one from the last time I was in here? She's got nothin' on this one."

   Hutch smiled, then blinked a couple of times, licked his lips and tried to speak again. Starsky leaned close so he could hear him. "How - ?" he managed, raggedly.

   "You're going to be fine," Starsky soothed. "The surgery went great. Everything's great. You're gonna be good as new. Better, even. Think they threw in some bionics while they were puttin' you back together, seein' as this is your second time through."

   Hutch tried to laugh, but the effort seemed to exhaust him. Starsky rested his fingers against Hutch's cheek, to relax him. "Mike?" Hutch croaked.

   "Not doin' so great, but he wasn't hurt at all. Right now, he looks worse than you do, partner." Starsky smiled, and then said, "Look, don't worry about anything, okay? I'm here, I'm not goin' anywhere, and you're going to be fine." The more he repeated it, the more he found himself believing what he said was true. "Just go back to sleep, okay? When you wake up again, you'll be in your room, and I'll be right there with ya, you big lug, even if I gotta arm-wrestle that nurse to do it."

   Hutch smiled again, and then his eyes drifted shut and he fell back into a healing sleep. Starsky brushed the hair away from his forehead and then placed a kiss there, reluctantly releasing Hutch's slack hand from his grasp. He left when the nurse returned to escort him away, without protest.

********

********

   Starsky had to elbow Mike in the shoulder before he took the proffered cup of coffee. He lifted it to his lips and drank, but Starsky was pretty sure that, if questioned, he wouldn't have been able to tell whether the cup held coffee, tea, or warmed-up rat poison. He looked like hell, with dark circles under his eyes and his shaggy brown hair sticking up in all directions from hours of nervously running his hands through it.

   "Where's the Cap'n?"

   Mike frowned, and looked around, as if just now realizing they were alone in the room. "Gone to use the phone, I think. He said something about calling his wife, and Huggy Bear. How's Hutch?"

   "He's good. They got him stoned silly on painkillers, and he's sleepin'. They'll be movin' him to a room, soon. He's gonna be fine," Starsky said.

   Mike nodded. "That's good."

   "Yeah, it is." Sitting down beside him, he asked, "What about you?"

   "Oh, I'm fine."

   "Sure you are. You look great." Starsky took a mouthful of his own coffee. "So, you want to talk about it?"

   Mike shrugged. "Not really," he said, but he started to talk, anyway. "We were going to talk to a witness when we heard the call. It was strictly routine," he said. "Suspicious activity in an alley behind a bar. We were in the area, so we responded. It turned out to be a couple of dealers selling to a group of kids - most of 'em scattered when we showed up."

   "The smart ones, no doubt," Starsky agreed.

   "Yeah," Mike laughed, a strangled, verging-on-the-hysterical sound. Starsky put a hand on his back to steady him, and to encourage him to go on with the story. "I got one of 'em on the ground right away, and Hutch went after the other one, who ran. I cuffed mine and threw him in the back of the car, and then went to see how Hutch was doing." He shook his head. "I should have stayed with him.

   "By the time I got there, it was a standoff. The alley was a dead end, and the dealer turned around and pulled a gun, was pointing it right at him, cool as a cucumber. Hutch was trying to talk him into putting it down, and then the other guy yelled something from inside the car, and startled everyone, and - the guy just fired, right at Hutch." Mike shrugged. "So I fired, too. I was going for the shoulder, to disarm him."

   Starsky knew the rest of the story from there; Dobey had let him know that the dealer took a shot in the heart and died on the way to the hospital. There were a couple of outstanding warrants on the guy for possession and dealing - mostly to area minors - and he had a rap sheet as long as his arm. Starsky also knew, from Hutch, that none of that would make much of a difference to Thomas, who had never shot anyone before, much less fatally.

   Mike stood up, and started pacing the room. "What I want to know is, what the hell are these guys thinking? Time was, you were a dealer, you sold your stuff, and that was it. Want to boost a car or lift a television set? Go for it. And now - now you can just go get yourself a gun and start shooting people, and it doesn't mean anything."

   "It means something," Starsky said. "To you and me, and Dobey, and Hutch, and a lot of other people, it means something."

   "Why?" Mike asked. "That guy was scum. He would have killed Hutch and me without a second thought, and gone off and killed god knows how many other people as soon as look at them. So how come I feel - " He couldn't continue.

   "Like you just took someone's life?" Starsky asked.

   Mike nodded. "Yeah."

   "Because you did. Because it don't matter that the guy was the scum of the earth - and if it does start to matter, you've got to stop doin' this, because that's the line you cross where you won't be any better 'n them."

   "Am I?"

   "Yeah," Starsky said, fiercely. "You are. You saved your partner's life today. I can't tell you how to feel about any of the rest of it - nobody can. You've gotta deal with that on your own. It's one of those things that nobody understands until they go through it, ya know? All I can tell ya - and I don't even know if it makes any difference to you, but it means a hell of a lot to me - is thanks." Starsky put out his hand, and Mike, startled, took it, raising his dark eyes to Starsky's. "Thanks for saving his life, from me. He'll want to thank you himself when he can."

   Mike nodded, but he held on to Starsky's hand for a long time. When Dobey returned with the newly arrived Huggy, he smiled at Starsky, unseen by Thomas. Starsky knew what the smile meant, and returned it, and they all settled in to wait for news of Hutch's status.

********

********

   It was the middle of the night of the longest day of Starsky's life before Hutch opened his eyes again.

   "Hey," Starsky said.

   "Hey." Hutch's voice was still raw and dry, and Starsky poured a cup of water and brought the straw to his lips. "Thanks."

   "Anytime."

   "Mike go home?"

   "Yeah. He waited until after they brought you in here - I think he wanted to see you were okay for himself. The Cap'n took him home. Huggy was here for a while, too, but I told him to come back tomorrow."

   "Good. What time is it?"

   "I don't know," Starsky said, and laughed when Hutch frowned at him. He then looked at his watch. "A little before three."

   "That's late."

   "Yeah. You know, blondie, when you get out of here," Starsky said, "I'm gonna take you out somewhere and give you a refresher course on the meaning of the word 'duck'."

   "I'd rather have one on 'goose'," Hutch said, waggling his eyebrows.

   Starsky sputtered out a laugh. "You are a dirty old man," he accused, adding, "thank goodness for that."

   Hutch's smile slowly faded. "Sorry," he said, and Starsky didn't have to ask for what.

   "It's okay," he said. "Hey, you know what they say about scars earned in the line of duty?" Hutch shook his head. "They drive the ladies wild."

   "Yeah?"

   "Uh-huh."

   "That's good to know," Hutch said. "It's too bad I don't care about the ladies anymore."

   "No?"

   "Nope. Just dark-haired, blue-eyed ex-policemen with a taste for fast cars."

   "Well, I think you've got enough scars to drive me wild for the rest of my life. So feel free to just stop getting new ones." Starsky closed his eyes and rested his head down on the bed, the weight of the long day suddenly washing over him. "Oh, babe."

   "Starsk, I want to ask you something, and I want you to give me an honest answer."

   Hutch's voice was so serious that Starsky immediately raised his eyes. "Okay."

   "Do you want me to quit?"

   Even though they'd discussed it before in passing, it wasn't what he expected him to say. "Honestly? I think about it every hour of every day." Starsky shook his head, and grinned. "I understand, now, that look - you know the one, when you're gettin' up in the morning and the woman you spent the night with is lookin' at you, wondering if you're gonna come home that night in one piece." Hutch nodded. "I understand now why most of 'em didn't want to stick around long enough to find out."

   "And what about you?"

   "Me?" Starsky asked. "I'm gonna stick around. It don't end - even if we weren't together like we are, it wouldn't end. It ain't that easy for us. Maybe we've just been around too long." Starsky picked up Hutch's good hand and brought it to his lips, then rested his cheek on it. "Maybe I just love ya too much."

   "That's not possible."

   "Yeah," Starsky agreed. He shifted forward, and Hutch rested his hand lightly on a wild tangle of curls. "You think they'll actually find a way to make these hospital chairs more comfortable one of these days?"

   "I doubt it. There's always - " Hutch indicated the little bit of empty bed beside him.

   "Better not," Starsky said. "This ain't like last time - I prob'ly couldn't control myself if I got in bed with you."

   "Would that be such a bad thing?"

   "It might give the night nurse a shock."

   "I've seen her," Hutch grinned. "She looks like she could use a little shaking up."

   Starsky snorted. "Yeah. And then she'd kick my ass out, and I ain't plannin' on going anywhere tonight, partner."

   Hutch's voice was soft, and husky. "Good," he said, and then tried unsuccessfully to swallow a yawn.

   "Get some sleep," Starsky said. He leaned back in his chair, trying to find the most comfortable position for spending the next several hours.

   Hutch's eyes were still closed when he said, "You know, you never did tell me if you wanted me to quit."

   "Didn't I?" Starsky mused. In a matter of seconds, Hutch was asleep.

********

THE END

The Sequel to the story is After The War