by Ellis Murdock

23 May, 2003

Acknowledgments: Fervent thanks and admiration are due Sam Grayson and Sue David for their wise counsel, suggestions, and superlative edit! My deepest gratitude, as well, to Kaye Austen Michaels for the brainstorming session, unfailing encouragement, and making the process considerably more fun than it probably has a right to be.

This is NOT a death story. A sizable section reads like a death story, parts of it look like a death story, but it just…isn't. Honestly. Those of you familiar with my work know that I write exclusively in one universe, and that all of my pieces connect, intersect, and reference each other. It's a universe in which both characters are alive and (mostly <g>) well many, many years past the events of Sweet Revenge, so don't let appearances to the contrary deceive you.

*****

Excerpt, The Lady of Shalot

-- Alfred Lord Tennyson

While defensive driving dictated the sudden and emphatic use of brakes, Starsky still had immediate cause to regret the action. The unintentionally abrupt halt lurched him forward into the steering wheel—not enough to cause further injury, but with more than sufficient force to herald the return of the nagging pain that had been plaguing his ribcage and abdomen for the better part of two days now. The arm that had instinctively shot forward to shield his partner from an intimate encounter with the dashboard now drew in, and Starsky fought against doubling over. Deep breaths, don't wince, and maybe he won't notice anyth—

"You okay?"

And maybe we'll both sprout wings and fly over the evening traffic. "Yeah, it's nothing. That lunch you rammed down my throat just came back with a vengeance, that's all."

Hutch glared. "First of all, I'd like to see anyone try to shove something down your throat when you don't want it there—"

The look Starsky tossed his way didn't rattle Hutch enough to drop the subject entirely, but the pleasing reddish tint that crept over his partner's cheeks gave Starsky a comparable degree of satisfaction.

"Secondly," Hutch continued, undeterred, "those are your ribs you're holding, not your stomach." Absently bouncing a ping-pong ball against the dashboard, he added, "Even if the squid had been bad, I don't think it escaped into your chest."

"Shows what you know."

"I wish you'd have taken a couple more days. You hit that dumpster with a hell of a lot of force."

"Nothing broke, but my holster," Starsky reminded him, edging them back into the light congestion. "'Sides, it hurt worse at home with no distractions. Mostly just a dull ache now." The statement was spoken with impressive conviction, having the advantage of being mostly true. One glance at his partner told him Hutch had been less than impressed, however, and the ping-pong ball's dramatically increased action served as independent corroboration. "Where'd you get that thing, anyway?"

"Dobey said no more ping-pong in the squad room."

"This is a problem? Since when do we play—" Starsky's intended query was rudely interrupted by a muscle spasm in his abdomen that seemed to dovetail with a sudden wave of heat. Over almost the instant he was aware of it happening, he briefly considered pulling over, then dismissed the idea. No more squid for you. Ever.

If Hutch had noticed anything, he made no mention of the fact, and for that, Starsky was grateful. Even the annoying white ball had been put away, leaving a blissful quiet in its wake. At least, it should have been blissful. Instead, he found something about the ensuing silence…unnatural? Wiping a film of perspiration from his forehead, it took a moment for the reason behind his unease to sink in: not only was Hutch quiet, everything was quiet. Traffic, engine, the plane overhead—nothing seemed capable of penetrating what felt like the car's never-before-encountered interior sound barrier. Irrationally, Starsky tapped against the steering wheel just to confirm that it wasn't his hearing, and was more than just slightly reassured by the audible percussion. "S'pose Sanger'll be a no-show?"

Hutch lost the battle with a yawn, and shrugged. "He's never won reliability points in the past, so if I had to lay odds?" He shook his head. "If Camden really is back in town, I'd much rather hear it from a source we can make book on."

"Yeah, but where's the fun in that? This way, we get to chase people all over town, ask questions no one wants to answer, and still not know anything by the end of the shift. Speaking of which," he glanced at his watch and frowned. Stopped at four-fifteen, not only was it not working, the hands were actually spinning backward, very slowly. Starsky tapped it a few times, then held it to his ear, a depressingly dull, irregular click the only sound his two-hundred and fifty dollar timepiece seemed capable of producing at this point.. You, too? Guess it wasn't just the holster, after all. Terrific. "Hey, you got the time?"

"Seven-forty-two." Hutch grinned. "Another watch funeral? I keep telling you to buy the cheap ones. They last forev—" He stopped mid-sentence, pointing out the driver's side window. "Whoa, back up! Isn't that Wallace?"

The prospect of spotting the robbery suspect for whom they'd been searching the city for the better part of the past three months was more than worth delaying a meeting with the notoriously iffy Sanger, and Starsky spun into the alley without even bothering to slow down. "Which way?"

"He ducked in there." Hutch indicated the direction with a nod of his head. "I'm sure it was him."

Slowing to a crawl, Starsky watched for the least movement, found none. In fact, if it hadn't been for the neat, symmetrical row of evenly stuffed black garbage bags lining the alley, it would have looked as though no one had been down that way in ages—the walls were strikingly free of graffiti, not a scrap of litter in sight. Strange…. "Anything?"

Hutch shook his head, pounding a fist against the dash in frustration. "Damn! He was right here."

"Wanna get out and look?" Starsky stopped the car, not expecting an answer to his obviously rhetorical question, and Hutch didn't disappoint by offering one. The plan was familiar enough to require no verbal planning: one would start at the point they'd turned in, the other from the opposite end, and they'd meet in the middle—trapping Wallace in the process, if they were lucky.

"Ready?" Hutch had his Magnum already in hand, and used it to indicate the path he'd take.

Starsky nodded grimly. "See ya." A code between them that meant far more than the two words implied, he was unprepared for the extended, ominously haunted look that washed over his partner's features. No, you won't. Unspoken, it couldn't have been clearer had it been shouted from a rooftop. Starsky shivered despite the oppressive summer heat, and felt an unfamiliar sense of panic take hold. "Hutch—"

Out of reach of the hand that extended his way, Hutch smiled sadly and nodded toward the seat from which he'd just risen.

Starsky glanced down to find the ping-pong ball dead center on the passenger seat, vibrating in time to the car's engine. The hell? If it was intended to be significant of…anything, he'd missed the boat entirely. "Wait, I don't understand. Hutch?" By the time he looked up again, Hutch had vanished.

Heart pounding, and suffused with a sense of dread beyond anything he could remember having experienced before, Starsky moved by rote and brought the Torino to a stop at the northern juncture of alley and street. Parking sideways was standard operating procedure, as it would, if not block the route entirely, at least force someone to slow down before using it as an exit. Not that it will matter. It wasn't deja vu he was feeling, exactly, but the even stranger sense of being both a simultaneous participant and observer in events that would follow a preordained course. An inner voice taunted that whatever force had brought them here and set the sequence into motion would brook no change in plans. It's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, it's….

Exiting the car revealed the presence of black garbage bags on both sides of the buildings, and Starsky felt oddly drawn to them, his curiosity more than just slightly piqued. It was important, somehow, to know their contents, yet at the same time, his feet didn't seem to want to make the detour to the side. Something about them—their alignment, fanatical uniformity, a gnawing sense that he was already aware of the nature of what lay hidden within—combined to create an inexplicably intense degree of terror. It will keep until later, he told himself. Hutch and I can open them together. Only, it wouldn't happen that way, he knew. If they were to be opened at all, he'd have to do it himself.

Struggling for breath before taking more than a few steps, everything in his path snapped into unnaturally sharp focus. The sudden clarity of vision was disconcerting, and Starsky strained to hear the least sound, spot the merest rustle of movement. Hutch was nowhere in sight, and for a brief second it felt as though no one else existed. Once again, there was no auditory presence at all, save for the pounding of his own pulse as it reverberated throughout his entire body…and even that was felt, as much as heard.

Then, everything changed. Hutch emerged from the doorway of a building about thirty feet from where Starsky stood, shaking his head to indicate the all-clear. A millisecond later, another doorway opened behind and to his left. Wallace. And Wallace was aiming a high-powered rifle directly at Hutch's back.

Starsky tried to scream for Hutch to get down, but it came out garbled, sounding very much like he'd called his own name, by mistake—his voice adding to the sensation that time had altered course and was now moving far slower than normal. Hutch spun around before Starsky could get off a shot, raising his Magnum at the same time as both the rifle and Beretta discharged.

Starsky's gun hit its target, but the rifle had, too. As Hutch folded to the ground, Starsky continued squeezing off rounds until Wallace impacted the door behind him and slid down.

"Huuutch!" No answer. Fear forced him to take his eyes off their suspect just long enough to assess his partner's condition—a desperate bid for any indication Hutch was still alive. Vaguely reassured by the faint movement of a leg, he forced himself to return focus to securing the scene, and was shocked to find that Wallace was no longer propped against the doorway…no longer anywhere in sight. A cursory scan revealed not even a trace of blood. Kevlar vest? And still on the loose. The manual dictated a specific course of action for situations such as these, and Starsky willfully ignored the entire protocol, making his way to Hutch without conscious awareness of his feet touching the pavement. If what he suspected was true, nothing much mattered anymore, anyway.

"Hutch?" Starsky dropped to his knees and into a pool of warm blood, breathless, trying to ignore the faint odor of copper that hung in the air. "How you doin', huh? Talk to me." While Hutch's lips were moving, the only sound was a sickening gurgle as pink foam drained from his mouth. "Hang in there, okay? Gonna be fine. I just need to check you out." Ripping open Hutch's shirt exposed three entrance wounds; another near the hip was hidden by trousers. Sucking chest wounds, he thought, heart sinking. Removing his jacket with trembling hands, Starsky pressed it hard against the openings, recalling from both the required first aid courses and his experiences in Vietnam that air will pass through the chest defect, rather than the trachea, ultimately resulting in suffocation. If you don't bleed out first. For everything he did to Hutch, Starsky felt the corresponding physical sensation himself, almost as though their bodies had formed a twinship that matched their souls. The gurgling became less obvious, but was replaced by an equally chilling, primal, rattling moan.

"I need help here!" Starsky screamed, his voice loud enough that it should have caught the attention of anyone within several blocks' radius. Silence. Helplessly, he tried twice more before concluding that a sprint to the Torino to radio for help would be their only chance. "Hang in there, buddy, and I'll be right back." Trying to hook Hutch's arms across his chest to keep pressure on the wounds, he made to get up, but was stopped by a vise-like grip on his arm. "Hutch, please." Frantically, Starsky tried to disengage the unnaturally white fingers long enough to make the dash for the car. "I'll be just a second, I promise."

Hutch shook his head vehemently, his eyes wild. "Too…late," he hissed.

"Don't say that! It's not true," Starsky pleaded. "No, just hold on, okay?" His voice turned traitor, betraying him with a waver that made him sound like a five-year-old. "Hutch, it'll be okay."

Hutch shook his head, less violently this time, tugging Starsky close to his lips, hand flailing until it cupped his partner's cheek. "Be…okay." His eyes conveyed the part of the message his voice could not. Not a parroted phrase, it was, instead, an entreaty.

"NO! Hutch? Don't do this to me, do you hear?! You can't—" The hand that pressed against his cheek slipped toward his lips then, effectively arresting further protests. Starting to rock slightly back and forth, Starsky reached for Hutch's hand, pressed it to his chest, and clung, every other grief endured over the years revisiting him in a travesty of the life-flashing-before-your-eyes cliché. Considering all things, maybe not such a travesty, after all. His father, Laura Anderson, Aunt Rosie and Uncle Al, Billy, Dusty, and other comrades from the war—even Helen and Terry came to him. Losses, all, but none whose leaving had extirpated more than half of Starsky's core being…the substance that made him who he was. How did you continue when only part of you remained?

Suddenly, Hutch's body convulsed in a violent spasm, his gasps aptly testifying to the fact that the man was inhaling more fluid than air. Their eyes locked for a second, then nothing. "Hutch?!" Starsky knew, but shook him anyway. No, no, no. "Hutch?" He yelled again for help that wouldn't come, and received no response other than his own voice echoing off the walls. Reverently, Starsky lifted his partner's torso into his lap and rocked in the complete and utter silence. For the first time in his life, David Michael Starsky was totally alone. He offered no objection to the darkness that threatened to overtake him, and slipped willingly into the void.

*****

Whoever was gripping his forearms was doing so with enough force to cause pain, but Starsky wasn't going to release his hold on Hutch's body. To do so meant that it was over, and he wasn't ready for that. Not yet. The owner of the arms was persistent, though, and it became increasingly difficult to ignore the pressure and voice that were urging him to surface. The voice. But, that was impossible.

"Get away from me," he spat, trying to extricate himself from the hold. The arms only tightened further, the voice becoming stronger, and somewhat more distinct. It was insistent enough that Starsky finally risked slitting his eyes and peeking, regretting it instantly. The alley dissolved in a confusing display of light and color, parts replaced with objects he could almost call familiar, had they not been so distorted—geometric shapes without depth or solid form—others nothing more than a series of ill-defined, undulating blurs. His name was yelled more emphatically now, and a hand below his chin forced his head up until he was eye-to-eye with…Hutch? Only, not Hutch. The phantom before him was comprised of angles and circles meshed into something vaguely resembling his partner, but it was empty, held none of his essence.

"Starsky, can you hear me?"

The voice had evolved from demanding to pleading, but remained all wrong. As such, Starsky chose to ignore it in favor of gaining his bearings in the room. If it is a room. It was a hallucination of some sort, obviously; he'd had a few in his tenure on the planet, and it had all the hallmarks. I've actually lost my mind. He'd have laughed, had the reason for the mental break not obliterated everything that mattered.

"Starsky? Damn it, look at me!"

He obeyed, and was surprised to find the person sharing the room with him was more closely resembling the real article. Not him, not by a long shot, but closer…. Then, it all started to darken and twist again, and there was blood everywhere. Suddenly, the altered environment he'd just left held more promise than the barrenness of the alley, and he struggled against returning all the way. It might not be real, but it beats the hell out of this. Hutch, in any form, was better than none at all, and Starsky rallied back to him. Twilight morphed into daylight once more, and he felt a strong hand pressing against the back of his neck, fingers stretching to support his head.

"Hey! Stay with me here."

The fingers squeezing his wrist felt cool in comparison with his own overheated flesh.

"Starsk?"

Starsky couldn't quite define the eyes, but the voice certainly sounded concerned. Just this side of frantic….

"Can you tell me what's going on? Starsky, listen to me. Are you in pain? Point, if you can't talk, but focus. I need to know now."

He tried to work his jaw, but found it resisted all efforts to move it, and his tongue felt thick. Finally, he managed, "You're not real. Everything's squares and circles…not real, too fast. Don't want to go back. Not there. Don't make me go back!" It made a sort of sense, he hoped. It was the best he could do under the circumstances.

The figure in front of him froze, and, for a moment, Starsky feared he was slipping away again. "No! Don't…you can't! Don't let me go!"

Phantom Hutch restrained and tried to calm him, but the words were distant, disembodied, and he only caught a soothing "okay," followed by "going to make a call."

"NO!" Starsky launched himself, giving a close enough approximation of a tackle to pin his companion to the bed. He couldn't risk letting him out of his sight. He might never again appear. "No! You'll be gone, and you can't…no. Please."

"All right. Okay, I'm not going anywhere. Please, just stay quiet. Just settle down, okay? Everything's all right."

Starsky clung, gulping for breath, eyes wide, but tried to do as requested and remain quiet. He watched a shaky hand gingerly reach over to the telephone and punch a number that must have been known by heart.

"Matt? Me. I…I don't know. At first I thought it was a nightmare, but it's more than that, and he's not coming out of it."

"Hallucinating? Yes, but it's more— Uh…." There was a rattle as things on a nearby surface went flying. "He woke from a nap screaming; about twenty minutes."

The sensation of being curled into Hutch's body again, even if only in a dream state, lent a certain comfort to the confusion. It wasn't until the dresser on the far wall began tipping forward that Starsky recoiled and tried to shout a warning, but the only response was a tighter embrace and string of unintelligible words that were probably intended to be soothing. So be it. Just so long as we're together….

"Yes!" Hutch shouted into the receiver. "A new painkiller. No, you didn't—this one came from Dr. Kuipers. I know! I'm trying to think. It's called…Talwon? Tal—Talwin. Yes! Yes, that's it."

Starsky kept his eyes tightly shut throughout the exchange, and the words ebbed and flowed when it came to comprehension, but even he heard the expletive uttered by whomever it was on the other end of the telephone.

"Matt?" His voice tightly controlled now, forcibly calm, Hutch used the hand not holding the phone to stroke the hair from Starsky's temple. "It was for the visceral pain in his stomach. The cramps after therapy are unreal sometimes. Yeah, I understand. Okay. I'll do my best. Thanks."

The room spun and flashed as Hutch leaned over to replace the receiver, and Starsky tightened his grip.

"Matt Godric is on his way over now, okay? He just wants to have a look and see if we can't figure out what's going on. Just stay with me, partner. I'm right here, all right?"

Starsky swallowed hard and made the effort to orient himself to whatever his subconscious was concocting. Nothing he saw or felt here resonated at all on an emotional level, but at least he was beginning to get a feel for the "plot" his subconscious was weaving. In this reality, he'd been the one hurt. Godric was a doctor—one of the younger and less inhibited of his team from the long stay at Memorial—and he'd since taken over the role of primary physician. Okay, he could play along with that. Hutch was here, and they were together. As long as that remained true, everything else was largely irrelevant, and he'd cooperate as best he could. After jumping at the harsh chime of a large clock tucked into the recesses of another room, he settled back into Hutch's arms and listened to the wail of seagulls…praying that nothing Godric could do would wrench him from his chosen existence.

Time seemed to follow a set of rules that no one had bothered to share with Starsky, so he gave up trying to work out any of the specifics and drifted until the sound of a key thrusting through the lock set off an internal alarm.

"It's okay," soothed Hutch. "It's just Matt. He's not going to hurt you, just wants to check you over, all right?"

It sounded innocent enough, but Starsky burrowed a bit closer, just in case. He wondered briefly if he'd be able to feel Godric any better than he did Hutch, and found his answer quickly enough. No. While the entrance into the room spoke of a dynamic, assertive individual, he might just as easily have been a projected image—it would have been indistinguishable from what Starsky was perceiving.

"Hey, guys," Godric said softly, moving more slowly than Hutch had. His eyes took in the scene before him, but what Starsky could see of his expression betrayed nothing in the way of a reaction. Approaching with caution, he dropped into a crouch beside the bed, and reached for Starsky's wrist. "Hi, Dave. How're you doing?"

"You're squares and circles, too," Starsky replied simply. "Flattened out…and too fast."

"Yeah? Wow." Glancing at Hutch, he whispered, "Vitals?"

"I haven't been—"

"It's okay, you've kinda got your hands full." Godric surveyed the room. "Where do you keep your kit?"

Hutch jerked his head in the direction of the piece of furniture that had been intent on crushing them only a short time before, his right thumb never pausing its circular motion on Starsky's shoulder. Starsky shuddered and closed his eyes.

"Any complaints of headache or dizziness?" Godric asked on the return trip. "Slurred speech?" When Hutch answered in the negative to all, the doctor returned to the crouch position and unzipped the retrieved case. "Dave? I need to borrow your arm for a sec, okay? I'm going to take your blood pressure, but you're gonna have to be patient—I'm out of practice. I make a point of being nice, so the nurses always do it for me."

The wrap of cold fabric against his forearm had the misfortune of coinciding with an entirely separate and far more worrisome event, that of a chasm opening up in the floor beside the bed. Starsky tried to arch out of the way, but his shouts were, once again, misconstrued, and won him nothing more than two pairs of hands restraining his movements.

"Easy, easy." Hutch's murmured words sounded achingly normal for a second, then slipped into high-speed, unrecognizable gibberish.

Fine. If Godric wanted to be swallowed up by the black hole forming behind him, there was nothing Starsky could do about it. Keeping his eyes shut, he abandoned the struggle and let the doctor get on with whatever he felt needed doing. Stupid people. Then again, what difference does it make? Dreams were supposed to be harmless.

"Dave? Can you open your eyes for a moment here? I need to shine some light in 'em. Just relax. That's it."

Unlike normal penlights, this one diffracted light in a kaleidoscopic pattern that made Starsky slightly nauseous. He tried to look away, but Godric was stubborn enough to insist.

"Okay, you're doing great. Just a couple more things, and I'll be out of your hair for a while, all right?" At Starsky's reluctantly affirmative nod, the doctor stepped back a pace, somehow avoiding the gaping hole in the floor, and instructed, "Track my finger without moving your head. That's it. Good."

After a bizarre calisthenics drill that included opening his mouth, clenching his teeth, and moving various parts of his anatomy, Starsky was finally given the chance to lay back and shut his eyes against the waviness of the room. It was an exceptionally brief respite.

"Last one," Godric promised, returning to his previous position, and extending both hands. "Grab my hands and squeeze as hard as you can. Harder," he urged. "Keep goin'. Yeah, okay, you got it." Releasing his grip, the doctor took a deep breath, and arranged himself cross-legged by the bed—his next comments seemingly addressed more to Hutch than to Starsky. "I don't see any sign of neuro involvement here. Well, other than what you'd expect from a reaction to an opiate. Pentazocine has a rep for this, and I'm almost certain that's what's going on here. We could head over to the hospital for some tests to confirm, but—"

"Don't want…that." Starsky didn't particularly resent being an observer for the time-being, but the hospital was not something he'd submit to willingly.

"I'm inclined to agree." Godric smiled softly, reaching up to gently smooth Starsky's left sleeve, his hand lingering there longer than necessary to accomplish the task.

"Will…" Hutch's voice was normal speed again, thankfully, but he still sounded as though he was speaking from the bottom of a deep well. "How long before everything returns to normal?"

"Varies. Hours, probably. Just has to work its way out of his system, and it'll get better as time marches on. Actually," Godric rose with a sigh, and stretched, twisting his spine until there was an audible pop. "If you can just sleep it off—"

"NO!" Sleep meant not only the end of this dream, but return to a place Starsky had resolved never again to set foot in. Hands restrained his limbs, but he fought them this time—this was too important a point, and they needed to understand. "Won't go back! Alone, but…and the blood! No one. No one's there. Hutch, please…."

"Shhh! Shhh." Hutch's arms had formed the protective shield Starsky had benefited from so many times in the past, and the tone of his voice meant more than the words themselves. "No one's going to make you do anything, I promise. They'd have to get through me first, and I won't let that happen. All right? Trust me."

"Hey, whatever works," Godric agreed. "Nobody's gonna make you sleep, okay? Okay." He gave Starsky's shoulder a pat, and nodded at Hutch. "I think you two are better off here by yourselves, but I'll be out in the living room for a while. Anything happens, just give a yell."

Perceptions frequently alter through the passage of time, and Starsky found that especially true in this case. The room that had been pitching and swaying so violently, finally, a few hours later, had settled into a satisfying, if drab, calm; the colors and lights dimmed until they winked out altogether; the unsettling geometry of objects and people mellowing into softer lines. Godric had gone, early evening had arrived, and it was just the two of them once more.

Hutch had taken Godric's parting suggestion of frequent, short stabs at ambulation to heart, and pushed for them to leave the sanctuary of the bedroom for the more central location of the living room. The kitchenette was visible from the couch, and, Hutch had reasoned, he could make a pot of tea without being out of Starsky's line of vision for even a moment. As he watched from his carefully arranged perch, Starsky had to admit that it wasn't an idea without merit. While he still wasn't feeling particularly connected to what was happening here, the chance to reflect had left him with the definite sense that the alley reality had begun the slow process of recession into the background. It left him with an unsettling puzzle. Two worlds, one person. Which of the two was real?

"Hey." Hutch's voice—his voice once again—jarred Starsky from his thoughts, but in the most comforting of ways. "Here's your tea. Dragon Pearl, not too strong."

Starsky accepted the mug with a hand that was only slightly unsteady now. "Thanks."

"You still don't feel like you belong here, do you?"

"No," he replied honestly.

Hutch's expression was more sad than frustrated, and he leaned back into the couch with a sigh. "Is there anything I can do to help, or is this something you have to work out on your own? I'm here, you know? I am here."

"Thing is, I don't feel you. Can't explain it, but it's like you're—" Starsky struggled for the right word. "An apparition, instead of a person. Does that make sense? I can see you, but it wouldn't surprise me if you went poof and were gone."

"It would surprise the hell out of me."

"Convince me." Starsky set the tea on the coffee table, and drew his hand over his eyes. "Please," he begged.

"Convince you. Well," Hutch pinched Starsky's arm hard enough to leave a fleeting mark.

"Ow!"

"You can feel that, right?"

"I could feel there, too. Smell, taste, hear, and see. And it was a helluva lot clearer there than this is here. I don't want it to be real." He drew his arms around his chest as if to insulate himself from the threat. "But there still has the edge right now."

Hutch deposited his mug beside Starsky's on the table, then dropped his head into his hands. "Okay, if sensory doesn't work, how about memory?"

"I can remember fine—"

"No." He waved his hand dismissively. "That's not what I mean. What were we doing right before you…what? Arrived here?"

That was an area Starsky had no intention of getting into at the moment, so he stalled. "We were on our beat. Usual day at the office."

"Okay. What about before that?"

"Before?"

"Yeah. Did we ride in together, or separately?"

"Um—"

"Don't think. Just answer."

"Together," Starsky responded, more from the sense it was right, than from actual memory. Maybe….

"What did you have for breakfast in the morning?"

"I don't—"

"What about cases?" Animated, Hutch retrieved the mug, only to spill some of the hot liquid over his fingers as he spoke. "How many were we working on? Any cleared that day?"

"Well, we—" Starsky paused, his jaw snapping shut of its own volition. With the exception of Camden and Sanger, he couldn't immediately pull up any active investigation or file that had crossed their path.

"What about here?"

"Hmm?"

"What did you have for breakfast? Toast, right?"

"Was supposed to be toast, but you burned—" Starsky's cheeks reddened as a rush of adrenaline began to inject itself into his bloodstream.

"I burned it. Exactly." Hutch smiled. "What about visitors? Did we have any over the past few days?"

Starsky thought carefully. The memories were there, he just wasn't sure he quite trusted them yet. "Huggy. Huggy was here yesterday morning. He brought some exercise equipment his cousin didn't need anymore. I remember, but…. It's all so faint. Still doesn't feel quite right."

Hutch's hand pressed lightly against his shoulder. "Maybe not, but I'd say the scales are tipping in another direction now, wouldn't you?"

Starsky nodded, wincing as a change of position resulted in a spasm of pain. The fall into the dumpster, or-- "My chest still hurts when I move certain ways."

Hutch's mien transformed from initial surprise to a strange mixture of compassion and sympathy. "Do you know why?"

"I…I know what's supposed to have happened. But I remember it as being a leftover from when were giving Monty Baruffa a chase around the block, right after his girlfriend turned, remember?" Starsky swallowed hard, hoping he was putting the pieces together in the proper order. Here, or there. "I ducked when he fired, and ended up off the fire escape and into the dumpster." He pressed lightly against his tender ribcage, and glanced up hopefully. "Got the wind knocked outta me, plus some bruised ribs. That's right, isn't it?"

Hutch averted his eyes for a moment and seemed to weigh his response. "You're right that it happened," he said carefully. "It just happened a bit further back than you're remembering right now."

"How far?"

"We arrested Baruffa toward the end of April, if I remember correctly. Today's August nineteenth, Starsk." Hutch extended a hand toward Starsky's knee, paused, curled his fingers into a fist, and allowed his hand to drop onto the cushion, instead. "You've gained a few other reasons since then for your chest to hurt."

Hospital. Needles. Pain. Starsky shivered despite the temperature in the room. And through it all, Hutch. "I was shot," he said matter-of-factly. "It was me."

"I don't quite—"

"Doesn't matter now." Staring intently at the loose shirt covering his frame, he slowly began to undo the buttons.

"Starsk…."

"No." He looked up and fixed Hutch with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "I need to. It's okay, really." He opened the garment and revealed a patchwork of scars, both familiar and foreign at the same time. In various stages of healing, those less than three months old were still vivid red, some painful to the touch. Others, where infection had left its mark, were nothing short of jarring, while older, finer lines were already beginning to recede behind a new growth of hair. Starsky followed a few of the paths with his left index finger, pausing over the visible evidence of a well-healed entrance wound—one of four now decorating his chest—and swallowed hard. I'll take it…this, and whatever else you want to throw at me. Anything, please, just so long as it's not where I've just been. He was startled from his thoughts as another finger joined his in exploration, brushing across one of the numb areas with so light a touch that Starsky didn't feel it at all.

Eyes never lifting from where his finger traced, Hutch outlined every mark within reach, in an act so focused and deliberate that it took on the air of ritual. Transfixed by a visible, unabashed reverence that transformed even the lightest of contact into intimacy, Starsky remained stock-still—afraid that any movement would break the spell. Some part of his mind registered the fact that he was experiencing more of a sense of connection now than he'd felt in hours, the sensation powerful enough to eclipse the anguish of earlier.

Not looking up even after the inevitable withdrawal of his hand, Hutch finally asked, "Do you remember?"

"It's not amnesia, Hutch." Starsky smiled, and this time it didn't feel forced. "I remembered everything before. It just seemed like…I dunno. Hazy. Like a dream? And the other—" Hugging himself, he tipped forward slightly. "Everything was too real there. I wanted to be here, but it…it was like hanging between two worlds, and neither one of 'em made sense." He grinned. "Any more than I am right now, huh?"

"Alice through the looking glass?"

"Yeah, but more like the lady from that poem you read to me at the hospital—The Lady of Shalot? Alice ended up with a helluva lot better travel agent than we did."

Hutch edged closer, pulled a cushion onto his lap, and wordlessly offered it as a resting place. More at ease with his surroundings now, acute exhaustion started to take hold, and Starsky accepted without hesitation. Curled on his side, most of the living room in his field of vision, he finally gave his body permission to relax. The rhythmic circles Hutch was making on his back intensified the sense of belonging, and he submerged himself in the warmth.

"Will you ever tell me what you dreamt?" Hutch asked softly, stilling his fingers as Starsky tensed. "I'm not pushing. It's just that it helps sometimes to talk about it."

Undeniably true, and yet escape had been difficult enough as it was. Starsky didn't want to give his "mirror universe" the chance to take him captive again, and was superstitious enough to be afraid that speaking of it might somehow cause it to reanimate. "Can't right now."

"Was I there?"

"Hutch—"

"I know, but it's important. Was I there?"

Starsky felt his heart begin to race. Not now. Please? It was irrational. He knew it was irrational, but couldn't push past the sense that saying the words would cause everything before him to dissolve; that he'd find himself back in the alley with Hutch's lifeless frame in his arms…that this time, there would be no return ticket.

"Starsky, was I—"

"You were dead." He blurted it out all at once, steeled himself for whatever was going to happen, was surprised when nothing at all changed. Well, one thing had—Hutch was now mere inches from his left ear.

"There," Hutch whispered. "You said it, and I'm still here." He straightened and leaned back against the couch, resuming the light circle-rub he'd been giving before.

"How did you—"

"Lucky guess."

"But—"

Hutch laughed. "That, and using my brilliant detective's reasoning to fill in the blanks between some of the things you said when you were out of it. Get some sleep, partner. I think the worst of this one's behind us now, don't you?"

"I hope so." I really hope so, because I don't think I could do this again.

*****

Hutch watched Starsky from the window, concern shadowing his features. His partner had been in a foul mood since he'd been awakened that morning, to the extent that even sharing the same air seemed sufficient reason for annoyance. It was to be expected from time to time, Hutch knew, and he'd tried to prepare himself for days such as these. Recovering from four bullet wounds was not a pleasant occupation: it was tiring, frustrating, excruciatingly painful, and the end result was still an unknown. Along with the physical scars, there were equally deep psychological and emotional wounds, and that wasn’t even touching on all the legitimate fears triggered by a very uncertain future. And his excursion into the Talwin Chamber of Horrors hadn't helped in the least.

The day before had largely been spent coping with the aftermath, prodding Starsky to open up about what he'd experienced. While the talk had no doubt been beneficial, the narration had neatly sidestepped almost all of the emotional effects, focusing instead on how the scenario itself had played out. Ultimately, if the plan had been to resolve some of the residual unsettledness, the exercise would have to be considered a dismal failure. Frustrated, and feeling decidedly out of his depth, Hutch had finally taken the bold step that morning of suggesting Starsky have a phone chat with Dr. Reetz, the psychiatrist who had been recommended by the in-house shrink after Starsky's pre-discharge evaluation. To Hutch's shock, Starsky had agreed. It was far less surprising to him that the conversation had lasted less than fifteen minutes.

Sighing, Hutch pressed his forehead against the glass and watched. True, twenty-four hours shy of one hundred days since the shooting—not yet even two weeks past discharge—Starsky remained in the early stages of recovery. The beach house they were using for recuperation purposes had been both suggested and procured by Godric because of its lack of stairs, ease of access, and proximity to the doctor's own summer cottage—not to mention that it was but a stone's throw away from a hospital in which he had privileges. The initial exuberance accompanying Starsky's immediate release was bound to wane as realities set in, but this felt like more than that. Calling whether a situation would be better served by pulling back or pushing was considerably more challenging than the most gymnastic of the investigative techniques he'd had to employ in his work on the force, but Hutch usually opted for the former. Starsky needed space when he got like this, time to work things out on his own, and Hutch trusted that he'd let him in on his own terms and in his own time. And yet…this was different. Oh, what the hell—go give him a shove. The worst that can happen is that you get yelled at. Again.

Approaching the figure slumped on the beach towel with extreme caution, Hutch came bearing a small serving of the special-order potato salad Huggy had brought with him a couple of days before, and a glass of iced tea. "Here." He deposited the bribes on the side tray set up to the left of the blanket. "Thought this might work for your early afternoon snack."

"Thanks."

Okay, it could be worse. Hutch scratched his left palm and stalled. "You mind some company out here?"

"It's a public beach."

"And you know that's not what I mean. I'd like to join you, but not if you don't want me here." Your serve.

Starsky said nothing, but moved over enough to make room, waiting until Hutch was settled before he spoke. "I've been lousy company today." Without looking up, he passed the glass of iced tea to his partner.

Hutch accepted the unspoken peace offering, took a sip, and handed it back. "That's true."

"Sorry." Starsky buried his left hand in the sand, extracted it, and repeated the process a few times before continuing. "I've been…I've had some things to think about, but I don't mean to take it out on you."

Hutch grabbed a handful of sand, weighed the various risks and pitfalls involved in baiting someone not in the best frame of mind, and judged it worth the risk. Nonchalantly raising his hand above the back of Starsky's head, he let go, trying not to laugh as his partner's curls temporarily transformed into an hourglass gone awry. "Now we're even," he said smugly.

"No." Starsky reacted with surprising speed, mimicking the act, only releasing the sand down the back of Hutch's shirt. "But we're getting there!"

"Hey!" The unrestrained laughter Hutch's squirming inspired was more exquisite than anything Mozart had composed, and well worth the resulting discomfort. Still, the particles clung stubbornly to his back, and he quickly decided it would be far better just to yank off his shirt. "So," he started casually, slipping the T-shirt over his neck and shaking sand from his hair, "should I ask what Reetz had to say, or is it better not to know?"

"You wanna know what gets me about shrinks? They get paid probably twice what we make just to ask you what you think."

Hutch laughed. "That's really all she did?"

Starsky tilted his head and shrugged. "She said that dream symbolism is usually personal to the dreamer, so I would have a better chance of interpreting it than she would." He took a bite of salad. "She walked me through a few things, I guess. The watch spinning backward is pretty common, and the weird sound-no-sound thing, too." Starsky used his fingers to rake a design in the sand beside the towel, then destroyed his artistic efforts in single sweep. "A lot of the rest of it I'd figured out myself once I had the chance to stop and really look at it. Reetz thought a lot of the rest was the," he made quotation marks in the air, "'unfortunate' way I reacted to the drug mixing with my psyche's efforts to combine details from the shooting—things I'd read and heard, along with some of the stuff I've repressed—and present them in a way that wouldn't hurt me." He turned to face Hutch, a dry smile briefly altering his expression. "Apparently, my subconscious thought it would be less traumatic to transfer the shooting on to you. Which proves that my subconscious isn't as smart as it thinks." He sighed, wearily running a hand through his hair. "And there was something about forcing me to face my fears. Stuff like that."

Hutch nodded, allowing that the highly synopsized version was better than no version at all. "Did you two manage to come up with what the bags were all about?"

"Things I don't want to look at. It's why I was the only one who could open them, you know?" He swatted at a fly. "That was my take, and she agreed it was as good as any. No idea why the alley had no graffiti or trash. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, huh?"

"Did you happen to tell her about whatever's really been bothering you?"

"No." The smile returned. "If I have to talk about it at all, I'd rather it be with you. Doesn't have anything to do with anyone else."

Hutch didn't bother trying to point out that that was hardly the point, but felt that at least a minor caveat was in order. "I'm happy to listen, Starsk, but I'm not exactly qualified to provide the level of counseling you could get from her. I'm on fairly solid ground when it comes to the medical side of things now, but psychology…."

"I know where to get it if I need it." Starsky glanced over and surveyed Hutch's exposed chest. "You got any sunscreen on? If not, you're gonna look like a lobster in about ten minutes."

Hutch looked down, then scooted behind Starsky on the towel.

"What're you doing?"

"Shade."

Starsky laughed, tilting his head back until he could look into Hutch's eyes. "You realize how weird it is trying to carry on a conversation with you like this?"

"You can't carry on a conversation with me at all if I go in to get sunscreen. Just talk; you'll get used to it." Hutch snaked an arm around to the tray and snatched the glass. "Or, weren't you planning on talking about it right now?"

"I'm still trying to figure a lot of it out myself, so if it doesn’t make sense…." Starsky leaned forward slightly, as though physical touch somehow complicated things further. "You know all those times when it was close? I never really…. I mean, I had an idea, and I think I knew, but it wasn't something I could let myself look at. I tried not to." He brushed the sand from his hands and briefly examined his nails. "I understood the score when you had the plague, but I was out there doing something to give you a chance. That time Slater ran you off the road, I didn't know one way or the other. The Haymes case shooting, that time Train's girl got you near the heart, even what happened with Lionel—they were over before I had time to think about it too much." Starsky's swallow was audible. "This was the first time it was real. Even though it wasn't."

Hutch rested his chin on Starsky's shoulder. "Been there."

"I know." Starsky swiveled back long enough to make eye contact. "That's another thing. Even though I could tell myself I knew what the shooting had to be like for you, it was all up here." He pointed to his head. "Not that this wasn't, but…." He shook his head. "This was different. I felt, and it…. Nothing in my entire life has ever hurt that much, or even close. Nothing."

Well-intentioned people had offered plenty of sage advice to Hutch as he'd battled the same demons, and he remembered too well how hollow the words had sounded to attempt the same thing with Starsky. Instead, he wrapped his arms around his partner and held on. Public beach be damned.

"I honestly don't think I could live that way," Starsky continued, so quietly that it was nearly inaudible. "There was a part of me, maybe, that needed not to know that just to keep functioning, to do my job. You know? But now…." He let his voice trail off.

"Hey." Hutch felt a tremor ripple through Starsky's body, and tightened his hold a bit more. "It might have felt real, but it was still a dream. You can't use that as a gauge of how you'd react. For one thing, in real life, you wouldn't be alone. There are too many variables, and when you think about it, you don't know much more now than you did before."

"Yes, I do. I do. Whatever else may've happened, I saw a lot of things more clearly than I ever have before. A lot of things." Starsky turned again, his eyes haunted. "What would have you done, if…if it would have gone differently with me?"

Their eyes locked until Hutch's sense of self-preservation came into play, and he broke off contact. "I don't know," he finally admitted. It was the most honest answer he could come up with. "A lot of things went through my mind, but when it comes down to it? I really don't know."

Starsky didn't look satisfied, taking out his apparent frustration on a nearby piece of seaweed.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what you want me to say."

"I want you to say that it'll never happen."

Hutch sighed. "No, you don't. You don't want me to start lying to you now, do you?"

"No, I want it to be the truth." Making a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, he wrapped his fingers around Hutch's hands and held them there.

Hutch gave Starsky a few moments of silence to regain control before speaking again, then made a stab at lightening the mood. "Well, there's one good thing from all this. Godric's still too pissed off at Dr. Kuipers—at her office, anyway—to tease you about the black hole you were yelling about in the bedroom. I overhead him giving somebody over there hell for not sending prompt notice she'd prescribed a new med."

"Terrific. That's all I need: members of my own medical team going to war with each other over my care plan."

"I would think that'd make you feel special," Hutch teased. Don't do this to him, a voice from deep within pleaded. It's too important to gloss over, even if he'll let you. "About the other," he said finally. "You know the best way I know of to deal with it?"

"Cyanide capsules?"

"No!" Hutch thwacked Starsky lightly on the shoulder. "Don't even joke about that. No, the best way I can think of is to delay that moment for as long as we possibly can."

"Yeah?" Starsky sniffed. "We're back to your hundred and forty year lifespan again, aren't we?"

"Exactly. The right food, exercise, and," he poked his partner lightly in the forearm, "in your case, physical therapy."

Starsky groaned, and dropped his head into his hands.

"Hey, no whining. You're the one who chose me over the rehab hospital, and that means your body's mine."

Starsky raised his head and tipped it back, fixing Hutch with a wry grin. "You think?"

"Up to arguing the point?"

"Nah." Starsky settled back heavily against Hutch's chest. "I'll give you that one." He paused, then softly added, "And a lot more."

Me, too. After a moment, Hutch reached over and pinged the iced tea glass with a flick of his fingers. "To life," he whispered.

Affection supplanted surprise on Starsky's face, itself followed by a look of strong determination. Reaching out, he repeated the gesture. "L'chaim," he intoned. "To life."

finis

*****

Talwin (pentazocine) is an existing narcotic painkiller with a reputation for higher-than-normal reported incidences of side effects, including hallucinations and confusion. That said, for the purposes of this story, I'm positing that it's the unique triad of drug, psychology, and emotion—altered mental state, repressed memories, and fears—in combination, that produced the fairly dramatic event Starsky experienced here. Incidentally, Talwin is still prescribed today, but less frequently than in the 1970's.

The title and excerpt is from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, The Lady of Shalot. The full text may be found at: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/wildbunch/lady.htm .

--E.M.