Precious Cargo

Hutch takes Starsky home after the episode Shootout.

Starsky smothered a groan as he got dressed. He might as well have not bothered. Hutch’s hearing was on high alert.

“Hey Gordo, you okay in there?”

“I’m fine…just fine.”

Starsky carefully pulled the t-shirt over his head then held his arm against his body, exhausted from the effort of the task.

“Hutch?”

“Yes?”

“Can you help me get my sling back on?”

The door opened immediately. Hutch took in his partner’s exhausted demeanor but didn’t say anything. He picked up the sling and helped his partner ease his arm into the correct position so that his shoulder was supported.

“Okay?”

Starsky nodded. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

Starsky stepped back into the hospital bedroom to see a nurse waiting with a wheelchair.

“Your chariot awaits,” Hutch said.

Starsky rolled his eyes in exasperation at the stupid rule that said he had to ride out of the hospital, but didn’t argue. Secretly, he was almost relieved. Getting dressed had shaken his shoulder up and a dull ache had started rumbling in it.

Hutch gathered up Starsky’s belongings and the bag of painkillers Starsky had been prescribed. As they walked along the corridor, he quickly glanced at the instructions, mentally working out when his partner would need a pain relief top up.

“Have I got to be seen in your rust bucket?” Starsky moaned once they were outside the hospital.

“Didn’t think you’d want me driving your baby. You always tell me I’m too heavy with my feet,” Hutch pointed out.

“That’s ’cause you are!” Starsky muttered darkly.

Hutch ignored his grumpy friend, placed the items he was holding in the back of the car and then opened the passenger door for him. He offered assistance in the form of a hand under Starsky’s elbow. Starsky climbed in, trying not to wince and settled in the seat.

Hutch hurried around to the driver’s side and got in.

“Seatbelt,” Hutch said. “Just in case of idiot drivers.”

“I don’t want to wear it,” Starsky protested.

“Humour me,” Hutch said. He reached and pulled the belt across his friend as if securing a precious cargo…and perhaps he was.

Starsky patted Hutch’s arm.

“I’m all right, Hutch, you can stop worrying.”

Hutch nodded, but the look he gave his friend told its own story. Relief that Starsky was indeed going to be okay and a profession of the fear he’d felt when Starsky had been shot.

Starsky’s eyes acknowledged Hutch’s feelings and his own. It had been close. Too close.

“We made it.”

Hutch started the engine.

“You staying over?” Starsky asked, even though he knew the answer.

“Of course.”

“You gonna do your mother hen routine?”

Hutch went to protest and then shrugged. “Inevitably.”

Starsky huffed his amusement and then simply said, “Thanks.”