Taking the Long Way Home

Post-SR, Starsky is discharged from the hospital.

Written to fill the prompt: Starsky + Torino; rock me gently… kinda. You’ll see what I mean.

In retrospect, this could read as a prequel to Double Date, (if one ignores a contradictory detail), but I didn’t intend for the stories to be connected so that’s totally up to the reader. Gen or pre-S/H, as you are inclined.

“I can walk, you know,” Starsky huffed.

“I know,” Hutch’s voice came from above his head, calm and imperturbable. He didn’t stop, though, just kept smoothly pushing the wheelchair down the hallway. Behind them, Starsky could hear squeaky rubber wheels as the nurse’s aide followed them with a cart full of plants, get-well cards, books, and other gifts and personal items he’d accumulated over the course of his hospital stay.

Starsky knew this was a battle he wasn’t going to win, so he didn’t try very hard, merely huffed some more and folded his arms across his chest in a show of protest. It was the last thing he had to put up with before he was discharged, the final indignity before he was free of the antiseptic smell, the poking and prodding, the bland institutional food.

And maybe it wasn’t so undignified, really. He’d been grateful enough to Hutch for wheeling him around in the weeks after he’d been moved out of ICU: taking him outside for some sunshine and fresh air, down to the cafeteria so he could sneak bites of slightly less bland food from Hutch’s lunch, or over to the Pediatrics ward to play with the kids. He’d counted on those excursions, in fact, and looked forward to getting ‘pushed around’ by his partner. Not that the candy stripers wouldn’t take him if he asked, on the days when Hutch got stuck at the station or at court or something. For that matter, Huggy or any of the other visitors he’d had would’ve done it gladly, even Dobey. He was lucky, he had no shortage of willing friends. But he liked it best when Hutch was the one chauffeuring.

Well. He liked Hutch best, after all.

“What are you grinning at?”

Starsky tilted his head up to see Hutch leaning over his shoulder, looking down at him. They’d stopped in front of the elevators. Starsky aimed his grin at his partner. “Nothing,” he said. He pointed his nose in the air, crossed his legs, and made a shooing motion. “Get a move on, already. Home, James!”

Hutch snorted. “Hold your horses, we still need to pick up your prescriptions at the pharmacy before we leave.” He pushed the elevator’s down button.

More pills. Starsky’s grin faded a little at the thought. There were plenty of pills in his foreseeable future. Pills, plus physical therapy, dietary restrictions… and no work. The doctors wouldn’t give him a date when he would be able to get back on the job, assuming he’d be able to get back at all. It was too soon to tell, they said. Too many things that could still go wrong, they didn’t say, but Starsky could hear in their careful tone. Hell, he was incredibly lucky even to be alive, and he knew it. He was grateful, but that didn’t mean he was satisfied. No, damn it, he wasn’t going to be satisfied until he took back, with interest, what Gunther had stolen from him, and from Hutch. That would take time, though; time, determination, and patience. The first two he had now, in spades. Patience? He’d have to work on that one.

Meds duly collected, they headed down the last stretch of corridor to the main entrance. No, Starsky thought, the main exit. Freedom.

The doors slid open and… nothing happened.

Well, that was a little anticlimactic.

Starsky mentally rolled his eyes at himself. What were you expecting, a brass band? He looked around the small lot in front of the building that was reserved for pickups and dropoffs. It was full of cars, but he didn’t see Hutch’s.

“So, where’s your wreck?”

Hutch didn’t answer, probably because saying “where the hell do you think it is, dummy?” in front of the aide would’ve been uncouth. Hutch was big on couth; in public, anyway. He just turned left and kept going, towards the main parking lot.

When they rounded the corner, Starsky’s breath caught in his throat. Instead of Hutch’s beater, there, gleaming in the late morning sun, was a vision of red and white.

It looked…. God, it looked—

“Beautiful,” he heard himself say, breathed out soft on the exhale. Somewhere off in the distance, a brass band played.

He’d known that the Torino had been badly damaged in the shooting, of course. He’d been aware, dimly, of bullets ripping into her body, even as they ripped into his own. When he’d recovered enough to ask about what happened to her, no one would tell him a fucking thing. Hutch would abruptly change the subject, Dobey had tried to feed him some bullshit about the car as evidence, and Huggy’d get all evasive and wouldn’t look him in the eye. After a while he stopped asking.

Those sneaky bastards.

Starsky stood up so he could turn around and look Hutch right in the face. “You sneaky bas—”

Hutch was smiling that bright, dazzling smile of his, looking for all the world as though every last wish he’d ever made had come true. Starsky’s breath caught again, and held. Beautiful.

Starsky shut his trap and walked over to the car, slowly circling it. Just looking, at first. She appeared new, almost pristine. The paint job was flawless. It was only when he ran his fingers along the surface of the driver’s side that he could feel the evidence of damage repaired, of trauma and recovery, hiding unseen under the finish. This wasn’t the first time that Merle—and it could only have been the Earl, Starsky had no doubt—had had to nurse his baby back to health, but this time, he’d outdone himself. Starsky owed him, big time, and it would be worth every penny.

“Wow, nice wheels!” the nurse’s aide said, and Starsky smiled and winked at her.

“Be-yoo-ti-ful,” he said again, louder this time, and patted the panel affectionately.

“For a striped tomato,” Hutch said, but fondly, without a trace of mockery. He nodded to the aide and the two of them began loading the car with Starsky’s loot.

When they were done, Hutch held open the passenger side door. Starsky had been about to demand the keys, just to get a rise out of his partner, but Hutch’s still-smiling face stopped him. Starsky wasn’t about to do or say anything that was going to make that look go away. Without a word, he slid into the passenger seat. Hutch closed the door after him with a reassuring thump.

The aide called out a cheerful “Take care!” and waved at them as they drove away.

*****

“Damn, I forgot your sunglasses,” Hutch said. “Here.” He offered his own to Starsky, who was squinting a little.

“Nah, you’re the one who’s driving,” Starsky replied. “I’m good.”

“Yeah, you are,” Hutch said, and there was no mistaking the pride and love in his voice. Hutch put his hand on Starsky’s shoulder and squeezed.

Starsky thought they were going straight to his place, but Hutch got on the freeway heading north, away from the city. He didn’t say where he was taking them, and Starsky didn’t ask. Traffic was light, and they were making good time to wherever it was they were going. Maybe it wasn’t anywhere in particular, just a drive to celebrate, because they could. Starsky was fine with that. He’d go wherever Hutch led. He relaxed, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. The smell of leather warmed by the California sun was in the air, but more than that, there was the smell of them, of him and Hutch together.

Looking back on that day, years later, Starsky could recall the moment with absolute clarity: Riding shotgun in his beloved car with Hutch’s solid presence at his side. The assurance of Hutch’s hand on his shoulder, holding on tight. The familiar feel of the Torino surging forward, rocking him gently, as they took the long way home.

It was the moment when Starsky knew that everything was going to be all right.

Chapter End Notes:

Yeah, about the prompt. The original plot bunny really was based on Starsky being rocked to sleep in the Torino on the way home from the hospital. However, the focus of the storyline shifted during the course of writing, so it feels almost like an afterthought. Still, I hope that image, of Starsky safe and secure in the Striped Tomato with Hutch at the wheel, is the one that endures.