So Much to Say

So much to say, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say
‘Cos here we have been standing for a long long time
can’t see the light
treading trodden trails for a long long time…
I find sometimes it’s easy to be myself
sometimes I find it’s better to be somebody else

—So Much To Say

*~*~*

It’s my fault, every last bit of it. I take full responsibility and can only hope he’ll forgive me someday.

It started when I was too jealous of his relationship with Kira to give myself to the job as I should have. I compromised the case, his safety, her safety, my safety.

Although if anything had happened to me, I would have deserved it.

I deserved his punches, his anger pulled from his heart. I betrayed him.

I betrayed myself.

And he made me pay. Oh, God, how he made me pay.

My phone didn’t ring. At work he talked to me only when he had to. The one thing he never did was let me walk into danger—always, always, he had my back.

No matter what, I could at least count on that.

Not that I deserved it.

Even our truce over Kira, once we both realized how much she had played us, proved tenuous. Walking out of Huggy’s with our arms around each other was a balm but not a resolution, a little band-aid over the gaping wound in our relationship that our—my—actions had torn open.

Slowly, out of a reverence to the love we had shared for each other, we climbed that mountain of friendship, wanting to be kings again. We found it easy to fall back into familiar patterns but a sad hesitance always came first; a glance up to see if the other would be receptive to the idea before making the simple assumptions we used to. The banter was forced.

It was a bit like walking on cracking ice, except we were starting from the middle and working towards the solid shore, avoiding what seemed weakest and leading each other around the larger holes. But just as that shore was in sight, when laughter and affection came easily and the last of the bitterness and pain had faded away, bullets tore us apart again.

The glass shattered around me like rain from a sudden downpour, and later I would stare at my hands, wonder how they had not been able to protect him. How they had escaped even the most minor injury amongst all the tiny sharp edges when just a few feet away my partner, the best friend I’d ever had or ever would, had begun to die.

I remember standing there. I could hear the rush of my breath and the pounding of blood in my ears but my feet would not move. Starsky stared at me, through me, his body twitching as he began to float in a puddle of his own making. The breathy sound of him trying to call my name propelled me towards him, to hold his head and tell him everything was all right.

Peripherally I sensed the chaos around us, but I focused only on my partner. I stayed with him until the hospital and then I felt myself shoved away, so hard I stumbled into a wall. I clung to the edge of the doorway and rolled myself around it to peer in to where white coats heaved and pulled, tossed and gestured, where voices babbled orders and hands began to drip with red.

Starsky’s blood. So much.

He’d already shed too much recently. I had broken his heart—I know, for he told me so in one of our painful talks, walking on that thin ice. I had spilled emotional blood and now I hadn’t prevented the spilling of real blood.

I had failed him. Again.

Once they moved him to a room, I sat outside his window, watching, part of me grateful for the presence of my captain and my friend, another part of me wishing they’d go away, to allow me to focus solely and only on the man in that room, the man I’d die for, the man I wished I could trade places with.

I truly felt it was the only way to make it all up to him.

Instead, I went after Gunther, and got him. Even without Starsky at my back, I could still feel him there, his strength of spirit propelling me forward, just as it had when he was lying there in a pool of blood.

It was the least I could do.

But still. I had failed him.

*~*~*

My guilt took on the shape of a quilt, my promises the squares I added every day, covering him up to protect him from anything that could possibly cause him future pain. I begged God to allow me that earlier bargain, to put me in that bed instead.

I wandered the room, talking to myself, not caring if the nurse heard me or not. She had a book; she didn’t care about him or me, not beyond her professional capacity.

She reminded me of myself during Kira’s hold on us, personal pleasure taking precedence over the importance of the job.

Maybe that’s not fair. He only needed someone nearby in case an alarm went off, someone who knew how to read and analyze the information, to call for help or gripe about the inconsistency of the machine.

But every time one of those damned alarms went off, the pit in my stomach dug itself deeper, not repairing itself when the tone proved false.

Starsky saved me again, though. Always watching my back, even at death’s door, because when I thought that pit had finally eaten as deeply as it could go and I would die with the next alarm, he woke up.

*~*~*

He didn’t speak at first, just watched me with faintly haunted eyes, blinking as if not sure if he were awake or asleep still. His mouth moved but he made no sound. I sat beside him, talked, held his hand.

Within a day, he squeezed back.

By the second day, he could say my name. So different from the last time he’d said it, even though it sounded the same, because this time he wasn’t asking for help. This time, it was in recognition.

I hope someday it will include forgiveness.

I have so much to say to him.

~end