No Storms Come

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Summary: After Terri’s death, Hutch brings Starsky to the beautiful and wild Lost Coast of Northern California in hopes that his partner can find distance, peace and reprieve from his sorrow.  Even with the best of intentions, the most unique of friendships can be threatened beyond repair by terrible grief.

 

First appeared in the 2010 SHareCon Zine.

Feedback always welcome! barricadesofheaven.angel@gmail.com

Episode/Event Horizon: Starsky’s Lady – 3 months following the episode tag

Author’s Notes: Thank you to Sue Beck and her comments on the Me&Thee list. I asked a question there – why did Terri leave Ollie to Hutch? Sue’s response was about symbolism and how we cannot gift someone with something they already have.

I wrote this story on the heels of a period of tremendous grief and loss in my own life. In this little tale, I tried to give the boys the optimistic ending I myself had wished for.

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My tears are like the quiet drift, 
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift,
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

-Dylan Thomas, The Clown Moon

 

Chapter 1- The Grief-Maker’s Heir

Shelter Cove Cabin, the Lost Coast, Northern California

May 12, 1977 – 8:30 PM

Firelight warmed the small vacation cabin, one of a dozen clustered in a protective circle in the small northern California town of Shelter Cove. Far below the cliff’s crest, the Pacific’s gale-tossed surf assaulted black sand and timeworn rocks.  Night pressed like a cloak around the ramshackle wooden buildings and draped the trees in tendrils of fog gray. The birdsong was long hushed; only the sea’s voice called out across the inky blackness.

Detective Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson added fresh logs to the blaze in the fireplace, relaxing for a moment into the warmth of the flames. He stared into the dance of fire and smoke as though seeking wisdom or solace there, listening to the mournful harmony of water and wind  – “’’Mar y Viento’ in Spanish,” he reminded himself –  beyond the half-open windows.  The flickering light caught his pale blond hair and cast smudged shadows over his solemn features.  His blue eyes, dark-rimmed with strain, tracked across the room toward the sofa where his brunet-haired police partner, Detective David Starsky, sprawled in fitful slumber.

He cringed at the memory of four hours earlier – of the altercation on the beach far below. Of Starsky’s furious, grief-fueled ultimatum – of his own piercing pain as he watched the partner he loved more than he dared to admit spiraling down into despair.

And, worse by far, of arriving back at the cabin to find cold, darkness, and his curly-haired partner prone and unresponsive on the sofa, blood on his skin and liquor on his breath.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Familiarity lent efficiency as Hutch had stripped his friend of the damp, clammy clothing, brushed the sand and grit away from the lean body, and settled him more comfortably on his back against the sofa pillows.

He bundled together Starsky’s sodden clothing – the ragged jeans, the torn Henley shirt, the dark blue jacket, socks, blue sneakers – and tossed them into a heap in the corner.  He studied Starsky’s sleeping face, noting the furrow of pain carved across the brow; noting the arms braced as though to ward off blows.  He adjusted the blanket covering Starsky from toes to chin. His right hand reached out and tangled into Starsky’s thick curls, still damp from the sea water and salt spray, fist closing purposefully to linger in the unruly hair.

Dreamless sleep, Starsk. You rest. I’m the night watchman.

Hutch released a low sigh. He left Starsky alone for a brief moment, returning with a first aid kit, hand towel, and bowl of clean water. Sitting on the braided rug, he tenderly lifted Starsky’s right hand. He turned it and studied the damage. Deep grooves cut into the knuckles, torn flesh gaping in a dozen shades of red – scarlet and bright crimson mixing with the maroon of dried blood. Bruises swelled across the ring and index fingers and down to the joints in a map of mottled purple and furious blue. The palm was equally abused, cruel lacerations scoring the skin with angry and ragged edges. Hutch dipped the towel into water and pressed the cleansing cloth across the injuries, blotting away the blood, salt, and grime.  Starsky hissed and Hutch parroted with his own sharp intake of sympathy. As he stroked a coating of antiseptic cream over the open wounds, Starsky stirred, released a low moan, and tried to pull away.

“Work with me, partner,” Hutch coached in a low voice.

Starsky’s lips moved soundlessly. He pushed his hand into Hutch’s grip, fingers curling. Hutch hummed, lullaby quiet and soothing, as he carefully straightened each finger, one by one. He wrapped the knuckles and palm in sterile gauze and gently repositioned the hand on Starsky’s chest. His thumb pressed against Starsky’s cheekbone, one slow stroke down the angular plane of jawbone to chin.

At least I can wrap your hand and keep you from bleeding to death. Not good for much else.

Hutch’s mind buzzed with fatigue, worry and doubt. Three months had passed since Terri’s death  – three endless and brutal months. Three long months of being at his partner’s side, witnessing Starsky’s escalating grief as he struggled with the sudden and unfathomable loss; witnessing the toll such primitive pain extracted from his friend’s soul.  It was unbearable.

Hutch had a front row seat in Starsky’s trauma, the ever faithful sidekick observing his friend’s withdrawal and withholding, silences, nightmares, and, most painful of all, the extinguishing of his inherent playfulness and optimism. The hands of friendship and protection Hutch had extended, as natural to him as breathing, were, if not rebuffed, consistently ignored.

Hutch hurt and his partner hurt. Inelegant and clumsy and unoriginal as the sentiment was, it was true and it was that simple. It hurt.

So here we are, buddy.  It was “Hutchinson-knows-best,” ”Hutch-the-Fixer,” hauling you up here to the wilderness for a few days escape – a few days reprieve from death scenes and soulless streets. I put my foot down and it looks like I put it in my mouth at the same time. In trying to help you, have I harmed you even more?  Have I lost you? Where’s the light burning inside of you, partner? Is it there? Can you find it? Can you reignite it?

Three agonizing months. Hutch shoved his hands into the front pockets of his faded jeans and thought back to a brief moment during their long drive up the coast to Shelter Cove.

“Three miles to the ocean,” Hutch had said to Starsky with forced cheerfulness.

“Three,” Starsky had responded, his voice flat and broken. “Three miles. Three months. Three strikes.” He had huddled deeper into the Ford’s tattered upholstery, his dark blue eyes dull and numb.

Hutch now willed peace and the bliss of total unawareness to his sleeping partner before retreating to the rocking chair by the fire and reaching automatically for the open bottle of scotch. The first swallow seared his raw throat like a branding iron; the second was as welcoming as a warm bath on a shivering evening. The firelight tossed shadows and sparks, the wind mixed in the trees like flute song.

Hutch was physically exhausted – vision-blurred, back-aching exhausted. By contrast, his mind was in overdrive, leaping like a fickle foreign creature examining and discarding thoughts. He felt the anger of helplessness build inside his chest, an avalanche he didn’t try to stop; didn’t stop to question. He let the toxic brew engulf him, back arched, hiking boots pressed to the floor, rocking.

A third desperate swallow of scotch, eyes half-closed. The rocking chair creaked as he leaned back, golden hair against the tall wooden frame.

He wasn’t aware that he spoke aloud.

“Terri. What did you write in your note to me? ‘Never let him change.’ Yeah, that was it. You got the wish backwards. Your words were written with love and meant to protect.  But, you condemned him, y’know.  They backfired. By asking for him to ‘never change,’ you asked for his heart to be broken and broken again.  Bad move, Terri. You should’ve wished for him to change – to become a cold and heartless man – not this gentle man who is so wounded, so lost.

“Do you know what it’s like to watch him? Or wonder if he’ll ever stand again? Terri. You became a grief-maker and I am your heir. I know you’re an innocent. I know you meant well. If only you could see how helpless he is, how consumed with rawness and terror. How abandoned he feels. You entrusted him to my hands – as though it was novel, as though for the first time. Don’t you know how long his safety has been in my hands? Your hands were shaking and uncertain. Now, for the first time, so are mine.   I will bring him back, Terri. I promise you. I will help him to pull light from this pain.”  

 

Chapter 2: Return to Me

Below the Lighthouse, the Lost Coast, Northern California

Four hours earlier – May 12, 1977 – 4:30 PM

Hutch knew the worst type of pain, the most penetrating pain, came from the helplessness of watching someone he loved suffer. More experiences than he cared to acknowledge had branded this lesson on his soul. And now it was flung in his face, mocking him as he half ran, half tumbled down the steep path toward the slate colored surf.

His eyes locked onto Starsky, who was standing in a shallow tide pool, ankle deep in the churning surf, hugging close to a tower of black, wet-gleaming rocks. Starsky’s back was to him, curls a tangled veil in the cold wind, hands balled into shaking fists.

His partner’s terrible grief humbled Hutch, sucker-punched him and slapped him silent.

Silence – always silence now.

But Hutch knew Starsky did not want silence, no, anything but silence. Starsky wanted to rend the sky open with his howls of pain. He wanted a path back to a vanished time – a way to reclaim Terri and all about her that he had cherished. He wanted the unattainable.

“I’ve been looking for you.” Hutch stopped in front of Starsky, just shy of arms’ reach. The stones shifted under his hiking boots. He noticed that Starsky’s blue tennis shoes were drenched with cold ocean water.

“Should’a been easy for you to find me. You bein’ a detective ‘n all.” Starsky’s voice was humorless.

“It’s getting late. It’s cold. A storm’s brewing.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” A snarl and a sideways glance of midnight blue eyes.

“Come back up. Come inside.”

“Get lost.”

They stood, blue eyes locked, a showdown.

Starsky’s voice rose above the roar of the waves, cracked with fury. “Leave me alone! What I need is less of you! I know what you’re doin’, Hutchinson. Terri told you to look out for me. It wasn’t my idea ‘n I don’t need it!”

“Oh, crap, Starsky! That’s crap and you know it!” Hutch stepped closer, his own shout half swallowed by the wind. “Do you think I needed Terri telling me what to do? Bullshit, Starsk. Bull. Shit. Who was here first? Who’s here now? Who kept your hide from being trashed and your head on straight more times than you can count? Who held you when you called out her name in your nightmares? Who just about force fed you these past months? Who covered for you? Who sat on that floor with you and a white stuffed teddy bear? Who would’ve left the Force for you, with you? Huh? Who –”

Hutch stopped. Swallowed. He lowered his hands and his sea blue eyes. Defeated.

God help me, Starsk. I’m making this about me – when it’s gotta be about you.

I surrender.

Starsky stumbled in the rolling gray surf, scrabbling for a hold against the slippery rocks. His eyes, grey blue in the muted landscape, narrowed to slits. He fell sideways, sharp edges of stones slicing into his hands. And his words struck Hutch like a hail of arrows.

“Screw you, Hutch! Damn you! I don’t need your midnight phone calls, your stupid jokes, your face staring at me across the room every single time I look up! I don’t need your hand rubbin’ my shoulder or pattin’ my butt, and I sure as hell don’t need more of your dumb ideas. I. Don’t. Need. You.”

Starsky panted, coughed, his face freckled with sea spray.

He raised his right fist, pounded it against the unforgiving rock. Once. Again. Again. Skin split into ribbons, blood flowed with salt water – bright red against lichen green and gray. He grabbed Hutch’s collar and yanked him to within inches of his face. His damaged fist thrashed against Hutch’s chest.

“How many times do I gotta learn the same lesson over ‘n over? No more. It stops. Here. Now. Get a new hobby! Get and stay the hell away! I’m done. I can’t afford you, Hutch. I just can’t afford you anymore.”

Hutch closed his eyes and his fists. He leaned closer, his lips against Starsky’s dark salt-flecked curls, his hands reaching firm and solid to Starsky’s left shoulder.

“I-I d-don’t accept what you just said,” he stammered.

“Sounds to me like that’s your problem.”

“Sounds to me like you got it wrong, Starsk.”

Starsky shoved Hutch’s hands away, leaving a wet crimson smear on the blue jeans jacket. His eyes raked over Hutch, his teeth clenched. Fury and pain spilled from his eyes, turning them almost black.

“You’re asking me to live without my best friend.” Hutch faltered, spray stinging his blue eyes.

‘Yeah, I guess I am. Ain’t you a clever guy?”

“I don’t know how to walk away from my best friend. So. No.”

“Whadda mean, ‘no’?”

“What I mean is it’s not your decision to make, all by yourself. You don’t get to just decide to toss me out of your life. I get a say in the matter.”

Starsky replied with a frustrated snort. He dug into the front pocket of his faded jeans. A coin gleamed in his bleeding hand.

“Let’s flip a coin, Hutch. Heads or tails?”

“Heads or tails, what?”

“Heads, you’re outta here. Tails, you take a hike.”

“I think the going rate for accusatory drama is more than a quarter, partner.”

“Maybe that’s all it’s worth, partner.” Starsky’s voice was ice cold and glass sharp.

Hutch pried the quarter from Starsky’s fist and, with a calm, measured movement, threw it into the sea foam. He moved back to Starsky’s side and forced his shaking dark-haired partner into a close embrace.

“I gotta tell you something, Starsk. I know you’re hurting. I know you want to be with her – you want something I can’t give you. I would, pal – if only I could…if only – God, Starsk.”

The words were quiet against the drumbeat of water, against the surreal expanse of racing clouds and narrow streaks of watercolor blue.

“I won’t patronize you and say I know what you’re feeling. I know you hurt and right now maybe the pain’s too big – it’s too big and makes you feel too small. I know you gotta clear the maze on your own. Maybe you gotta put on the battle gear and come out fighting.

“Maybe you don’t know what to do, but know this. I’ll be there for every skirmish, I’ll be on the sidelines watching, and I’ll be waiting for you in the winner’s circle.”

So much had vanished into the crevices between then and now, between light and darkness. Yet, so much remained here before him – his dark-haired partner with shredded hands and mute suffering – soaked to the bone, slumped heavy in his arms. Hutch shivered, his embrace becoming a shelter for his wounded friend. He tightened his hold, arms supporting Starsky as the storm clouds advanced like a wall of darkness over the mountains.

Starsky stiffened and struck out again, two fists to Hutch’s ribs, driving him backward. Hutch staggered and fumbled for a handhold on the rock outcropping, tilted and regained his balance. When he looked up, his questioning gaze intercepted the searing blue determination of Starsky’s eyes.

“Pretty words, partner,” Starsky spat. “Nice editorial. You don’t know how to walk away? Is that it? Watch me. I’ll show you.”

Starsky waded out of the cold churn of pulsing surf and pushed past Hutch, eyes straight ahead, shoulders pulled in. As Hutch counted the paces, his partner started the long steep climb toward the cabin high above.

Hutch watched until Starsky disappeared between the rock ledges. He fought the autopilot response to chase after his partner, grab him by the shoulders, and shake him until Starsky relented.

No. I’ve gotta let him do this. His way – his path.

Adrenalin rush depleted, Hutch walked back to the water’s edge. He turned the collar of his jacket against the chill and, hiking boots leaving fragile footprints behind him, followed the serpentine curve of shore to the breakwater below the lighthouse.

The roar of crashing waves was a feral siren’s song, haunting, deceiving, melodic – calling and lifting with demonic force to crash and tumble in monochromatic free-fall.

Hutch listened to a refrain rise from the water and echo across mountains and clouds to the horizon.  The chilling breeze amplified the water’s voice, until, to him, it became Starsky’s anthem, his forlorn cry of anguish.

It was too hurtful for words, too deep for tears.

Return to me – Return to me – Return to me

 

Chapter 3 – Every Hour Here

Shelter Cove Cabin, the Lost Coast, Northern California

May 12, 1977 – 5:45 PM

Starsky staggered and half-fell through the door and into the small, dark cabin. The cold hearth offered no welcoming glow. Black clouds smeared across the sky and cast the corners of the rooms into shadow. Bone-deep chill and gloom permeated the air, his clothing, his mood.

The cold had seeped so far into his bones that he accepted it without complaint. His hair and clothing, soggy with salt water, weighed on him like a set of chains. His weary blue eyes scanned the room, seeking out the one item that might make it better. Seeing it on the kitchen counter, he lurched forward and closed his fingers around it – a squat bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label. He reached up to the shelf above the sink, hands trembling, taking down a chipped glass. Finally, with a sigh of exhaustion and defeat, he sank into the ladder back chair at the oil cloth covered table. He poured, gulped, poured again, and felt the roaring liquid fire burning against the deep, frozen ache.

God. God. Will it always be like this? When will it end?

Grief – a malicious, ravenous stranger inhabiting his body, a taunting rebel who took a knife to his sanity and left him wordless and confused.

Grief – an animal to be fed, demanding a different meal every time.

Grief – a mad painter marking his soul a hundred colors of pain – coaxing him to injure someone as badly as he was now injured, to revel in the suffering of someone else, to extract revenge for this harrowing trick of fate.

Hutch.

Starsky drained the glass a third time. He lowered his head onto the table top, damaged right hand curled around the empty glass, left hand extended across the smooth surface of the sticky oil cloth.

I just walked away from Hutch.

Do I want to make up for losing Terri by choosing to lose Hutch? 

If I promise to be alone, can it all go away?

If I sacrifice Hutch too, will it just stop?

The emotional math – two losses to equal one small win – it made no sense to him. But the allure was addictive. The grief howled madly, demanding, needing – he was too heart sore and too battered to follow any other map or to find any other path.

Terri is gone. Nothing will change it. She is beyond any wish – any miracle.

Starsky pressed his forehead against the table, both hands circling the glass, clouded blue eyes closed. His long dark lashes tickled his cheeks as he rotated his head to the side. The darkness reached for him with uncaring fingers. He resisted.

It was all too much. It was mangled, twisted, entwined. The fresh grief of losing Terri. The – admit it to yourself, Starsky – anticipatory grief of one day losing his partner and his best friend.

His voice, words whispered aloud, was like a curse – a damnation.

“Dammit. Terri. This time, it was Terri.” Starsky’s voice broke. “What about the next time? What about when you fall, Hutch? You think I don’t know what the future’s written for us? How about when I’m standing at your grave? When I’m the one retiring your badge and saluting the flag over your coffin?”

He shuddered at their horrifying close calls of the past, the ones that ran through his mind like movies late into the night. Hutch and heroin – the stark, unmasked terror and trust in Hutch’s drug-altered  blue eyes as he clung and begged and whispered Starsky’s name until he was hoarse, nearly voiceless.

Hutch crushed under a car in the canyon – the hospital, Hutch’s delirious, pain-wracked form. The blond hair soaked with sweat. The sound of his name – ‘Starsky… Starsk’ – Hutch’s lips moving in a mantra. He remembered leaning down and holding his partner against his chest, Hutch’s sunburned forehead against his shoulder. He knew that even as pain drowned out every other word and thought from Hutch’s senses, one remained.

My name. He called my name. 

What about his own time in purgatory, his own life-threatening injuries?  Hutch was at his side, fighting, protecting, holding back the tide, deflecting danger, encouraging, declawing every monster and banishing all fears to back under the bed.

I called his name. In pain and despair, half-blinded, lost – I called to the one person I trust most in this world. 

And what about the good times, the safe times, the laughter shared, the secrets exchanged, the trust and the confessions – the many moments Hutch filled that would have otherwise been ignored or meaningless or silent?

Wait.

Finally, what about twin spaces within each of them that resonated, with cosmic clarity, to the frequency of the other? What about their brand of partnership, the gift that allowed them to move in a seamless dance – that allowed a level of loyalty and trust he never knew possible?

I can walk away from Hutch – abandon him as I was abandoned by Terri. But he will never be gone. Because he’s always here. Every minute. Every heartbeat. Every hour. Here.

Starsky’s eyes squeezed closed, as his hands clenched on the fragile glass. He didn’t hear the explosion of shards, diamond bright. He didn’t feel the ragged broken edges digging his palm and calling up a fresh well of crimson blood.

He pushed back from the table, torn knuckles leaving scarlet trails on the chair, on his wet jacket. Wounded hand clutched tightly to his chest, he stood, teetered, limped, and fell headlong onto the sofa, forehead pressed to the cushions.

 

Chapter 4 – No Storms Come

Shelter Cove Cabin, the Lost Coast, Northern California

May 12, 1977 – 10:30 PM

Hutch carried his empty glass back to the kitchen and set it on the counter. He removed his dirty jean jacket and tossed it across the kitchen table top. His wallet, car keys, loose change, a faded ticket stub followed, a jumbled pile over the red-checked oil cloth. He half-smiled, thinking how the familiar, pre-tragedy Starsky would have reprimanded him – “Ahh…Hutchinson, you common slob.” His body and mind felt pummeled, as though pierced by barbed wire.

Firelight shifted the walls, its muted orange light drinking the shadows. Hutch absently tucked a hand inside the front of his white button down shirt and stroked fingertips along the smoothness of his chest. His eyes returned, as they had all evening, to his sleeping partner.

Starsky. There’s so much I would’ve kept you from, if only I could. If anyone wants to harm you, they gotta go through me first. I would step in front of a bullet for you – I would fight to my last strength to keep you safe. But this got by us, buddy. The drawbridge was down and tragedy made it across.

Unexpected, he felt the sting of furious tears on his eyelashes, lingering but not falling. He blinked in surprise. Tears – they felt like the most honest tribute of the day.

If anything’s worth the humiliation of tears, Starsk, it’s you. 

I won’t give you up – I’m staying right here.  

Say what you want, do what you want.

Fight all you want, Just try and stop me.

Exhaustion made him stumble as he slid down next to the sofa on the floor, landing on his knees and sitting back on his heels, long legs folded.  Looking down at Starsky’s sleeping face, he frowned at the pain-crease still evident across the forehead ringed by dark curls. He placed a light hand on his partner’s bare chest, touching the intimate space, feeling the rise and fall of breathing.

Hey Starsk – I’m so tired. I know I’m on guard duty, but the door is locked and the demons are silent. Are they sleeping inside of you, giving you peace, or are they gathering strength for the next attack? I don’t know.

But, just…just let me shut down for a moment…only a moment.

Hutch shuttered his eyes, wheat colored lashes dipping downward. He swayed as the allure of unconsciousness tempted him to cross the narrow gulf and slide down safely into dreams.  He dozed, hand with fingers splayed, still braced against Starsky’s chest.  In minutes, he lost equilibrium as sleep captured him.

He listed sideways, head landing against Starsky’s chest – against the beating of Starsky’s bruised heart.

The fire popped and sparked, the clock ticked, the wind scattered leaves and pine needles along the roofline.

 

May 13, 1977 – Midnight 

Starsky released a low groan as his groggy mind traversed the divide between sleep and wakefulness. Remnants of his pain soaked dreams floated like feathers in the air – A wall of mirrors with strangers staring from the outside, mocking, threatening, saying words he couldn’t understand. Terri – lying in his arms, still and lifeless. Hutch – face down on a filthy pavement, unmoving, never seeing the bullet that ended his life. He shuddered.

Hutch. 

Where to now, buddy? Did I burn the bridges? 

Can you still sense the truth? More than all else do you understand where I want you to be?

It’s right here – right here – where you always are – where I can always find you.

He felt the stiffness of muscles clenched too long without movement. A wool blanket trapped sweet warmth against his skin, even as the rough fibers scratched his bare chest and legs.

Lapis blue eyes drowsy, he stared at the ceiling where shadows skated like spiders in time to the firelight. He tensed, slowly rotated his neck.

His right hand throbbed in time to the beating of his heart. He groaned and lifted it, taking in the white swathes of bandages, tinged here and there with drying blood. He flexed his fingers and hissed at the pinpricks of pain; tested movement in his palm, and grunted aloud.

He became aware of heaviness on his chest, constricting his breathing. Confused, he looked down, seeking the reason. What he saw made him blink, bite his lip, blink again.

There was Hutch’s golden head, a weight against his heart center. Starsky looked at his partner’s lean face – the stretch of pale skin, the straight nose, the carved jaw, the strong line of cheekbone. Hutch’s left hand was tangled in the blankets, the wool tight in his fist. Starsky’s mouth formed a spontaneous, aching smile, as it always did when observing Hutch’s childlike innocence in sleep.

Starsky’s bandaged hand sought its own course and settled against Hutch’s broad back. His sore finger pads pressed, explored, pushed against the coiled tension they encountered.  He squeezed his eyes tight, forehead wrinkling. He yawned, eyes closing as the dead weight of fatigue tugged at him, ensnared him in the gossamer threads of sleep. Within minutes, his breathing relaxed and he drifted, cocooned in slumber.

As Starsky slept, his restless right hand drifted, creeping up to grasp the base of his partner’s neck. Hutch stirred and pressed closer, moving his head from Starsky’s chest to the cradle of collar bone and shoulder, face turned to the hollow of Starsky’s neck. Blood offerings from Starsky’s fingertips, tiny ruby droplets, marked the white cotton of Hutch’s shirt. Starsky’s chin dipped lower, coming to rest on the crown of Hutch’s head.

Dark brown, auburn, and jet curls blended with strands of finely textured golden, honey, and sun-lightened hair. The dying fire cast pale light over two sets of contoured features, as though bestowing peace.

Outside, the edge of the horizon was hidden by cloud banks. The mist caressed the high mountains and pushed pillows of fog over balsa rocks and volcanic sand. The wind shifted to the east, steering storm clouds up the bleak coastline away from landfall – away from the fragile sleeping souls, away from hope and redemption still flickering within a shared circle of grief.

No broken mooring – no unsafe harbor.

No solo voyages to unfamiliar worlds.

No storms come.

-End-