Hutch watched his nephew and niece with interested discretion, trying to keep his expression neutral as they edged ever nearer to where Starsky lay sprawled on the couch. He couldn't hear the gravely whispered conversation from his perch in the wicker chair, but, judging from the threatening expressions and controlled pushing and shoving match, it was something they figured likely to get them into trouble. Starsky had noticed, too, and shot a questioning glance at Hutch, who answered by way of a noncommittal shrug.

Claude and Marie-Ghislaine had inched their way to within a two-and-a-half foot distance when Starsky could stand it no longer.

"Hey, you two. What's up?"

Two pairs of eyes blinked back at him owlishly.

"Guys?"

Already an expert in such matters, Marie-Ghislaine nudged her younger brother until, tired of being poked, he became spokesperson by default.

"You got hurt," Claude declared solemnly.

"Yeah…."

"Could we see?"

Hutch stiffened immediately and had to bite his tongue to keep from scolding, fully prepared to pick up a kid in each arm and deposit them both outside to play, should Starsky's expression convey the least amount of discomfort. The surprise was that Starsky didn't appear to be uncomfortable at all. Taken aback, unsure, perhaps even a tad amused…but not distressed per se. To the second questioning look he'd received in as many minutes, Hutch offered a non-verbal 'up to you' and moved to the very edge of his chair, just in case.

After closing his mouth and taking a few breaths as deep as injured lungs would allow, Starsky seemed to arrive at an acceptable conclusion, and made the effort to sit up, using the cushions as a prop. "The scars are kinda scary. Are you really sure you want to see?"

Claude's nod was slightly more enthusiastic than his sister's, but both children remained firmly planted where they were.

"'Kay." He hadn't bothered to button his shirt all the way, so the unveiling required little more than the raising of his T-shirt. Though considerably lightened from the angry red they once had been, the marks from both scalpel and bullets nonetheless stood out as a patchwork map of soft pink against Starsky's chest and abdomen. Comically, both children leaned forward in tandem—transfixed—as he began the lesson by pointing to one of the four entrance wound scars. "See that? The ones that look like that are where the bullets went into me. And these here? Those are where the doctors had to cut to make it better. I—"

"Wow."

A person solving all of the mysteries of time and space couldn't pack more awe into a sentence than six-year-old Claude did with one word. Hutch had to turn away for a moment to effectively swallow his smile; Starsky didn't even bother trying.

"You look just like on TV…Fwankenstein."

"Claude!" Both Hutch and Marie-Ghislaine yelled in unison, causing a very startled little boy to look up in confusion, lower lip beginning a telltale quiver.

"What did I do?"

"It's all right," Starsky said softly, addressing the room in general. "It's okay." He grinned, cupping Claude's chin with the hand not holding the T-shirt aloft, then glanced down at his chest. "I do kinda, huh?"

Marie-Ghislaine regarded him with a look of clinical detachment not usually seen outside of medical facilities. "Do they hurt?"

"Nah, not anymore—they're mostly numb. Just hurts on the inside now."

Hutch winced at the knot of very real physical pain forming suddenly in his own stomach and chest. A simple enough admission, he was perhaps alone in understanding the nuance and depth just beneath the surface meaning.

"Could I touch it?"

"Uh-huh."

She ran one finger across a vertical line, and watched as her brother followed suit. Satisfied, Claude seemed ready to move on, announcing that he was heading back to the kitchen and the makeshift fort they had made of the table and chairs there.

"Hey." Starsky stopped him, not continuing until eye contact was re-established. "Remember what this looks like, okay? Don't ever forget what guns can do. Promise me?"

Claude considered a moment, smiled, and wrapped his arms about Starsky's neck, favoring him with a sloppy kiss at the same time. "I promise, Uncle Dave."

"Good boy."

With that, Claude happily toddled off into the other room, leaving his pensive-looking sister behind.

"MG? Something you want to ask me?"

"Mamma said we shouldn't talk about it," she explained hesitantly.

"Well, I wouldn't want you to disobey your mother, but…."

Watching his partner start to flounder, Hutch decided it was finally time to enter the conversation. "This about Uncle Dave?"

She nodded.

"I think Mamma was just afraid that Uncle Dave might not want to talk about what happened. As long as it's okay with him, why don't you go ahead?"

There was silence while the nine-year-old considered. Finally, "You almost died."

"Yeah. I did."

"Why didn't you?"

It was Starsky's turn to consider and, after another exchanged look with Hutch, he opened his arms. "Come 'ere." He waited until she was settled before continuing. "I don't really know how to answer that, sweetheart. The doctors did a really good job and I guess it wasn't my time yet."

"Wasn't it hard?"

An audible swallow and temporarily averted gaze were the only external clues to the pain that question engendered, but Hutch would have sensed it without any outward sign at all. Enough. His bid to bring the session to a close was quickly thwarted, however, by a firm headshake from Starsky.

"It was very hard."

"But you didn't give up?"

"No."

"Why not?"

With a soft smile, Starsky spun Marie-Ghislaine around to face Hutch, and whispered, "That's easy. You see that tall, blond guy sittin' over there? Funny blue shirt?"

Giggles. "Uncle Ken?"

"The one and only. He wouldn't let me. Even when I got really mad, or sad…or scared. Even when I didn't think I could do it, and I was sick to death of trying. No matter how bad it got, he was always there, telling me to hang on; promising me we could, and that it would get better. And I knew--" he spun her back around to face him, "—I knew that I had to get better for him. So he wouldn't be so sad. Make any sense?"

She nodded and then turned a sad stare toward her biological uncle. "Is that why Grandpa Yves died? Because he didn't have someone like you?"

Hutch rubbed a hand back and forth across his mouth a few times, trying to find some appropriate answer in a conversation that was becoming exponentially more difficult. Had this been the impetus? Both children had, after all, been sent out to California for a 'visit' while their parents were in Canada making funeral arrangements for their paternal grandfather.

"I didn't mean—" Starsky began, but was interrupted by Hutch.

"Sometimes a person is just too sick or hurt to fix, and—"

Hutch was, in turn, interrupted by Marie-Ghislaine. "No, Uncle Ken. I heard Mamma and Papa talking when they didn't think I was awake. They said Grandpa just gave up…that he loved Grandma and missed her too much." Deep in thought for a moment, she finally shrugged and faced Starsky again. "Maybe he left because his heart broke and you stayed because yours didn't?"

God, Hutch thought, a little intimidated in the face of such easy clarity of vision. Overly simplistic? Perhaps. But still. I wonder what would happen if we let them run the world for a while….

Brightening suddenly, she looked from Starsky to Hutch and back again. "Mamma said that you and Uncle Ken love each other too, but different."

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. How is it different?"

Starsky opened his mouth and shut it again abruptly. "Uh, maybe that's something your Uncle Ken better explain. Right, Uncle Ken?"

Hutch glared and would gladly have throttled his partner then, but didn't want to shock the children. Instead, he applied the full measure of his intellect to sifting through a myriad of possible answers and found, to his surprise, the truth to be the easiest one of all. "It's not," he replied simply. "Whether it's hearts and flowers, Mamma holding your hand, or what your Uncle Dave and I have, it's all the same thing. It's all love. Just looks different on the outside. Okay?"

Spinning back to face an Uncle Dave who looked as though his partner had found two tickets on a direct flight to Utopia, she asked, "What do you think?"

"I think you've got one very smart uncle." At the crash of metal pots from the kitchen, he added, volume turned up a notch, "And a brother who's getting into something he shouldn't. Claude?!"

The only response was a giggle--a sound much too tempting to ignore--and Marie-Ghislaine made haste to join her brother. Starsky and Hutch were left behind to bathe in one of those moments that seem to transcend time, the principal force flowing through and between them needing no words to be known.

"Well," Starsky said finally.

"Yeah."

"They're here for--?"

"Three more days."

"Right. And Kirsten and Michel do this every day?"

"So I gather."

"Huh." He paused. "Hutch?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think you could—"

"No." He shuddered at the thought. Under present circumstances, anyway, it was horrifying. "You?"

Starsky took his time before responding, a grin slowly spreading across his face. "Dunno, but I think forced babysitting would probably cure the population explosion in no time."

finis

Feedback: eire@tenforward.com

Return to Ellis Murdock's Main Page

Return to Twin Dolphin Productions