Till the Days Go By

191

Hutch is left adrift and bereft in a world where Starsky dies after the shooting in Sweet Revenge. Grief dogs his every moment.

 

Based on the Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and a Penny in her shoe rhyme when people get married. More than one alternate universe appears in this fic. I even managed a happy ending.

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Something Old

Hutch found the worn blue Adidas in the back of his closet. He couldn’t remember the last time Starsky wore them. He sat on the floor and held them tight against his heart, as if by doing so, he could connect with Starsky.

But Starsky was dead. Waiting in Risser’s Funeral Home to be buried in the morning.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Hutch whispered. Starsky had taken his last breath while Hutch was in San Francisco arresting Gunther.

Hutch didn’t know if he’d ever forgive Gunther—or Starsky for that.

He got up off the floor. Ruth Starsky had been unable to speak, Nick had held his mother close in his own grief, and Hutch had promised he would take care of everything.

He put the shoes in a box and left his apartment, the echoes of Starsky’s laughter following him.

 

Something New

Hutch was glad Jewish custom was a closed casket. But Starsky still needed something to be buried in. The thought of using Starsky’s uniform turned his stomach. It was the profession that had been the cause of his death after all. Besides, he hadn’t been allowed in Starsky’s apartment once Ruth and Nick showed up.

“We don’t care,” Nick had said as Ruth touched the cold skin of Starsky’s face and wept, as she held stiff fingers in her own arthritic ones and kissed each one. “We don’t care what he wears.”

Hutch hadn’t figured out why it mattered so much to him.

He finally bought a blue suit for Starsky to wear—so dark a blue it was almost black. The shirt was white—pure, unstained. But the socks were red, and Hutch thought Starsky would like the secret of red socks and worn blue Adidas.

And then there was only one stop left to make.

 

Something Borrowed

Timothy Risser took the clothing from Hutch.

“I’m so sorry, Detective,” he said.

“I was…when you’re done…may I…” Hutch cleared his throat. “I know there’s no viewing in his tradition. But in mine there is. I’d like to stay with him until it’s time for the funeral.” His heart was beating so fast he thought it might explode. If only it could, Hutch thought.

“We can make that accommodation,” Tim said. “It will be some time.”

Hutch nodded. Time had no meaning any more. Hadn’t since he’d flown back from arresting Gunther knowing that Starsky was no longer a part of it.

Hutch sat in the small chapel—dark except for a single candle that burned. He didn’t care if it would be hours—he had nowhere else to go, nowhere else to be. He didn’t even know where home was any longer because home had always been where Starsky was. Now that Starsky wasn’t…Hutch didn’t know if he existed either.

“Detective Hutchinson?”

Hutch stood at the voice. He had no idea how much time had passed.

“We’re going to move the casket in here,” Risser said.

“Yes.” Hutch didn’t recognize his own voice.

He excused himself and found a bathroom, looked at a face that seemed foreign. He resisted the urge to smash his hand into the mirror.

“Thank you,” he said to Risser when he went back into the chapel. There were streaks of light, pale, dim, coming through the window. It stained Starsky’s skin red, purple, green, blue.

Hutch pulled a chair next to the casket. There were so many things he needed to say, and he couldn’t open his mouth to say a single one.

He placed his hand on the blue nearly black jacket, right where Starsky’s heart should have been beating strongly. But the flesh underneath Hutch’s fingers was stiff, cold, nothing of what Starsky had ever been.

He looked at Starsky’s face—remembered the last fleeting smile he’d seen there right before he’d left to fly to San Francisco. No matter how much they’d tried to capture Starsky’s smile, they hadn’t succeeded. Not that anyone could.

Don’t leave me. Why did you leave me? He wanted to scream, to shake Starsky as if shaking would bring him back to life. But he didn’t. He sat silent, alone with Starsky’s body. Starsky’s dead body.

Those words didn’t seem right. Dead and Starsky. Starsky who had laughed and never sat on a chair’s seat when he could sit on its back or arm and danced and ran and, oh God, loved. Starsky who had loved Hutch with all his being, who had run slender fingers down Hutch’s flank and kissed Hutch over every inch of his body. Starsky who had been alive and someone who knew the Hutch no one else did or ever would.

Hutch watched the light play over Starsky’s face and touched his full lips.

“I love you. I always will,” he finally said when he could find the words.

He only had one thing left to give the man he’d so fiercely loved. Hutch unclaspsed the star and moon necklace he’d bought because it made him think of Starsky. He leaned over, twined it in and around Starsky’s fingers, so Starsky would have a piece of Hutch with him forever, so Hutch could pretend he still mattered to someone—the last thing he could do, save for bring James Gunther to justice.

 

Something Blue

He could only remember the funeral in flashes—even now, over a year later. He remembered the dirt falling onto the top of the casket and later Ruth spitting at him and Nick punching him and saying he wasn’t welcome to come to Al and Rosie’s house. He remembered Dobey leading him away, Huggy taking him home with him.

He went back to work the day after. He had his job—and a promise to keep.

He worked because there was nothing else. Determined to make sure Gunther paid the price for Starsky paying his, he worked. He only slept and ate because he needed to in order to keep going.

He sold Venice Place, made sure his will was up to date when he withdrew all the money from his trust fund. He got rid of his belongings, saved only his guitar and the few pictures he had of him and Starsky. He donated everything else to charities down to the bedsheets and the clothing that Starsky had loved to see him in.

His new apartment held a bed, two chairs, and not much else. His clothes hung in a nearly bare closet. Work was all he had. When he ate, he ate alone in a restaurant. He didn’t allow himself alcohol, told himself it was because he didn’t want to spend the money, but knew it was because drowning himself in liquor was too tempting. If he lost himself there, he’d never find his way out.

It took eighteen months before James Gunther came to trial. The trial for the murder of David Michael Starsky lasted fifteen days. Hutch sat in court for every one of them. It took the jury five days to reach the verdict. There, of course, would be more trials. Trials for drug trafficking, bribery, the murder of Bates. But those held no interest for Hutch. Only this one—only the one that would give hollow meaning to Starsky’s death.

Hutch walked out of the courthouse and into the sunshine. Cameras flashed, microphones were pushed in front of his face.

“Detective Hutchinson, how do you feel now that a guilty verdict has been given to Mr. Gunther?”

“Do you feel justice has been served for your partner?”

He said nothing, and the pictures that appears in the newspapers showed a rail thin man with haunted eyes and a mouth set in a grim line.

He allowed Huggy and Dobey to lead him away. Huggy drove him home and for the first time, someone else set foot in what was now his home.

He looked at Huggy who stood crying as he saw the emptiness.

Can’t you see, Huggy? He wanted to explain but couldn’t. No one could ever understand.

“Come with me. Come stay with me,” Huggy said. “Starsky wouldn’t want…”

“Thank you,” Hutch told him and closed the door behind him.

He spent the next days writing letters, waiting for the full moon. On that day, he gathered up everything he needed and started to drive north.

He stopped in a small town, bought a bottle of whiskey, and mailed all the letters and packages from the small post office. And then he drove some more.

He wasn’t quite sure where he’d find the place but he told himself he’d know it when he saw it.

When he stopped, he clambered down a rocky slope, the bottle of liquor in one hand, the bottle of pills in the other. He laughed when he realized he was afraid of falling.

As for the rest, a note was taped to the steering wheel for when the cops found his car. The packages and letters would tell the rest of the story to those who received them.

The ocean was the color of Starsky’s eyes—especially out in the deeper waters. Water and earth—Starsky in the cold cold ground, he in the ocean he loved so much.

He drank slowly, took the pills one at a time, measured the passing moments. Each breath he took seemed more beautiful than the last, syncing with the waves. The sunset was all orange and gold and, for the first time ever, he saw the flash of green as the sun slipped below the horizon. The stars came out, the moon rose, and the waves kept up their relentless pounding of stone into sand.

And when enough time passed, the moon shone a straight silver path on the ocean. The sky was the color of Starsky’s eyes—midnight blue when they had been making love. Hutch stood up, not nearly as wobbly as he expected, took off his clothes and folded them neatly in a pile. He placed a rock on them.

The first step took his breath away as did the second. But he dove beneath the next wave and came up farther from shore. He began to swim on that moonlit highway. To Starsky, to death’s welcoming embrace.

And when he couldn’t take another stroke, cold and weary and drowsy from liquor and pills, he turned to his back, looked up into the sky the color of Starsky’s eyes, smiled. He closed his eyes and let the sea carry him to where he longed to be.

 

And A Penny in His Shoe

It took Huggy Bear days before he could bring himself to open the package Hutch had sent to him. By then, he knew—they all did.

Hutch hadn’t answered his phone, hadn’t shown up for work. Dobey and Huggy found the apartment empty, the letter giving all the details of his lawyer’s information, what to do with the few things he had left. The money Hutch had left went to Kiko and Molly for their education and to Sweet Alice (so she can follow her dreams, the letter instructed). Venice Place to Esperanza Ramos for her to do with as she pleased. He asked that the guitar go to a student who couldn’t afford one, that his clothes go to a mission.

“I’m sorry,” the letter had ended. Just that.

So when Huggy sat down with the box in hand, the fact that his hands were shaking wasn’t a surprise.

There was a book—Starsky’s handwriting inside the cover and a bookmark that was a receipt from Manny’s Pizza.

A letter was there too—a letter with Hutch’s handwriting. Huggy had to take deep breaths before he opened it.

His eyes filled with tears as he read.

“There’s a quote recently made famous by Carl Sagan. ‘The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.’ I believe this is true, Huggy. I know it’s true. And if by some miracle that I want so badly to believe in, then that means that every time you look at the world around you, Starsky and I are there with you. I am sorry I couldn’t go on. But every day without him was a day I died a little bit more.

“Read the book I sent you. It was the last book Starsky was reading. He was telling me about it the night before…well the night before. I want to believe what he told me—that there are myriad universes out there with people who are us but whose lives changed because of one little thing. I want to believe there is a universe where Starsky didn’t die. Where he and I can live long long lives loving each other every day.”

The ink smeared as Huggy’s tears fell on it, ocean to sky to gray.

“And here’s to the men of the hour!” Huggy held up a glass as the party in The Pits quieted. “Starsky and Hutch!”

He grinned at his friends who sat at a table surrounded by their friends.

“How does it feel to be the duo who is responsible for bringing down James Marshall Gunther?” Huggy asked.

Starsky smiled. “It’s all Hutch. I just listened while he went on and on while I was in the hospital.”

Hutch shook his head. “It was us. Partners.” He cleared his throat and spoke more loudly. “And every one else who worked so hard!”

“Guess it don’t matter who, just that he’s gonna pay the price,” Huggy said. He pulled a chair to the table, sat down with them while the party flowed around them.

“How you both doing?” he asked. He caught Starsky’s eye nudged a plate with a burger and fries closer to Hutch.

“We’re getting there,” Starsky said. “My last check-up…”

“Was great,” Hutch said around a mouthful of burger.

“We won’t be going back on the streets. Not like before,” Starsky said. “My lung can’t take it. Thanks for the no-smoking in here by the way.”

“De Nada,” Huggy told him. He leaned in closer. “And what about the other thing?”

“The other thing?” Hutch pushed the plate away. Starsky pushed it back.

“C’mon. Don’t you think it’s time you two make it official?” Huggy looked from one to the other.

“Official?” Starsky and Hutch said in unison.

“When are you going to admit to everyone else what everyone else already knows?”

“Oh that,” Hutch said.

“You gonna kiss the boy?” Huggy asked Starsky.

“In public?”

“In The Pits,” Huggy said. “It’s not as if you can’t marry the man if you want to.”

“Hutch?”

Huggy smiled as Starsky’s voice honest to God squeaked.

“Yeah.”

They came together in a kiss, and Huggy led the others in tapping glasses for them.

“Here,” he said when they pulled apart. He tossed two coins on the table.

“Pennies?” Hutch asked, picking them up.

“When you finally decide to tie the knot, you each put one in your shoe. You know—something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue—and a penny in your shoe.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Starsky said.

“By the way,” Huggy continued. “I am a licensed officiant in the state and my cousin Angie is a wedding planner.”

But Starsky and Hutch were no longer paying attention to anyone but each other.

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Chapter End Notes:

The title from this fic comes from the heart-breakingly beautiful song, Not A Day Goes By, from the musical Merrily We Roll Along. And if you want to have a good cry–look up Not A Day Goes By sung by Bernadette Peters on Youtube. This is my favorite version of it: