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"So that's it, then." Sitting in the rehab ward at the County Hospital, ending the last of the physical therapy sessions, Starsky looked the tech in the eye as he was told very gently, again.
"Yeah. You're done." He was a mousy specimen of a man, all told. Thinning hair, nearly colorless eyes under eyebrows that looked like two caterpillars trying to mate, hooked nose, thin-lipped and weak-chinned. Starsky knew he had at least fifty pounds on the dude, and damn if he couldn't pin him to the mat (and had) every day he'd known him. Another David, he went by Gus. For all that, he'd become a constant. Gus had come to say good-bye. Starsky was going to miss Gus.
"These days, we get you well enough to go home. Like you were a baby in the nursery, right? You're warm, you're breathing on your own and you're able to do what you're capable of doing on your own. Time to think about what going home is going to look like."
Starsky was still sitting in the wheelchair, and Gus was still sitting on the stool opposite, his hands falling between his knees as he leaned forward.
"Wait for Hutch to get here."
His head bobbed on a long neck as he agreed. "Yup. Can do, Detective."
There really wasn't anything wrong, actually. Yeah, his heart had stopped once. Yeah, there had been a bout of pneumonia, collapsed a lung but they'd brought him around. A little spinal cord damage, nothing major - just some weakness on the ride side, made getting around exhausting. He'd survived being shot three times at close range with high caliber rounds. Body can only take so much, as Hutch kept saying.
He hadn't mentioned getting back to work in weeks, if not months. It had been months. And now, he was going home. Everything that could be done, had been done. Some reconstructive surgery, rehab every day, therapy - the thanks of a grateful public.
Dobey had been by earlier that day, with lunch. It had become a ritual, something to mark off the days. Dobey came by on Wednesdays with lunch. Huggy, with chicken and waffles on Thursday night.
Hutch, every morning with donuts, or cookies or whatever someone had sent with him. "He's been driving a desk, you want to know," Dobey had groused. "He doesn't want to go out in the field without you, and I can't send him without a partner. You know that. So - he's been catching up on paperwork. Your paperwork. His paperwork. Everybody else's paperwork, and don't tell I'm said so, but he's damn good at it. So the goodies? It's people saying thanks. Enjoy them. Now hand me the sa - fuck you Starsky, gimme the salt! Man needs flavor with this slop, don't your taste buds work anymore?"
He could get out of the wheelchair, no problem. It just wore him out to walk long distances, so wheechair.
Starsky was thinking of the stairs leading up to his apartment. The stairs that led up to Hutch's place. It had taken forty-five minutes to get up ten stairs there at the hospital. How the hell was he ever going to manage at home? And that was assuming they were going to let him drive again. Reflexes, y'know.
Sighing, he waited for Hutch. When he arrived with some of Winchell's finest, he curbed the urge to ask who had found the cherry-filled donuts, they were personal favorites, but just about everyone filled them with raspberry and it wasn't the same. So he went to the next order of business.
"They're tossing me out into the street tomorrow, Hutch. Said I'm done."
As calm as still water, as warm as sunshine - two things Hutch had rarely been up to this point - he'd only looked at him, smiled and nodded. "That's great, Starsk," he'd said. "What do you want to do first?"
"Get back to work."
The temperature of the room had dropped ten degrees to match the ice in Hutch's expression. "No," he'd said, the tone not changing a note but without the smile it had become a completely different conversation.
Can't keep dancing around it. Okay, let's dance with it then. "Okay, Hutch. You tell me, then. What am I gonna do now?"
Inhaling hard through his nose, Hutch had looked around the room for several long moments.
"Something you're not telling me, buddy?" The moment the words left his mouth, Starsky knew he'd hit paydirt. Eyes rolling to meet his, Hutch's lips pressed together hard as he nodded.
"Yeah, partner. Something I didn't want to tell you. I'm going to have to retire from the force. Too," he added lamely. "I was hoping you'd come around and go home in time to get back to work, all that." A hand came up to wave aimlessly in the air as he looked away. "Some leftovers from that bug. Nothing that's going to kill me...today, but. Some long-term stuff. Can't pass the physical anymore."
"You're kidding."
"No. You want the lab results, we just did a set last week. I'm out, you're out and yeah, that's how it goes. So. It's not what you're going to do, Starsk. I was thinking, maybe. Maybe that question isn't what you're going to do, Starsk. But - maybe? Maybe it needs to be what we're going to do next."
"I can't up the stairs to your place, Hutch. And you hate mine."
"No problem, we go find a bigger place with no stairs...or an elevator. But we can start looking after each other - that is, if you want."
"Yeah," he'd heard himself say. "Yeah, I want. You nuts or something?"
And it had been as simple as that.
The bed had been big enough, and Hutch had maintained it was easier to keep tabs on him if they slept in it together. So Hutch slept like a dead alligator, looks were deceiving.
"Hutch, didn't you go to college?"
"Yeah, but I washed out of the Masters program my Dad wanted me to do. Joined the force instead."
"But you got a degree."
"Yeah, a Bachelors in English, for all the good it did me."
"You could go back."
"Yeah? To what end?"
"You remember how we used to dream about what we'd do if we got the chance to really put those guys away, the ones that got out on technicalities and shit? How about you back to school, law school this time."
"Get stuffed."
"No, no - seriously. Hear me out. It's all paid for through the rehab program, we don't have to come up with a cent. Go back to school. I'll even go with ya."
Hutch's expression had become wry at that point. "You want to be a lawyer, Starsk?"
"I don't know what I'm going to be. But I'm going to go stir crazy around this house, and there's nothing wrong with my brain. Something will come to me."
When the guidance counselor had been a small, demure woman in a wheelchair with a degree in therapy, Starsky had been sold almost on the spot. "Mr. Starsky, how did you know I hadn't gotten to work this morning by bus?"
"Your wheels are dirty, but not with the dirt outside from the quad. You live near the gardens off Baldwin, don't you? You keep telling me about meditation, right? My partner likes plants as much as you do - "
"Oh, now tell me how you know that - "
They talked more once as he began working towards his own license to do therapy. Hutch had warned him, and every morsel of it had been true - completing their respective degrees, and then passing the boards (the Bar, in Hutch's case) took years of concentrated, focused effort and a lot of missed sleep.
But a good detective turns out to make an incredibly talented therapist. He'd always liked people. He just got to help them out in different ways, now.
My partner, my buddy, my best friend...my roommate. My family. They just never let each other out of their sight.
They landed jobs, at the end. Hutch had nearly his pick of firms while Starsky found himself back at the precinct. "Hey, did you know you could register Hutch as your domestic partner? You know, like being married or family. Benefits, and shit."
"Well, sure. Why not." It had been as simple as that.
If anyone had complaints, it wasn't mentioned to their faces. Time passed, experience gained, in due time they both found themselves in the thick of the AIDS epidemic, and spent many nights over the dinner table talking shop and wondering how they had found themselves there.
Hutch represented clients dealing with end of life issues, wills and last wishes - hospital visitation, funerals. Starsky would see the same people later in the day as their therapist. He found he was very good with helping people with anger issues. Who'd have thunk it.
"We're still a team, Hutch. Just, different."
"Yeah, but this still sucks." He'd stab a baked potato with a bit more force, grumble under his breath but it was heaven and home to him, and it always would be.
"Yeah, buddy. Still sucks. Me and thee, and tomorrow we go back out there and make a difference."
"Even if it's only for Adam and Steve."
"And Alice and Eve. Them, too."
The wheelchairs got lighter and sportier. Hutch took more medication daily, but he kept up all right. If anyone had a question about the old married couple who had never married, who was the wiser?
Time passed, and the faces changed. Dobey passed away at last, but Huggy kept The Pits open for business, changing up the menu now and then to keep things fresh. When he finally threw in the towel and became a celebrity chef in his own right, who could have been prouder?
They went to many, many funerals. In the fullness of time, they became weddings instead. And then held one themselves at the bottom of the steps of the Courthouse, because Starsky didn't want to climb the stairs.
They tied cans to the wheelchair, and then held the loudest reception they could so someone would call the cops on them to shut it down. They came, of course. And brought their friends.
It wasn't the life they had expected as detectives on the force, but hell if it hadn't been a good one in spite of everything. Damn, getting shot all to hell and breakfast had it's advantages. And if Hutch ever quibbled or groused about the hand they'd been dealt, he'd been there to remind him that "It is was it is" had been damn good.
Sweet revenge, indeed.