Archive of Our Own

His clothing fluttered in the slight breeze as he sat on the ground, admiring the view before him. There was an energy present, an earth power that pulsed despite the atrocities committed here by man a few decades ago...and yes, the ones that were still going on. It was easy to forget all that, and be one with this place as it must have been hundreds of years ago, before man cast his diseased finger upon this land. He'd been led to this place, this very spot. And here he sat. Waiting...

“What'cha thinkin' about, partner?” Came the soft inquire behind him.

Starsky suppressed the automatic flash of irritation at the interruption. None of this was Hutch's fault, and he was trying too, struggling to find solid footing again after the near destruction of their life.

Our life...

“The meaning of life,” he answered, to see what the reaction would be.

“Heavy thoughts,” his partner offered, coming nearer, hesitant, as if afraid of his welcome. He leaned against a convenient boulder. “Careful a scorpion doesn't decide to join you.” It was said lightly, a substitute Starsky knew, for the words that were there just beneath the surface.

Should you be sitting on the ground like that?

You'll get stiff.

And, his personal least-favorite: You don't want to over-do it.

He was sick of not being able to over-do it. Tired of his body not responding to his commands, of not being able to make demands of it. He was only thirty-six, but most days he felt more like seventy. Oh, everyone said he was healing fast, even his physical therapist had assured him that he was making progress quicker than any patient he'd ever had. It wasn't fast enough.

They didn't understand, no one did. They didn't have a partner out there, alone, without anyone to watch his back. Without Starsky to watch his back. If Hutch thought he was the only one sick with worry all the time, he was wrong.

This vacation was supposed to be a good idea. Starsky still had a long way to go before he went back to work... if ever, a traitorous voice whispered maliciously. Hutch had drifted through several temporary partners, always managing to run them off before long. Finally, Dobey strongly suggested he take some time off, get his head together. Yet it was Starsky who was using the time to do soul searching. Hutch seemed to be content to continue pretending.

“So that's what you're doin' out here, staring at cactus?” Hutch teased when his partner didn't use the opening. “You couldn't do that from a nice comfortable hotel room?”

“Nope.” He was reluctant to say that he was waiting for the Earth to give him the answers he sought. Might sound like his mind was as broken as his body.

They'd always talked to each other before, shared intimate thoughts and feelings, but now a chasm had opened up between them, and Starsky wasn't sure how to breach it. Or if he should. Or... maybe it was fear.

“You can talk to me, partner, ya know?” Hutch said, as if reading his mind. Maybe he had. They were that close.

Without you, there's no me. It was an echo of dream that felt more like a memory. In his mind's eye, he could see Hutch sitting there, talking to him. Most of those early days were like a dream though, as he drifted in a drugged up haze, fighting to keep breathing. Bits and pieces would randomly pop into his head, things heard and witnessed. The responsibility of those words terrified him. It held more implications than he could bring himself to ponder.

“What if I can't go back,” Starsky finally blurted, knowing he could sit out there forever and not get any clarity until he talked to his partner.

Hutch sank down onto the dirt beside him with an air of facing the inevitable. “Hey, you're doin' great. The PT said--”

Starsky interrupted the predictable reply. “What if I don't want to,” he forced the words out reluctantly.

The silence was absolute. He listened to the birds, and considered checking to see if the rustling sound heard was a snake or not. Decided his staunch protector would have shot it by now if it was. He swallowed a laugh. There was nothing funny about this situation.

“You... you don't want to?” Hutch finally responded with the soft question.

Starsky sighed, and it all came out in a rush. There was something about being out in the desert, in nature, it seemed to give him courage. “I don't know. It's gonna be a long time before they clear me for duty. Even when they do... I don't know. What if it's you next time?” he asked, turning to face his partner. “Is it really worth it?!”

The question wasn't new, it's something they'd struggled with ever since things had started going wrong. It felt too much like their renowned luck had run out, and he was scared to death to push it any more than they had already. If anything happened to Hutch...

Without you, there's no me.

Hutch retreated again into their usual banter. “Well... we gotta do something right, if we're not gonna be cops?”

Starsky allowed it. “Well, maybe we outta go down to Bolivia, try robbing banks?” he returned. Funny how they could still remember the words they'd said so long ago, when his Terry had died and he hadn't known if he could continue.

“That didn't work out too well for Butch and Sundance,” Hutch pointed out, breaking the spell of nostalgia.

“Is this workin' out for us?” he countered, bringing them back to the subject.

“I don't know,” Hutch admitted. “Hell, we've been here before, haven't we?”

Indeed, they had. The vision of the two of them, throwing their badges into the ocean, seemed to float in the air in front of him.

“I do believe in the job,” Starsky insisted. “In what we were doing. It's just...” Not worth your life, he wanted to say. How ironic that it was him who'd nearly died, but the overwhelming concern on his mind was for his partner.

“Maybe the price is too high,” Hutch finished. Eerie, the way they were in sync.

“And what about you, Hutch? You can barely stand to let me go to the bathroom by myself. What happens when I'm on the street again?” He dared speak of the things they'd been ignoring. The blond had been driving him crazy since he'd come home from the hospital, fussing over him worse than a mother hen. He'd alternated between being glad to see Hutch go to work, to worried sick until he returned. The game they were playing couldn't last much longer. The cracks were showing, and they were about to shatter.

“I don't know,” Hutch breathed, sounding like the words were wrenched out of him.

“So where does that leave us?”

“Do we have to decide now?” his partner asked desperately.

“I think that's what this vacation is all about,” Starsky answered.

“Didn't work out too well the last time we quit the force, either,” Hutch reminded.

Starsky stared at the view, formulating a response. “Pretend. If this desert could grant the wish you want most, what would you ask it for?”

“You to stay alive,” Hutch answered quickly. “And us partners...” he added more slowly.

Why was that non-negotiable? He didn't know, but they both felt the same.

“Okay, so that's a start, anyway,” Starsky told him, as the words fitted themselves together before his brain even caught up. “And we both need to be doin' something important, helpin' people. Maybe PI's or something. But first I gotta get stronger.” He paused. “What would you say if I asked you to take an indefinite leave of absence from the force?”

“I might ask why.”

“Because I need you alive,” he answered simply.

“I feel like... we're letting the fear win.”

“Or the universe is tryin' to tell us to quit while we're ahead,” Starsky countered. “I need...time. Breathing space to figure everything out.”

“Fair enough. Things will be tight without income, but you've got the disability, and I have a bit of savings left...”

Starsky slid a sideways look at his partner. “We still own that fixer-upper,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You're kidding.”

“What ya really think I could get anyone to take it off our hands? We could maybe... well, fix it up. Cheaper than renting, and give us something to do with our time while we decide where to go from here.”

“You're still trying to get me to live with you,” Hutch said, but he was smiling.

“It's a good idea, and ya know it.”

“As long as we don't kill each other.” Hutch nudged his partner's arm with his own.

“As long as you don't kill me with the hovering,” Starsky countered, nudging back.

“Was I that bad?”

“I don't want to damage our partnership by answering that.”

Hutch's grinned, and for the first in a long time, Starsky found himself grinning back.

“Okay,” Hutch said, holding out his hand for a formal shake-on-it.

Starsky took the hand but used it to pull him into a sideways hug. “Good, now help me get up off this ground, because I probably woulda been here forever if ya hadn't come along.”

“Take a hot bath when we get back to the hotel,” his overprotective partner suggested. “It'll loosen up those stiff muscles.”

“Yes, mommy.”

It wasn't going to be easy, they still had a lot to work out and they probably would drive each other crazy... but in the end, no matter what the questions were, the answer was always the same.

Me and Thee.

The end