If he falls

He doesn’t stop, because every time he closes his eyes, he sees Starsky fall.

In the moments that Hutch’s brain needs a reprieve from the hunt (and it’s not a metaphor, not this time; he has shifted, driven backwards in time, not to his twelve-year-old self, in the woods with this grandfather’s steady presence beside him, the placing of a gentle hand on his shoulder as he lowered his rifle, unable to disrupt the quiet with the noise of a shot, unwilling to taint the pristine white snowfall with innocent blood, but over millions of years of human evolution, to a primal state of need, not revenge), his mind’s eye conjures the image of Starsky’s body, suddenly frail, innocent blood spilling into the street. His own body remembers the feel of the pavement beneath his hands and knees, his heart and lungs seem to recall the stutter, the hitch, as his brain supplied the poisonous words: ‘he’s dead.’

His stomach settles then, after his memory has churned through each and every image. Because he hadn’t seen Starsky fall. He sees that image, clearly, every time he closes his eyes, but it’s like a stray piece of a jigsaw puzzle, conjured by his mind, slotted into place, giving Hutch a picture to focus on, a map to follow.

Hutch knows, in those moments, that Starsky is a better man than he has ever been, is a better man than he will ever be. Starsky’s heart wasn’t supposed to start beating again, all the odds against it. But Starsky must have known that if he leaves, there is nothing to stop the whole green world from burning, because Hutch knows, without a doubt, that he will not stop until he spills the blood of the man responsible, drop for drop to match his partner’s.