The Difference Between Now and Forever

Hutch does some soul searching in the wake of Diana Harmon’s attack. Starsky is right there to lend support.

Originally published in the 2014 SHareCon zine.

Everything hurt, in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with what the emergency room doctor had just done to Hutch’s left arm. As a matter of fact, his arm was still numb from the topical anesthesia.

Sitting alone in a curtained off cubicle, he stared dispassionately at the white gauze wrapped securely around his upper arm, trying to muster up the outraged anger that had propelled him earlier. He’d deflected Diana’s crazed wrath with adrenaline fueled strength, but that had drained away completely.

Inhaling to dispel the vertigo that threatened, Hutch thought about climbing down off the gurney. The staccato sounds of the ER buffeted him from all sides, strident shouts, plaintive wails and an insistent page for “Dr. Maddox to the fourth floor” overhead.

There was something else he had to do. Make a statement one of his colleagues? He couldn’t face the condemnation of his fellow cops. Anticipating the rumors and scathing remarks kept him glued to the gurney more than his innervating exhaustion.

Looking into Diana’s eyes to ask why held no appeal at all.

“Hey.” Starsky pushed aside the privacy curtain, carrying two cups of coffee. “You decent?”

Despite the lethargy bordering on what he recognized as traumatic shock, Hutch couldn’t help a small quip. “Hardly ever.” Starsky always lightened his mood. Didn’t matter that Diana had just ripped a hole in his soul, not to mention filleting his bicep and tricep, Starsky made things bearable. Made anything better.

“I didn’t think so.” Starsky handed over a cup and pretended to examine the thick bandage around Hutch’s arm. “They gonna spring you early or do you have to stay for the dreaded twenty-four hour observation?”

“Got eighteen stitches–by the plastic surgeon, no less,” Hutch explained. “Five hours in this lousy exam room…”

“Hate to tell you, buddy boy, but the big hand is on the four –it’s more like six hours,” Starsky said, rolling his eyes. “Twice in the ER in less than a week, that’s an all time record, buddy, for either of us.”

“That’s one award I take no pleasure in winning.” Hutch sipped the coffee, waiting for the caffeine to kick in. Right now, he didn’t think he could walk on his own power to the edge of the curtain, much less to the Torino in the parking lot. He set the paper cup on the gurney.

“Mr. Hutchinson?” A middle-aged nurse with a pen tucked behind her ear stuck her head in. “Dr. Constansa’s with another patient, but he said he’ll sign your release papers in the next half hour. Just hang in there.”

“Thanks, schweetheart.” Starsky waggled his fingers at her. “And thanks for getting him into a different exam room from–”

“Oh, my, yes!” She tugged on the stethoscope hanging around her neck, shaking her head. “Diana only worked here a few weeks, I didn’t really know her, but…it’s horrible. I can’t believe she’d do something like that!”

“Could you ask the doctor to hurry up with those papers?” Hutch cut her off without an apology. The very last thing he wanted to hear was how the other nurses had never suspected anything unusual, anything homicidal about Diana Harmon. “She had wonderful nursing skills.” That, he could not deny. She’d wrapped his hand up neatly and given a decent injection. It was the rest of their time together that had left him reeling.

“Sure, sorry!” The nurse scurried off.

“We can make a run for it,” Starsky suggested, bumping his hip against Hutch’s knee. The coffee sloshed out of Hutch’s cup, making a brown wet place on the paper covering the vinyl surface of the gurney. “Maybe take a train to Bolivia, rob a couple banks.”

The familiar joke had the power to turn up the corners of his mouth. Hutch closed his eyes, fisting the fingers of his right hand. The caterpillar stitches marching across his palm ached, but no where near as badly as his left arm would when the lidocaine wore off. Which meant mandatory sick leave, and what Hutch was dreading the most: making a statement about the attack. Having to expose his stupidity, his utter gullibility. Diana had been weird, obsessive, but he’d never imagined she’d go so far.

“Hey,” Starsky said softly, concentrating on folding the edge of his empty paper cup as if he actually knew origami. “I screwed up.”

“Because you didn’t see Diana for what she really was?” Hutch pressed on his temple right handed. The headache that had started when they found out Linda was hurt, before the shower, before Diana tried to gut him like a fish, had intensified to massive proportions. “Starsk–”

“You came to me,” Starsky said angrily, tossing the cup into the trash. “This my fault, I shoulda listened.” He kicked the trash can for good measure. “God, Hutch, you were right, that chick needs to be tossed into Cabrillo State for the rest of her rotten life.”

“I doubt she’ll stand trial,” Hutch said. He felt remote, even from Starsky, as if real life was just beyond his grasp. “Which means Cabrillo is the only place for her. I just…” He trailed off, images pressing in on him that he didn’t want to contemplate. While the doctor was stitching his arm, a terrifying thought had come into his brain and he couldn’t dislodge it. But voicing the idea would give it weight and meaning, which scared the bejezus out of him.

“I’ll go see what’s taking that doctor.” Starsky started to leave.

“No wait, I want to get something off my chest,” Hutch said, rubbing his breast bone.

Starsky leaned against a metal equipment locker, his blue eyes locked on Hutch. Looking straight into his soul, lending support and friendship.

“When you sleep with a girl, do you–” Hutch could see the possible future, the results of his actions so very clearly for the first time since he’d ever slid between the thighs of a nubile, willing bed partner. “Consider that she could get–”

“Knocked up?” Starsky said crassly.

Stung, Hutch sucked in air, aware that Starsky had used the slang for intentional effect. “I don’t,” he admitted. “It’s rarely even in my head.”

“Hutch, I’d tell you most girls we hang out with use the pill, but–” Starsky shrugged. “My track record on female behavior is zilch this week.”

“Which is what I’m afraid of,” Hutch said, swallowing repeatedly against the vile taste in the back of his throat.

“You think she could get pregnant?” Starsky’s voice squeaked on the last word. “Fuck.”

“Succinct and to the point, as always,” Hutch said bitterly. “Do you know how long before a woman knows for sure?”

“No.” Starsky grimaced. “Takes nine months to grow a baby, doesn’t it? Maybe a month?”

Hutch thought back to when his sister had borne a son two years back. Melissa was two months along when she’d announced it to the family. His mother had called him in late April, and the baby had been due in November.

“Must take at least a month, possibly two before–” He almost fell off the gurney, dashing for the sink on the opposite wall before he lost his stomach on the linoleum. He hadn’t eaten in hours, and the bile burned coming up. He spat, retching. His head and left arm pounded furiously as if protesting the violent regurgitation.

“Hey, hey,” Starsky soothed, rubbing his back.

When Hutch sagged wearily against the counter, Starsky poured his a cup of water from the sink, washing away the stinky evidence at the same time.

“I heard vomiting!” The nurse reappeared, concern on her face. “How are you feeling now, Mr. Hutchinson? Any more nausea?”

She helped him up on the gurney and quickly took his vitals, Starsky hovering in the background. “All normal,” the nurse proclaimed writing down the numbers.

“I just want to get out of here,” Hutch answered, unable to keep the snarl out of his voice. “Now.” He could see the nametag on her white uniform. Nancy Connors.

“Dr. Constansa signed your discharge, but with the emesis, I’m a bit worried about dehydration.” Nancy wrote something on Hutch’s chart.

“I’ll watch him,” Starsky vowed. “Make him drink water every hour.”

She nodded briskly. “I’ll get a list of things to look out for, be right back.”

“See?” Starsky grinned broadly, but the effort was obvious. His eyes didn’t shine as they usually did and he was too tense, fiddling with every piece of equipment not nailed down, to pull off elation. “All works out.”

“What if I got her pregnant?” Hutch circled back around to the earlier discussion, speaking barely above a whisper in case Nancy heard them.

“Hutch,” Starsky sighed, long and tired. “It’s like you’re looking for worse news. What if she isn’t? Whichever it is, got to wait until at least Thanksgiving before you’d know one way or the other.”

“Damn.” Hutch wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His left arm was beginning to ache like a sore tooth. Before long, it would throb to the beat of his heart and perversely, he welcomed the pain–feeling like he deserved it after sleeping with Diana with nothing more than a couple of drinks to set the mood. In his mind, at least, they were not friends, not lovers–it was just for the present, nothing more. He’d had numerous one night stands in his life, sex was fun, and it unraveled the constant tension of life as a cop. He’d never thought past the night of mindless release–glad for the fun-time babes who had the same mindset as he did.

Diana had spun him around to face the danger and consequences of his own actions. He hadn’t figured insanity into the equation when he saw her in the slinky purple peignoir. He hadn’t been thinking of anything else beyond his own needs–and what did that say about him?

“She’s looney tunes,” Starsky said gently. “And you didn’t cause that, Hutch, no more’n you forced her to break into your place and make spaghetti or to slash the cushions in your couch. No matter what you think, this ain’t your fault.”

“No more than it was your fault for not getting there in time to prevent the attack,” Hutch said carefully, feeling like he was navigating a mine field. It would probably be like this until he got up the courage to talk to Diana, find out if she was having his child. And as much as the notion terrified him, especially with a woman such as Nurse Harmon, he had always assumed he would have children sometime in the future. Just not like this–the result of a meaningless encounter that left him shattered.

“I called you.” Starsky spoke so softly that Hutch almost didn’t hear his voice, simply the despair. “And she answered. Sounded like…some witch from a horror movie and I knew there was no way in hell I could get there fast enough. I didn’t have the power.”

“You got there in time, Starsk.” Hutch reached for him, pulling him in between his knees.

Starsky came to him willingly, both of them drawing courage and resiliency from one another. Hutch had always been taller, but sitting on the gurney with Starsky’s dark curls brushing the underside of his chin made him feel so much bigger, buoyed with whatever only Starsky could give him. It filled in the holes that Diana had punched in his soul.

Wrapping his arms around Starsky, Hutch felt something stir inside him that had not even been awake when he was with Diana. Or with any of the other forgettable one night stands of his adult life.

With Starsky, there was love and strength. This is where he would stay.

“Hey.” Starsky raised his head, with that endearing crooked grin. “I’d let you drive my car, except you’ve got a bum wing.”

“I could drive circles around you even with this arm!” Hutch declared.

“Like to see you try,” Starsky challenged.

The end