For Annette

By KAM

Doing It a Different Way:
       "The Plague" Uncensored

A what-if novel of missing and altered scenes, for my Secret Santa recipient, whoever she might be, who wanted a case story, slash, and whose favorite episodes include: The Fix, Shootout, Tap Dancing Her Way Back into Your Hearts, The Plague, and Sweet Revenge.

Part one

Warm, too warm, Hutch slowed his run to a jog then to a lope and eased into walking. After a few steps, letting his muscles adjust, he stopped and bent over, sucking in air. Too warm a November day for his black sweat suit, for sure. He'd absorbed every ray of sun, and the sweat sliding down his chest, back, and legs under the heavy black cotton did little to cool him. Staring down at his old green Nikes for another second, he brushed wet tendrils of hair off his forehead and unstuck a few strands from his cheeks, finally ready to lift his head for a look at his surroundings.

He saw dirty streets, chain link fences, abandoned buildings with cracked windows, and faded, sagging-board shotgun houses, an architectural trend that hadn't caught on well this far from New Orleans. He heard dogs barking, a shrill woman's voice in a language he didn't recognize, and the faint hum of someone's television. Damn. He'd done it again. He'd run all the way to the outer limits of the ninth precinct, where fingers of the inner city stretched toward suburbia. He'd run to the neighborhood where Starsky had found that damned money pit with the leaky roof over it.

Hutch started walking. He always did. Whenever he ended up here on the mornings he had time for a long-distance run, he didn't turn and run right back to Venice. He walked and looked, searching for something not in the dingy neighborhood but within himself.

In the weeks since John Blaine's murder, Hutch had run farther, swum more laps than he had in training before entering the police academy. He could run to the North Pole, and he'd get there frostbitten and still have these feelings he now had a name for. He could swim the Pacific, and he'd wash up on Japanese soil half-drowned and still crazy about a man in a way he had to put a label on or lose his ability to look himself in the mirror. His feet couldn't outrun his brain, and even the ocean couldn't wash away the desire.

Years of friendship with Starsky had slowly, quietly whittled away the rough, baring a diamond to the sunlight, and the new sparkling blinded Hutch at times. He couldn't even read his own sheet music. Lately when he sat down at his piano, the way a lonely old man bellied up to a bar in search of solace, he meant to play one of his songs but found himself playing a sentimental chestnut instead. As Time Goes By with that Starsky-Bogey voice in his ear. "Here's lookin' at you, kid." Or Night and Day, classic Cole Porter, and shouldn't that have told him a thing or two?

Turning down Winchell Street he walked the crack-riddled sidewalk fronting the row of small businesses owned by families clinging to their tiny corners of the market, desperate to keep the gobbling chain businesses at bay. He passed the record store, bookstore, coin laundry, hardware store, stopping at Eldarov's Family Market.

Hutch found his usual cup of plain yogurt in the cold case at the back of the narrow store, and went over to the bins of nuts to dip a serving of sliced almonds in one of the little baggies. This time when he brought his bounty and plastic spoon and napkins to the counter, he had a chance to talk to the stoop-shouldered old man behind the register. The small man had seen at least eight decades, his whitening hair sharp in contrast to his warm complexion and dark eyes.

"Did you find everything you needed?" the old man asked in clipped, accented English.

"Yeah, sure did, thanks. You're Mr. Eldarov?" Hutch rolled up his left sweatshirt sleeve to reveal the small leather pouch he wore strapped around his forearm. Hard experience had taught him not to run without ID or money on his person. He handed over a ten spot.

"Yes."

"Unusual name."

"Here it is, yes. It is not so unusual in the country of my birth. Azerbaijan."

"Oh?" Hutch smiled. "I was just reading an article about a village in Azerbaijan."

The small man had a big, friendly smile, his teeth clean, white, and healthy for someone his age. "About the longevity of the villagers. Yes? In the National Geographic. I too read this article. I was raised near the old city of Baku." Mr. Eldarov handed him his change.

Hutch dropped the coins into the March of Dimes donation box on the counter, and took one of the thank-you peppermints. He tucked the wrapped mint and dollar bills into his pouch and strapped it around his arm. "How long have you lived in this neighborhood?"

"I have lived here over twenty years."

"You've seen a lot of changes around here then?"

Mr. Eldarov gave him a quick, sharp nod. "This is a good neighborhood. The people here, we are a, how do you say, a melting pan?"

"Pot."

"Yes. Melting pot. We have many differences, but we are all the same in how we want to better this place where we live. We do for ourselves. We don't have much help. We are not the first people the city, the officials, you say, council? We are not their first priority."

"No, I guess not. Well, you have a nice place here, Mr. Eldarov." Hutch lifted his cup of yogurt and baggie of almonds. With a smile he said, "Always fresh and crunchy."

Mr. Eldarov gave him another big smile. "Thank you. Eldarov's Market values quality. Do you mix the almonds in your yogurt?"

"Yeah. Even better that way."

"Then here, use my counter. I will throw away what you do not need. You are running?"

"That's right. Thank you."

When Hutch left Eldarov's, promising to be a regular customer, he had only his spoon and his yogurt cup wrapped in a napkin. He ate slowly, savoring the creamy-tang of yogurt with its nutty crunch, and walked slower, taking in the sights. After the conversation with Mr. Eldarov — I need to tell Starsky about that village in Azerbaijan where people live to 148 — Hutch saw details he'd missed on his previous explorations.

He noticed the small group of people, including one pregnant lady, picking up litter from the dusty playground with its dilapidated jungle gym and rusty-chain swings. Down the next street he heard the tap-tap-tap of hammering and the buzz of a saw. That shack wasn't the only fixer-upper in the area.

By the time he reached the street of interest to him, he'd put away most of the yogurt. Stopping in front of an old wire trash can attached to a street lamp, he scooped and crunched and swallowed the last few bites of his breakfast and tossed the empty cup and spoon. He licked his lips, wiped his mouth. The napkin balled in his fist, he walked a little faster as he neared his destination.

Ah. There it was. The little house. Hutch took another long look at the gray concrete-brick foundation, the cracked, faded burgundy paint, the filthy porch he'd stumbled on to courtesy of a rotting door doubling as steps, and tumbled off of courtesy of a rickety board porch rail. In his mind he heard a replay of his angry words that day Starsky brought him to see their bright and shining shared investment.

Once he got off the ground, dusting himself off, he had three problems when faced with Starsky's concerned, apologetic expression. He had a sore back, a rush of fury, and a hard-on. He took care of the first problem with a few stretches, and the second he would relieve with a finger-wagging lambasting of his hopeful partner. He would just ignore the third problem throbbing in his jeans.

"Hey, uh, now wait a second. Just wait. This house has got great water pressure, Hutch."

"Starsky! Don't try to play realtor. The real estate company probably has the water turned off. Anyway, good water pressure does not a house make. That's not a house, it's a— it's a money pit with a leaky roof over it."

"If you're gonna badmouth the house, get your facts straight. The roof doesn't leak."

"How do you know? You've been inside this dump on a rainy day? I've seen hovels with more going for them than this place."

"Hovels."

"Yeah, hovels."

"Uh-huh. What exactly do you mean by hovel?"

"A step up from what you've spent our money on, Starsky! Temporarily spent, because by God, you better contact the realtors and withdraw the offer. You'd have to put Astroturf down to get anything resembling a front yard—"

"Hey! We could use that as a selling point later. Low maintenance lawn, the brand pro athletes trust—"

"Starsky!"

That day two weeks ago, the first time he'd ever gone fully erect for his partner, Hutch had wanted to come off that dusty ground and shock the hell out of Starsky by planting one on that motor mouth trying to quick talk his way out of the doghouse. Common sense, the open setting, and preservation of their safety and careers had combined to stop him before he could carry out his wild plan. He wished now he could've ignored all three deterrents the way he'd ignored his hard-on.

Hutch discreetly adjusted the spread of his sweatpants across the swell of his groin. Damn it. He was harder than that concrete porch again. He knew damn well he wasn't hard for the roach-motel in front of him. He ached for what it represented: time with Starsky, shared property, a common goal. He envisioned them bickering over paint colors, teasing each other over carpentry mishaps, sprawling on that porch and knocking back a few brews out of a cooler after several hours of back-breaking labor.

Oh, Christ. Starsky, I made a mistake. I made a huge mistake.

He'd misjudged the neighborhood as well. Two weeks ago, he'd had acerbic commentary on the real estate catchphrase. Location, location, location. He understood now what had drawn Starsky to the place. A community trying to pull itself up by the bootstraps would appeal to Starsky, who found common ground with struggling taco-stand owners and empathized with the inmates of an insane asylum after a day of playing patient.

One of the things about you I've been falling for… longer than even I realized.

Rubbing his brow, Hutch cursed at the "sold" sign nailed over the real estate company's wooden advertisement on the porch pillar. Someone hadn't wasted time after Starsky withdrew their offer. Someone else had scooped up this goldmine of potential.

Too late. Too late, Hutchinson. When will you ever learn?

He turned away, starting for home, walking at first to let his breakfast settle. After ten minutes, he would give his legs the go-ahead and give the wind a run for its money. He deserved whatever discomfort came with speed-jogging under the influence of a frustrated woody. He didn't deserve the relief he would get from a jerk-off under the trickle-spray showerhead at Venice Place, but needs must. Starsky was picking him up later that morning so they could meet Jake Donner at the airport and take their old friend out to lunch at the place of his choosing.

Hutch scanned the sky for sun location. Right. He had two hours to get sex, fixer-uppers, and Starsky off the brain. He would enjoy this rare day off, come hell, high water, or inconvenient blood flow to his dick. Who knew when he'd get another one? A day off, not blood flow to the dick. Hutch smiled sourly at himself. He and Starsky had two grueling weekend shifts ahead of them, and they were down on the roster for a twelve-hour on Monday. To whom little is given, much is still expected — that was Dobey's take on Scripture when it came to scheduling.

~*~

"Oh, yeah. Oh. Ye-e-ah."

Starsky slowed the Torino to a rumbling crawl down Ocean, wanting a few extra seconds to appreciate the scenery. By scenery he didn't mean the roller skating princess wearing less material than Thanksgiving turkeys come wrapped in. She got a quick once-over, and he'd give her a six out of ten for looks, but a three for common sense, because it was November, no matter what the thermometer said, not July. The fashion maven in funky platforms who walked her pooch on a sequined leash got nothing but a two-second glance. Great tits, but the skyscrapers on her feet knocked her down to a five out of ten.

For a perfect ten, Starsky had no farther to look than the tall sunbeam in khaki from shoulders to shoes. He knew better than to think of that leather jacket as mustard-colored. He'd once teased its wearer that the jacket reminded him of mustard, not the bright yellow kind that got spurted on hotdogs, but that fancy spoon-dipping kind with the French name. He'd gotten a cool blue glare and then an hour of chillier silence. No one could do silent outraged dignity like Ken Hutchinson.

"Oh, ye-e-a-ah," Starsky purr-growled again as he got close enough to see how the early morning sun played on that blond hair and how far down Hutch had left that beige shirt unbuttoned, showing smooth chest Starsky wanted to feel against his fingertips.

God, this was fun.

He did some of his best thinking — Hutch would call it soul searching — on the basketball court. In the weeks since Blaine's murder, Starsky had communed with the hoop a few times. While he worked his hook shot, finessed the arc on his jump shot, and smoothed out his lay-up, he'd done some hard thinking on role models and love, dignity and justice, political platforms and shirt sleeves, tendencies and time.

Amazing what could happen when a guy unlocked a door inside his mind, and what he could find that he'd locked behind that door for years.

Somehow along the way he'd convinced himself that door was like the one in the old story about a tiger and a lady. Turned out it wasn't the lady behind that bolted door, it was his partner, and Starsky wanted to know if Hutch was a tiger in the sack.

With that door swinging wide open in his mind, Starsky had discovered new fun in little things like the rush of arousal he got with that first glimpse of Hutch for the day. Soon as he stopped spinning from the newness, he'd try to get a peek inside Hutch's head to see if that "it's no big thing" philosophy meant Hutch had a wide-open door of his own.

For now, he'd enjoy the scenery.

He eased the Torino to a stop, and Hutch wasted no time getting in, pulling the car door shut with a slam that almost wilted Starsky's aspiring hard-on.

Starsky tried heading off Hutchinson grouchiness at the pass with a bright grin. "Good mornin' to you." He got a tight-lipped warning look that meant he should check the traffic, pull away from the curb, and keep his big trap shut. He did two out of three. "What's the matter?"

"The damn shower again! Felt like I was standing under a water hose that someone had tied into a knot. I got a few trickles, a sprinkle or two, and that's it. Took me thirty minutes to wash my hair, for God's sake."

Oh, man. Could he really resist an opening so huge he could drive the whole set of Laugh-In through it? Yeah, he could: smarter to leave hair jokes undelivered in favor of more important matters. Even a grouchy Hutch couldn't do much ass-chewing on such a beautiful November day. "So, who's buying?"

"Who's buying what?"

"Lunch, dummy. Jake. The airport? Sound familiar?"

"Oh, you mean Lieutenant Donner."

Starsky cruised through the right on to Venice Boulevard. "You're gonna call him that?"

"Well, he's been in Europe on an extended tour at the expense of the department, rubbing elbows with Interpol and Scotland Yard and the Sûreté. He might not take too kindly to plain old detective sergeants hailing him by his first name."

"Yeah. Maybe you're right. Nah. Come on, Hutch, this is Jake."

"Call him Jake if you want to, Starsky."

Starsky knew then he was being suckered by a straight-faced Midwesterner who could beat a psychic at poker. "Tellya what, if Jake wants us to call him by his first name, I'll buy lunch, and if you're right, you spring for the lunch tab."

"Wait, that's backward. Why should I buy lunch if I'm right?"

"Thought we'd do something a little different." He sent a quick side glance Hutch's way and got a wide-eyed and wary stare in return. "Hutch?"

Hutch jerked that stare back to the windshield. "Watch the road, Starsky! You ride that guy's bumper any closer we'll owe him for the tow job."

A light brake tap brought him out of tailgating distance. Damn. Starsky tightened his grip on the wheel. Maybe Hutch had already taken a peek or two inside his head and spotted that open door. Maybe Hutch wanted to shut it.

~*~

When Jake went in search of the cleanest table under the umbrellas, Hutch tugged on Starsky's leather jacket sleeve, halting the dig for his wallet. "I'll get this."

"Yeah? But I—"

"You were right, I know, but come on, that was a dumb bet, Starsk. Guy who's wrong should pay up." Hutch dug for his own wallet. "Now, if Jake had wanted Claud's Fine Steakhouse instead of a world-famous burger, I'd let you pay."

Starsky could roll his eyes like a pro when he wanted. "That I can believe, Mr. Generosity. Okay. I'll go help Jake wipe ketchup off the seats."

Hutch watched Starsky's relaxed strut. Starsky had several struts, each one with its special appeal. This one drew the eye to subtle ass-shaking. Shaking his head at himself, Hutch wanted to know when he'd turned into a naturalist studying some new exotic species. Recently he'd lounged in front of this same order window and commented on the pure grace of a blonde lady journalist in a skirt and heels. Fourteen life-changing days later, he'd fully embraced the truth deeper inside himself. The only real grace that could keep him interested for 148 years belonged to a male street cop in blue jeans and Adidas.

What kind of hypocrite was he? Less than an hour had passed since he called Starsky "gross" for being too fixated on sex to appreciate the benefits of advanced age, and here Hutch couldn't shift his gaze one millimeter from those splotched-denim jeans that showed off Starsky's slender waist, muscled ass, and clung to his legs in the best places.

Hypocrite, hell. True to his nature, that's what it was. Over the years he'd perfected the art of covering his own vulnerability by playing devil's advocate to Starsky's.

After Blaine's death, he'd let Starsky voice the hard questions, the doubts, the hidden prejudices, shielding his own behind glib liberality.

Face to face with horrific child abuse, and Starsky's pained, brooding appall on top of that picnic table outside the school, Hutch had responded with Carol's educator theories instead of his own rage, disgust, and helplessness.

Right here at this window, he'd needled Starsky for ogling C.D. Phelps's legs while he talked up his "sensitive man" persona, claiming a deeper interest in her core personality. Bullshit. He hadn't given a damn about her mind any more than Starsky had until she used her journalistic prowess to devastating effect.

And finally the house….

He'd let Starsky stand there chuckling with unabashed enthusiasm, while he'd swept his own enthusiasm for a happy Starsky under a rug of practicality, concern for their bank accounts, and put-downs.

Jesus! What was he scared of, way down deep? If he couldn't show his vulnerabilities to Starsky, after all these years, when Starsky had seen him at his best, his worse, and all points in between, who the hell could he ever show them to? Well, enough was enough. History only repeated itself if someone let it. Next time Starsky ventured into vulnerable territory, he would have a fellow pathfinder blazing the trail with him.

"Hey, mister!"

Hutch jumped and spun around to face the order window. The server thrust a loaded tray at him. With a curt nod, Hutch balanced the weight of sodas, burgers, and fries and took the tray over to the guys waiting under the brightly colored umbrella.

~*~

Starsky still couldn't believe it. He had to be giving Hutch some kind of what's-got-into-you look. Jake tore into his double cheeseburger with an appreciative growl, and Hutch had already shoved three fries into his mouth, but Starsky was squeaking the straw in his lime-and-yellow soda cup and staring at Hutch.

Man. Hutch footing the bill the one time Starsky hadn't tried to find a loophole? Right after he'd talked his way out of a sky-high tow bill at the airport, too. Starsky wanted to know what he'd done to please the gods, so he could keep doing it.

"Starsky!"

He blinked at the snap of Hutch's fingers in front of his nose. "What?"

Jake absently rubbed that scratch on his hand. "I was asking you guys what's new, what's been cooking on the streets while I was gone."

"Oh." Starsky unwrapped his chiliburger. "A lotta same old, same old. Nothing to write to Europe about. Well, except there's a little rumbling in the syndicate ranks."

"Yeah?" Jake grabbed a few fries. "What's that about?"

"We don't have a clear picture yet, Jake." Hutch handed over the ketchup squeeze bottle when Jake motioned for it. "But we're hearing things. Possible new numbers banks in an area that used to be strictly porno and prostitution. Working girls better bankrolled and changing territories."

Jake whistled around his soda straw. "Sounds like somebody's found upward mobility."

"That's what we think." Starsky squirted ketchup on a clean corner of his burger wrapper. "We're just not sure who. Dobey's got us eyeballing the situation, but until we get a homicide out of it, it's mostly Vice and Gambling's problem."

"But you know how it is in the syndicate world." Hutch reached two fries over to dip them in Starsky's glob of ketchup. "When somebody smaller than somebody else starts getting big ideas, somebody usually gets dead."

"And then the whole mess lands right in our laps." Starsky squirted more ketchup. If Hutch wanted to share, fine, but he didn't intend to be left with cold, dry fries.

"I'll tell you what, fellas, it's a small world. Here you are talking about a possible shake-up in the syndicate pecking order, and guess what the buzz was in Naples while I was swinging through Italy on my tour?"

Starsky noticed Hutch pointing at the corner of his own mouth, then at him. He fingered a smear of chili off his chin. "You got me."

"Stern. One of our homegrown nasties. He was over there, been there the past month or so, and Interpol and the counter-mafia squad in Naples want real bad to know why."

Hutch shot Starsky a raised-eyebrow glance. "I'm with them. We didn't even know Stern had left his hilltop palazzo here in Bay City. What do you think, Starsk? Syndicate rumblings on the verge of outright gangland war?"

Starsky refused to let that nasty thought sour his stomach while he had the city's best chiliburger in his hands. "Could be. Could be Stern's trying to skip out on all those library fines. Probably a few years late returning The Little Mobster That Could."

Jake laughed. Hutch treated Starsky to a soft smile and quiet chuckles.

Starsky got a warm rush of happiness followed by a sudden chill.

~*~

Dead.

Virginia Donner dead.

First Jake, then….

They got the word forty-eight hours into their quarantine, and like the word on the street, harsh, deadly truth always had a certain ring to it. Hutch hated that sound. He'd wanted time with Starsky away from the job. Well, if this didn't fall into the category of "be careful what you wish for," he didn't know what did.

For the first twelve hours cooped up in the small observation room on the isolation ward, he and Starsky slept off the strain of weekend zebra-unit duty packed with three armed robberies, two stabbings, and one rape. The shock of losing Jake to an unidentified illness couldn't keep them awake when they got within fall-down range of two glorified cots.

The second twelve hours they paced in their yellow hospital gowns and black hospital slippers, argued over TV programming, let nurses tap their veins, and dodged what-ifs.

The third twelve hours they didn't talk or look at each other for more than a few seconds.

The fourth they tossed and turned and sniped at each other about snoring.

Then the masked, gowned, and gloved doctor on rounds gave them the news about Mrs. Donner. Hutch saw Starsky's eyes gleam and blink rapidly, while tears stung his own.

Night had come again. Hutch could tell by the darkness outside their exterior window, and the change in activity level in the hallway outside the observation windows.

Lounging on top of olive drab covers that had to take Starsky back to his army days, Hutch propped against the slab of white granite masquerading as a pillow. He stretched his legs out to the very foot of the bed, crossing his ankles. His back sent an achy warning signal to his brain. Twisting his midsection a little, he gave up on comfort, and watched his quarantine roommate creep closer to the observation glass.

With only the wall light by the door and the greenish light over Starsky's bed, Hutch didn't strain his eyesight looking for the occasional flash of those tight black bikini briefs Starsky wore under his paper gown. Numb with grief and uncertainty, he couldn't escape into the distraction of sneaking glances. He lacked the mental energy to analyze what a different world his life had become when he wanted to slide his hand inside the slit on that gown and cup a handful of Starsky's ass and squeeze. He just wanted to.

Hutch shook his head, a little ashamed of himself. Man really was just a mammal. Basic instincts and baser nature always held the upper hand against higher reason and emotion.

"Starsky, stalking that window won't make it run away like a frightened prey animal."

"What?"

"I know you're getting claustrophobic, but you'll just feel worse over there."

Starsky glanced over his shoulder. "That's the dumbest—" Shrugging, he swiveled and paced back to the beds. His grimace eased. "Hey, maybe it's not so dumb. Farther I get from the window, the less I wanna bust through it."

"See? Your partner knows best."

Starsky perched on the very edge of the other bed and stared across the two feet of space. "I still don't get it. I don't get how Jake and Virgie can be dead. I mean, seems like just yesterday you and me and Jake were at that open-air burger joint."

"I know, Starsk."

"And now he's gone. Just like that. And nobody's got any answers—"

"Starsky, I know, I was there."

"They must think we both got it," Starsky nearly whispered. "Or we both don't."

"How you figure that?"

"Well, they put us together but put Virgie off by herself in another quarantine room."

"Starsky, come on, they couldn't put Virgie in here with us."

"No, that's not what I mean. Look, if they thought one of us had it and one of us didn't, wouldn't they put us in separate rooms?"

"I don't know. I'm no infectious disease specialist."

Starsky looked down at his lap. "I wish—"

"Don't! Don't talk about wishes and regrets like we've got some kind of terminal diagnosis. They're running tests on all that blood they've drained out of us, and we have to go on the assumption that no news is good news."

When Starsky hopped off the bedside on a rush for that observation window, Hutch realized he was in danger of repeating the old pattern. They stood on the brink of vulnerable territory, and Starsky needed a trailblazing partner, not a stoic hiding his fear.

"Starsk?"

Starsky looked back at him.

Hutch took a deep breath. "I'm scared too. Haven't been this scared since you were missing back in January, and I knew that bastard Marcus had something to do with it."

Across the dimly lit room, Starsky's wide eyes showed astonishment Hutch could read like a traffic signal. He came back over and sat down on the edge of Hutch's bed. "Crazy coincidence. I was thinking a while ago I couldn't remember being this antsy, this—"

"Scared?"

"Yeah," Starsky sighed. "Yeah, since you were missing and Huggy told me there was a contract on you. Can't shake it. Keep thinking about you stuck in that canyon. And—"

"And what, Starsky?"

"I can't put outta my head how long you sat with Virgie, you know, with your arms around her and her crying all over you in that doctor's office." Starsky shuddered.

Hutch felt a wave of chills break over his spine. Not too hard to follow Starsky's thought process, and if he knew one thing, he knew not to discount that uncanny Starsky instinct.

Starsky slammed a fist down on the bed. "Could've been me. Should've — but I'm no good at that shit, damn it. You turn into a warm blanket around somebody when they need it, but I was too busy asking that doctor questions he couldn't even answer!"

"Starsky, stop. I'm okay, I feel fine. I'm restless like you and hungry for something better than hospital slop, but I'm certainly not about to keel over like Jake in the locker room."

"How do you know? Huh? We don't know one damn thing. Scratch that. We know Jake's dead, Virgie's dead. We could be dying a little by the hour and no one's telling us."

"Damn it, Starsky!" Hutch gritted his teeth and looked away, over at the yellow curtains obscuring his view of the nighttime city. "We've been there before, both of us. We've faced down longer odds than these. Times when we knew we were in trouble."

"Yeah. Another thing I been thinking about. When fate's got a gun on you, and you're staring down the business end… what you want most right then, that's gotta be more important than anything. Right? That's what really counts."

Hutch decided eye contact with his best friend had more going for it than dusty yellow curtains. "What're you saying, Starsky?"

"Well, like what you were talking about. When I was being held in that maniac cult funhouse… or when I was poisoned. Hell, both times you were missing, 'cause if that wasn't staring down a dark tunnel, I've never seen one. All those times, I wanted one thing. I wanted time." Starsky's face tensed, his necklace coins shining brighter than his darkened eyes. "Not just time. Let me lay it all out there. Time with you."

Hutch sucked in his breath and held it. Here was the most vulnerable of territory, where he could make the biggest mistake in his life if he assumed too much. Under the circumstances, sentimentality didn't necessarily mean romantic feelings. If Starsky wanted to walk the road less traveled, Hutch would consider it a privilege to walk with him, but he needed a little light shed on the path first.

"Starsky, I wanted the same thing. It's understandable. We're close."

"You're not hearing me, and I got no patience to sit and stare at you until I know if it's 'cause you're trying not to hear me. I'm saying those times I thought I wouldn't make it, I wasn't cut up inside knowing I wouldn't live to get married, have kids. I didn't even think about that. I thought about you. Last month or so I've been getting a clue why."

Eager to meet him halfway, Hutch sat forward and rubbed his thumb across Starsky's jaw, venturing down his neck to his chest. He gasped in surprise and arousal when the warmth of Starsky's hand closed around his ankle and traveled in a slow, stroking glide up his bare leg to the hem of his gown at his knee. Upping the ante, Hutch drew his hand on down Starsky's chest to rub his stomach. A touch he'd given Starsky in the past, yes, but never while staring at his mouth and then up into his eyes, never while Starsky's hand curved around his knee, fingertips flicking at his ticklish inner leg.

Moving his leg on the scratchy bed cover reminded him where they were. He and Starsky turned their heads at the same time. A nurse pushed a metal cart past the observation window but didn't glance in their direction. Still, it was a call too close for comfort.

"Not here, Starsk. Not now."

"You're not kidding." Starsky looked up and around, his gaze lingering on the corners of the room at the ceiling. "I didn't notice whether they got cameras on us. Like in a bank."

"I doubt it. I think by observation they mean the doctors and nurses make periodic rounds, and they're watching our lab work closely. I don't think they mean literal observation via closed circuit."

"No sense taking chances now when we might need to take them later." Starsky pushed off the bed and in one burst of forward momentum flopped down on his own. "Wanna look at you instead of the damn ceiling, but if I do, I'll just have something to deal with I can't deal with here." He flashed a grin over at Hutch. "You, uh, know what I mean?"

Hutch found in the middle of grief and uncertainty he could still laugh. "Don't worry. Tomorrow evening will be seventy-two hours. I really don't see them hanging on to us any longer than that."

"Yeah? I'll believe it when I see human beings walk through that door without masks and gloves on, and no worry in their eyes."

~*~

Judith Kaufman stopped at the bank of payphones. "Fitz?"

Her senior partner, Fitz Meredith, walked along in the world of research inside his own mind. He rarely stepped out of that academic cocoon until the everyday necessities of going on assignment forced him to deal with the real world. Or until his vivacious wife Cassie tapped her foot loud enough to get his attention. Few people expected Fitz's wife to be a yoga instructor with the personality of a university athletic director. Judith had enormous respect and appreciation for Cassie Meredith. She would have welcomed her here now. Fitz was still walking.

"Fitz!"

He stopped and turned. "Yes?"

"Do we have time for me to make a quick phone call?"

Oblivious to the wristwatch he wore, Fitz glanced around in a clear search for a wall clock. The wall above the auxiliary workers' information desk obliged him. "Yes. We have fifteen minutes before our meeting with Dr. Phillips, and after that we're going to the isolation ward to release those police officers from quarantine."

"I'll meet you at Dr. Phillips's office in a few minutes then."

He looked at her, at the payphones, and back at her. "Do you need change?"

She hid a smile at the small practicality. Fitz was leaving the cocoon. "Yes, thank you."

Digging in his pocket, he scrunched his thin mouth, another sign he was entering the same dimension occupied by the rest of the world. "Your phone call? Mason?"

Heat pricked her cheeks, and she got the nervous fluttering in her stomach she experienced with every mention of that name. She wasn't really with Mason. Mason helped her differentiate between personal time and work time; that was all. She wasn't feeling anything she couldn't stop feeling, whenever she wanted, the way she strictly controlled her meals, her exercise, her other emotions. Making an "I'm here, I'm safe" phone call was only a courtesy, a kindness.

"Yes. I tried to call earlier, but no one answered."

"Give Mason my regards." Fitz dropped a small handful of coins into her cupped palm and turned away before she could thank him. That quick turn wasn't out of rudeness, she knew, but respect for her privacy.

This time when she dialed the number from memory, she got lucky. A gruff Alabama twang-drawl answered after three rings. "Hay-uh-lo."

"Mason?"

"Joo-dee!"

"I tried calling earlier, but you didn't pick up."

"Today? Musta been when I hobbled my crippled butt on crutches out to the mailbox."

She heard the irritation of frustrated independence. "You're fortunate you didn't break more than your leg with a fall from that height, and it would've been your own fault."

"Can I help it my daddy raised a rugged individualist?"

She sighed. "Promise me next time you'll call the professionals?"

"Now why on God's green earth should I shell out my hard-earned money for some roofing company to buy a custom-painted van when I got two arms and two legs of my own that work just fine, and I can fix a damn leak in my own damn roof?"

"Well, one of the four isn't working just fine now."

"It will be a week from now when I get the dang cast off." Throaty laughter warmed her. "How your sugars holding, sugar?"

Judith sometimes hated how adept Southerners were at turning tables. "Don't you start, Mason! I'll get plenty of that from Fitz during this assignment."

"Hey, now, don't knock Fitz. I like him."

"You've never met him."

"No, but you let me see pictures. He's got my vote cuz I cain't be too jealous of you hanging around with a man in his fifties who's married, losing his hair, and looks like he stepped right out of a morgue somewhere with the tag still round his toe."

She gasped through a chuckle. "Mason!"

"And named Fitzwilliam on top of it all, the poor cuss."

"You don't have a common name yourself."

"Now, Judy, I done told you how I got my name. I popped out of Mama a touch early, and Daddy told the midwife to stick me back in the oven and let me cook some more cuz I wasn't no bigger than a mason jar. This case you're on gohna be a bad one, pritty girl?"

"Too soon to tell, and I'm sorry, but I have to run. I'm at a payphone in the hospital lobby. I just wanted to let you know we arrived safely. Oh, and Fitz sends his regards."

"Give him mine right back. Where you headed now?"

"A meeting, and then to release two police detectives from quarantine. They have to feel the universe exacted some kind of revenge and put them in jail for seventy-two hours."

"Detectives? Young?"

"Around our age, I believe. Why?"

"You watch out, then." More throaty laughter. "They'll wohnta flirt with you."

She smiled. "I think I can hold my own. I'll call when I can."

"Take care of yourself, beautiful."

~*~

Starsky wanted to kick himself. He'd just had to ask for it. He'd had to open his damned big mouth and ask for human beings without masks. He hadn't counted on Judith Kaufman, M.D. He hadn't counted on the kick to the gut he got from one flirtatious exchange between Hutch and the pretty lady in her conservative blazer and schoolteacher blouse and sensible skirt.

"Are you really a doctor or you just beautiful?"

"I'm just beautiful."

"I think I'm in love."

She was a real doctor. Hip, Hip, Hooray for women's lib. Starsky had given Hutch a censored up-yours look and directed his questions at the other doctor, that older guy with a receding hairline and a bad suit, what doctors were supposed to look like, damn it.

He'd enjoyed the relief of putting on clothes and walking through the hospital like a normal person, but that relief faded faster than a puff of smoke at the news that Jake and Virgie Donner had died of something these big shots from Alabama didn't understand. Something that might be hanging around inside him or… oh, shit… or Hutch, and they didn't even know it. Made no sense. They were either sick or they weren't.

Right?

He had to think of it like that. He had to shrug off his tendency to what-if shit like this, and while he was at it, he had to shrug off the idea of Hutch playing doctor with a doctor. They had a job to do, and Starsky might have hit the experts with his skepticism in that doctor's office, but now that they had arrived at Metro, his confidence was on the rise.

This was detective work. Nobody, but nobody, could do detective work on the streets the way he and Hutch could… together. Sure, they could retrace Jake's steps, find the source, and then let the Bama folks do their thing. Nothing to it. Slice of pie.

But first….

With a growl in his gut, Starsky stopped in front of the candy machine.

"Starsk?"

"Instant energy." Starsky patted his front pockets. Did he have any change? "I'm running on empty after that hunger strike protesting the crap they called food at that hospital."

Hutch had on that indulgent smile he got when flying high on new infatuation. Coming up empty after a search of his beige jacket pockets, Hutch delved into the front pocket on those tight khaki denims. With that lady doctor standing by watching, her dark eyes giving nothing away, Starsky had to call on undercover experience to keep a straight face instead of gawking at every tiny movement of Hutch's long fingers that close to….

God! Well, now he knew what happened to a guy when he fell for his best friend. Little things he never would've noticed before suddenly became material for sweaty nighttime fantasies. His reflexes came through for him. Two shiny quarters arced through the air; he nabbed the coins, closing his fist around them.

"Get yourself two candy bars, partner." Hutch turned that smile on Doctor What's-Her-Name. "Let's go brief the captain. Starsky knows the way."

Starsky started to make a face at Hutch's back but thought better of it. A responsible adult, a taxpayer, employed in a position of authority, he could act his age, not his dick size. He could even go the extra mile and treat that dark-haired rival like one of the team. Knowing this candy machine didn't kowtow to a special click of the punch button and give free candy bars, he thrust his hand in his leather jacket pockets and felt around for any coins. He didn't wear the black jacket often and maybe… alakazam! He dug out two dimes and a nickel.

Three candy bars safely in hand, he hurried down the hall to Dobey's office, determined to stay in the center ring of this new three-ring circus. He got there in time to meet Hutch and their new ride-along coming out. Dobey gave him and his handful of candy a stern silent headshake. Starsky foresaw significant damage to his future vacation time.

Terrific.

"One of those for me?" Hutch plucked the peanut bar out of Starsky's grasp. "Thanks."

"You want?" Forcing a smile, Starsky offered their third wheel one of the other two bars.

She smiled back. "No, thank you."

"You don't eat candy? Come on. Everybody eats candy."

Her smile flattened. "I don't."

Hutch gave him a subtler headshake than Dobey's and led the way down the hall.

Oh, for—! Fine. He was apparently destined to look the dumb-ass all evening. Tearing into the candy bar, he caught up to them in the wider hallway, walking in step on the other side of the doctor who had no sweet tooth. "One question? How do we know Jake didn't pick this, whatever it is, up in Europe?"

Hutch gave him a nod of approval. "We were just talking about that in Dobey's office."

"We have to assume Lieutenant Donner was infected after he arrived in California. Before Mrs. Donner's symptoms made it impossible to get a clear history, she sketched out her husband's itinerary in Europe. We've contacted the various law enforcement agencies, and no one on staff has reported any similar symptoms."

That sounded flimsy to Starsky. "Yeah, but Jake didn't eat, breathe, and sleep police work over there. He would've done some sightseeing, gone out to eat, that kinda thing."

She gave him that patient smile. "We know. We can't rule out every possibility, but the rapid deterioration in condition once symptoms appear suggests a shorter incubation period than that. Unless Mr. Donner was infected on the last day of his trip, he likely would have been sick while over there. He wasn't, according to his patient history."

They stopped at the elevator and Hutch punched the down button. "What about his flight, Doc? Could he have been exposed to something on the plane?"

"We're checking into that. We contacted the airline for a passenger list, and Lincoln Hospital staff members are contacting each person listed as being on Mr. Donner's flight. We'll concentrate our attention locally. We just need a starting point."

The elevator door slid open. Hutch gestured her in ahead of him. "That's easy enough. Jake's first stop after landing was with us. We took him to lunch at his favorite burger place in the precinct."

Starsky thumb-pushed the close-door button then had to wipe a chocolate smear off it. "Could this be a food thing? We've never heard anything bad about that place, but there's a first time for everything."

"Virgie didn't eat with us, Starsky, and we're not sick. Although… could Jake have gotten sick from something he ate, picked up some virus, and brought it home to Virgie?"

The slightest headshake bounced all of the doctor lady's dark curls around. "This illness doesn't behave like any of the known food-borne viruses. We still haven't ruled out bacterial contagion, but Dr. Meredith and I anticipate this will prove to be a virus."

"Should we bypass the burger place?" Hutch asked. "Start on Jake's list?"

"No, we have to be thorough, and depending on the level of contact Mr. Donner had with the employees at the restaurant, any or all of them may need to be placed in observation."

Starsky didn't like the shadow he saw fall over Hutch's face then. He could read the concern in Hutch's eyes too easily. Damn. If this thing could spread like that….

~*~

So much in life came down to chance and timing.

Hours spent tracking down forty-three people on Jake's log sheets yielded no likely candidate for the disease carrier, and then the pickpocket from the airport just happened to appear on the busy crosswalk ahead of the Torino idling in traffic.

Hutch won the race to the iron-barred fence where the sick man clung, panting and sweaty, so he just happened to be the one left in the alley with Judith while Starsky raced back to the Torino for the radio. When the guy made a last ditch effort at escape, springing off that fence, his arms out, his hands curved into claws, Hutch couldn't take a chance on the fever-crazed bail jumper making contact with the civilian under his protection. He threw himself against the guy, using his elbow to deliver a vicious uppercut to the chin that sent the man spiraling to the dirty pavement.

Seconds later it occurred to him what a mistake he'd made, and that he could have used his gun to cold-cock the guy, or hell, aimed it at him as a deterrent. He stepped quickly away from the fallen man, but when he caught Judith's eye, he saw worry there. "I didn't really touch him."

"You had close contact." Her voice was so quiet.

"It was nothing." He frowned. "You can forget putting me back into quarantine over something insignificant like that. I won't have Starsky doing street work without me because I used my elbow on the guy instead of my gun."

She looked over her shoulder at the alleyway.

A worrisome possibility hit him like a flash of light in front of the eyes. "Will I be a threat to Starsky just riding in the car with him, walking around with him?"

"You didn't have skin on skin contact. Did you feel any sweat droplets?" She came over, looked at his jacket sleeve. "I don't see anything. I consider this minimal risk contact, but I suggest you change clothes as soon as possible, and limit contact you have with anyone until we're sure you haven't had an infectious exposure. I'll also need to get new samples from you later, and you need to let us know immediately if you develop any unusual weakness, fatigue, dizziness, or pain with breathing."

He rubbed his eyes. "Damn."

He heard Starsky's voice from last night, deeper with seldom heard fear: Hell, both times you were missing, 'cause if that wasn't staring down a dark tunnel, I've never seen one.

"Listen, I don't want Starsky to hear about this. I don't want him worried unless he… until he has to be. This was probably nothing. I had a lot more contact with Jake and Virginia Donner, and I'm fine. With any luck, this guy is your carrier, right, and… what?"

"Not necessarily."

"Well, if he's not, you and Meredith will need Starsky and me out here working the streets while you tackle the lab work we can't do." He turned for another look at that damned metal fence.

I won't let Starsky stare down another dark tunnel over nothing. It has to be nothing.

"Ambulance is on its way. Man, he's really down for the count."

Hutch swung around at the sound of Starsky's voice, and gave thanks for small favors when he saw that Starsky had sunshades back on. He couldn't have faced a naked stare from those observant eyes. I'm an idiot! Guess what, Starsk? Your partner's a moron!

~*~

"Guess it was too much to hope for, that collar from the airport being the carrier. Maybe that security chief can help us backtrack some of Jake's steps at the airport. You and me were chasing that dipper up one escalator and down another. We might've missed something." Starsky yawned, slumping a little in the seat, and dropped his left hand to a loose grip along the bottom curve of steering wheel. "My place? Closer."

"Drop me by Venice."

Starsky had to double clutch at the wheel as his hand slipped in his surprise. He'd taken it as a given they would stick close. "What? Why?"

"I need a change of clothes, and—"

Clothes? That had never bothered Hutch before. "It wouldn't be 'dropping you by' Venice, and we're looking at an early start tomorrow. You got some things at my place."

"Like what?"

"Your black leather jacket's there, a pair of dark jeans, and there's a green shirt that's yours 'cause I don't remember buying anything that shade green my whole life. The rest you can borrow." He looked over at his passenger. Hutch sat rigid, all tensed up, and so close to the door he'd need the damn thing cut away from him after a while. "Hey. What's goin' on? Hm? You've been all quiet and uptight since we left the lab at the hospital."

"What's going on?" Hutch sounded weird still, all choked. "You're asking me what's going on? You heard those doctors. This virus is a killer, and it moves faster than you can gun this Tomato down the freeway. That's not enough?"

"Ok-a-ay."

The weirdness didn't end when they got to his place. Hutch blew out of the car, rushed up the stairs, and started shedding holster and clothes one foot over the threshold. Starsky almost did a celebratory boogie, but he had a feeling Hutch wasn't getting naked that fast for his benefit. Down to underwear and socks, Hutch slung his holster over the back of the sofa, scooped up the pile of beige and plaid clothes, and headed for the kitchen.

The kitchen?!

"You have an extra trash bag?"

"Trash bag? What you need a— just put them in my hamper. I'll throw yours in with mine when I get around to laundry again, maybe a month from now way things are going."

"Starsky, a trash bag?"

"Okay, all right, you want a trash bag, you get one." Starsky joined his best crazy pal in the kitchen and pulled a bag out of the under-sink cabinet.

"Thanks." Hutch stuffed the clothes in the bag and twisted the ends into a knot. He threw the bundle under the table by the wall phone. "Mind if I hit the shower first?"

"Nope." Starsky offered a grin, aiming for seductive, hoping his uncertainty didn't come across in his voice. "Want company?"

Hutch wouldn't look at him. "Not this time, Starsky. I'll take a pair of your underwear. Not any of your skin-tights." His smile looked strange with his face turned to the side. "Don't get me wrong. I have no complaints with them on you. Quarantine would've been boring as hell without that occasional flash of black under that hospital gown."

Finally! Some corroborating evidence that he hadn't hallucinated that stroke of Hutch's thumb across his jaw, or how he'd come damn near feeling Hutch up, close as he could get in a room with windows for walls. He hadn't forgotten running his hand up Hutch's leg; he hadn't forgotten the feel of silken fine hair over warm skin and hard muscle against his palm, so different than a woman's softer, smoother leg, and somehow… sexier.

He reached out to touch Hutch's cheek but ended up caressing thin air when Hutch stepped away and then made for the bathroom like his ass was on fire.

What the—?!

Starsky decided his shower could wait for morning. He wanted sleep more than pastrami on rye with hot mustard. Shrugging out of his jacket, yawning his way to the bedroom, he listened for the sound of water running while he stripped down. Hey, Hutch could shower solo all he wanted, but once he got his ass in bed, he had a goodnight kiss coming.

Out of the shower, Hutch outmaneuvered him again. Sporting a towel and glistening chest, he grabbed the boxers off the end of the bed… and left Starsky alone in that bed. Alone and naked and hard. Starsky snarled a few choice words and flung back the covers. He didn't bother with his robe. If Hutch could talk about his male partner's ass, he could handle seeing that male partner hard and aching for him.

He had to blink three times before he believed what he saw in the living room. Hutch had turned the rattan chair into his throne and sat there shivering in nothing but Starsky's boxers. "What's the matter with you?!"

Hutch made a visible effort to stop shivering. "What?"

"What you mean: what? I doubt anybody's spent more'n five minutes in that chair since Dobey was here when we had Willits stashed in my room."

"Well, if it held Dobey, it'll hold me. Good for my back."

"Bullshit, good for your back, and you'll freeze without a blanket. I got a nice, warm bed with nice, warm covers. Get your ass in there where it belongs."

"I'll be fine here, Starsky."

Anyone who thought it wasn't awkward changing from friends into lovers needed his head examined. Add into the equation that the friends were both guys, and awkward wasn't even the word. Surreal, maybe.

"Uh, Hutch, listen. I know we said some things last night. Or I said some things and you acted like you agreed with me, and I know I'm standing here with my dick pointing at my chin, but man, that doesn't mean we gotta rush this thing. You know? You can sack out with me in that bed and do nothing but snore. I just want you in there."

Hutch's eyes got a pleading softness in them, and he gripped the sides of that throne chair as if he had to keep himself glued to it at all costs. Starsky got the impression if Hutch let up his grip by one finger or two, he'd catapult himself out of it. "Get some sleep, Starsk."

Muttering over gorgeous masochists, Starsky went in search of the heaviest spare blanket he had. He chose his old bedspread and brought it to Hutch with the intent of tucking it around him and stealing a kiss on the cheek if nothing else. No such luck. Hutch whipped out his hand and snatched the bedspread before Starsky got within a foot of the chair.

That topped off Starsky's rejection tolerance, right there. He didn't say another word. He got his ass back to bed and stared wide awake at the ceiling. He wanted to put Judith Kaufman on a nonstop flight to Novosibirsk, but somehow he knew she wasn't to blame for Hutch suddenly treating him like he had the….

The plague.

Starsky sat bolt upright in bed, wanting to sock himself a good hard one in the jaw. How could he be so dense? Make that adolescent and dense. No, wait. If Hutch thought I had the plague, he'd be all over me, offering comfort, reassurances, hounding me to go back to the hospital so the docs could throw me into a bed and hook me up to God knows what.

Instead, Hutch had wanted to go to Venice, alone, and wouldn't bunk down on Starsky's sofa. Cold dread clenched Starsky around the throat.

He thinks he has it. Ah, Hutch. My fault, buddy. I had to run off at the mouth last night about how close you stuck to Virgie after we got the word on Jake. Damn it.

Starsky scrambled out of bed and hit the floor on a stride-run that got him to the rattan chair so fast Hutch had no warning time to evade him. He slid one hand up Hutch's arm to knead and rub his shoulder, and cupped his cheek. "You don't have it. Hear me?"

Hutch had snake-strike reflexes too. He batted Starsky's hand away from his cheek and jerked away from the grasp of his shoulder. "You heard Meredith. We may not be infected. That's a big word, Starsky. A big, dangerous word."

"Yeah, but why you think it's gotta be you? You do. Admit it. Well, I'm telling you, forget it, no dice. They let us go. We're fine. Hutch? We're okay." He ducked his head to kiss away the fear and cold, but Hutch intercepted him, fingertips hard against his lips.

"No, Starsky. We can't. We don't know how easily this thing's transmitted. Yeah, Jake and Virgie probably had intimate contact. Man comes home from several weeks in Europe, he's gonna at least kiss his wife, and knowing Jake and Virgie, I'd wager a lot more than kissing went on. But Jake wasn't making out with the ambulance attendant or his ER nurse, for God's sake, and he hardly had any contact with that pickpocket."

That pickpocket now occupied a shelf in the morgue. Starsky seriously wondered if that chill clenching his throat might actually strangle him. "Hutch—"

"Until we know we're in the clear, we can't afford risks, Starsky. Think about it."

Starsky reluctantly moved away to perch on the sofa arm. "You're saying if one of us has it, the other will need to be able to get out there and do the legwork."

"Right."

He brushed his hands down his thighs and gripped his knees. That was what happened when he canned the what-if game. He'd gone along ignoring worst case scenarios until he'd stopped thinking with the head on his shoulders. From here on in, he pledged, he would be strictly business. He owed it to the man in that rattan chair. Hutch needed his partner. Starsky could wow him… and woo him… when Bay City didn't have a plague of bubonic proportions threatening to break out.

"Okay, well, we need sleep, and you won't get it cramped in that chair."

"Starsky, I'm—"

"You're not fine, damn it." He had to smile. "Well, you are, but comfortable you're not. You don't have that killer virus, Hutch, you don't, but if you got to worry your head about it anyway, I can't stop you. No need to worry and throw your back out. Stretch out on the sofa. If you're thinking you'll contaminate it somehow, get over it: I can buy another damn sofa. For that matter, I can buy a new bed. You go in there, I'll crash in here."

Hutch grabbed Starsky's left wrist in a loose bracelet hold of forefinger and thumb and pulled him forward. His pinky rings got a quick, light kiss. Then Hutch wiped any moisture from the rings with the pad of his thumb and let him go. "Go on, get in there, Starsky, get some rest."

"Want me to drive you to Venice? Or you don't wanna sleep in your own bed either?"

"No, I—" Hutch looked around the room, his gaze flickering over the bookshelves, over to the kitchen, back to Starsky. "I'm glad I'm here."

"Yeah? Up! Come on, I got an idea."

Hutch's expression turned stubborn. "Starsky, you're making this harder."

"Either you get up, or I pull you up, and that's close contact. Your choice."

"All right!" Bedspread tucked around him, Hutch pushed up from the chair. "There. I'm up. What the hell good it'll— Starsky? What're you—?"

Starsky lifted the rattan chair and walked it into his room, twisting and turning to get it through the doorway. He parked the chair just inside the room at the corner of his bed, and padded the interior of the "throne" with two of his pillows. Hutch lingered in the doorway, trailing the bedspread behind him like a ratty old train.

"Starsky, you're missing the point. I don't need to spend all night three feet from you."

"Gimme a break. You rode around in the car for hours with me since we got our walking papers at Lincoln. Pretty little Doctor Kaufman didn't mind squeezing between us in the front seat. Personally, I think this bed's big enough for us to keep what you call a safe distance, but you won't go for it, you won't. This way, you get to stretch your legs out on the bed and maybe you'll still manage to walk upright tomorrow."

Hutch didn't argue. He yawned behind his hand and followed Starsky's suggestion, shifting around in the chair and propping his legs across the foot of the bed. "Oh, all right," he said when Starsky grinned at him from the bed. "This is better. You slide over to the far side of the bed."

Starsky gave him a headshake of frustration but slid over. He lay facing Hutch. They looked at each other. "Hey." Starsky yawned again. "This is like quarantine."

"Only better."

"Why's that?"

"You're not covered shoulders to knees in a yellow paper hospital gown."

Starsky took the warmth of that compliment all the way into sleep.

~*~

"Guy looks like an international businessman or an investment banker." Starsky shuffled through the photos, handing them one at a time to Hutch. "I got a feeling he's neither."

"He looks familiar, but I can't place him." Hutch pointed at the airport lockers behind the three-piece suit man. "Starsky, when you flip through these in order, don't you think it looks like maybe he'd just gotten something out of one of the lockers?"

"Thought so, yeah. Only thing he's carrying is that attaché. Means he got it out of the locker, right? Little unusual, isn't it? Passenger coming off a flight with no kind of carry-on, and picking up an attaché out of a locker? Least, we got to hope he was arriving and not departing. If he got on a plane bound for who knows where, we're in real trouble."

"Trouble I'd rather not think about." Hutch shook his head when Lieutenant Anderson held up the coffee carafe in a gesture of hospitality. Starsky waved away the offer, going back over to the file cabinet by the window and running his fingers along the model airliner's wing. "These aren't coin-operated lockers."

"No. Those are longer term rental lockers."

Hutch studied the photos, trying to make an educated guess which one the man of interest had used. No. Too risky. Too easy to pick the wrong one. "Can you get us a list of who rented each one of those lockers?"

Coffee mug in hand, Anderson sat down on the corner of his desk. "Fourteen lockers in that section. I want to work with you guys, but to release that information, I'd need—"

"We don't have time for special warrants to make you feel covered in case of privacy invasion lawsuits." Starsky gestured at the photos in Hutch's hands. "Your cameras didn't turn on in time for us to see what locker the guy used. Only hope we got is running all the names through our computer in R&I and seeing if something pops up."

"Sounds like a long shot to me."

Hutch saw the tension gather along Starsky's shoulders, and knew his short diplomatic fuse had nearly burned down. He pointed the photos to get Anderson's attention. "My partner's gut is telling him this guy's no ordinary passenger flying in for a business conference. Mine tells me the same. I know this guy from somewhere, and it's not the local branch of the Lions Clubs. Long shot or not, we need to know who he is, and we don't have time to waste."

"If you could give me some idea what's so pressing—"

"Jake Donner is dead." Starsky nodded at the blank security monitor screens lined up against the wall. "That airport dipper who triggered these cameras is dead. Now we're asking you how you're feeling, wanting you to check in at the hospital. That scratch on Jake's hand might not be the nothing you think it is. What's all that tell you?"

Anderson's complexion paled. "Tells me I need to get that information for you right away. I'll get you a list covering that day and the day before."

Hutch let out a breath of relief. "Smart man."

~*~

"Tell me something, Starsky."

Starsky opened the Wallace Hotel's grimy front door. Maybe in the twenties the fleabag had lived up to its grand name, but now it rented by the hour, and the ornate façade had more cracks than an inner city sidewalk. "Yeah, what?"

"Any reason you're dressed almost identically to what I wore yesterday?"

Letting Hutch edge past him into the lobby, Starsky did a quick wardrobe check in the glass door. Through the grime he saw a gritty reflection of his khaki jacket, plaid shirt, and jeans. "Not identical. You had on khaki pants. Not jeans."

"Big difference."

"Yeah, well, you got on a black leather jacket like I had on yesterday."

Hutch flicked at his jacket collar. "Simple explanation. This was all I had at your place I could put on over my…" He lowered his voice. "Hardware."

Starsky gulped. What was Hutch trying to do to him, for the love of—?! He'd pledged himself to a strictly business attitude, and now Hutch wanted to flirt? Well, hell, two could play that game much better than one. He walked as close as Hutch would let him and whispered, "Yeah, that jacket might be covering your police issue, but my boxers are covering the hardware you can't put in a holster. Remember?"

Hutch gave him a superior smile. "I could when I'm in the upright and locked position."

That put an image in Starsky's head that sucked all the moisture out of his mouth and turned his dick to stone. Sliding his empty holster down over Hutch's hard….

On duty, on duty, on duty!

Starsky roughened his next whisper, "Now you tell me. All night long you stayed so far away you would've had to airmail me a kiss, and now we're on duty and I can't do the first damn thing to retaliate the way I wanna, you pull this on me." He got one of those barely-there Hutchinson winks anyone but him would have a hard time spotting. "Well, don't do it! You're evil."

The "evil" little smile on Hutch's face made up for the nauseating surroundings. With a tingle of lust and a spring in his step, Starsky found it much easier to pick out a path between the street citizenry who used the lobby floor to sleep off after-high lows.

By unspoken agreement they avoided the old-fashioned car-gated elevator. No one with a sense of smell better than a block of wood could last for a three-floor ride without bringing breakfast up for an encore. Reaching the third floor landing they heard the least welcome sound in a world with a plague in it: groans of pain.

"Shit." Hutch closed his eyes.

"I'll check it out; make sure it's the real thing."

"I'll check it out. You go radio for the ambulance and isolation equipment."

"Hutch, we've tracked down four of that airport collar's known associates, and all four times you stayed with the sick person and secured the scene while I made the call. It's time for us to divide the labor, huh? I'll stay and make sure no one goes in or out."

"No, Starsky! You don't—"

"I don't have it already, that's what you're trying not to say? You don't either, how many times I gotta tell you that? What the hell you aiming for, a self-fulfilling prophecy?"

Hutch glared at him, more fear than anger showing in his eyes. "Four out of the five people we had reason to suspect had any contact with that pickpocket are sick, Starsky! I had contact with that pickpocket, at the airport after Jake did, and—"

"And what? You heard the docs. They don't think the pickpocket was the carrier. Jake got cut by that guy with the attaché case, not during the collar."

"What are you saying?"

Starsky let out a groan of frustration. "I don't know. I guess I'm saying maybe Lieutenant Anderson really is coming down with the flu, not this bug. He didn't even have contact with that attaché guy. You want me to believe Anderson is getting sick 'cause he was around Jake for a few minutes right after Jake got cut by that guy's fingernails maybe?"

"The pickpocket was only around Jake for a few minutes right after we collared him, and he's dead, and his autopsy showed the same kind of fluid in his lungs as Jake's."

"God! Then how are we walking around without it? None'a this makes sense."

"We're not epidemiologists."

"Come on, Hutch, I got a feeling this doesn't make sense to the epidemo-whoevers. If it hops from person to person like that, we'll have people dropping in the streets."

Hutch's eyes widened; he made a come-on-come-on gesture. "What did you say?"

"What? Hop from person to person, people dropping in the streets, what?"

"Dropping in the street. Something… damn. I can't nail it down. Well, anyway, I don't want your stubborn ass dropping in the street, so will you get out of here, go make that call for the ambulance? We don't have time to argue or flip a coin for it."

Starsky's hard stare got nothing in return but Hutch's flashing-eyed, don't-push-me warning, with lifted finger for emphasis. No other man in the world could get away with pulling that face or that finger on him. From the earliest days of their partnership it was part of Hutch's magic that Starsky knew himself powerless against.

"Stay in the hall!" He clenched his fist around his car keys. "I mean it, Hutch. You can guard the scene without gettin' in sneezing, coughing, breathing distance of that person."

"Roger, ten-four, scram already."

~*~

Hutch didn't need a medical degree to diagnose what he saw when he pushed open the cracked door down the hall. Penny, a thirty-something working girl, frequented the spoon-and-needle circuit, but her sweaty wheezing and writhing in the bed had nothing to do with a long stretch between fixes.

"Help… me," she gasped, turning her head and weakly lifting her hand.

He leaned against the doorjamb. "Help is on the way."

Sure. What help? A ride in an ambulance to a hospital just to die in an oxygen tent. He winced at the woman's moan of agony. Any other time he could go in there, sit on the bedside, and hold her hand, giving her the peace of mind that she wasn't alone. Not this time. He couldn't go in there. Medical personnel wouldn't go in that room without smocks and gloves and face masks.

Nothing they can do for her. It's too late, it's already too late, damn it.

Four out of five people, and with this one a working prostitute, that meant johns walking around sick and not even realizing it, perhaps taking contagion home to wives and kids.

Swallowing hard, Hutch tasted bile in his throat. Christ, this is hopeless. He had thought they caught a break when they learned Virgie Donner had stayed home the weekend after Jake's homecoming. Hah, nothing doing. What did he and Starsky think they could do? Did they really believe they could stop the spread by rounding people up like this? The damned killer was on the loose, microscopic, impossible to run down and lock in cuffs and haul off to jail. What hope did the entire fucking city have?!

What hope do I have?

Oh, God. Starsky. Starsk!

"Hutch? Is that you?"

"Yes, Penny, it's me. I'm here in the doorway. Not going anywhere."

Penny retched, her breath harsh and rattling. "What's… happening… to me?"

Hutch turned and pressed his forehead against the jamb. "You're sick." Hell of a way to state the obvious. "We have an ambulance on the way. They'll take you to Lincoln Hospital where some doctors and nurses are waiting for you. They'll take care of you, Penny. You won't be alone."

He had to face facts. He could no longer hide behind flirting with Starsky and trying to pretend they were working any other case. He'd had more contact with Jake, closer contact with Virgie, and, what Starsky still didn't know, that unexpected contact with the dying pickpocket in the alley. Didn't matter if the bail jumper wasn't the carrier.

Law of averages….

Hutchinson, when you decide to be negative, you don't go for the half-empty glass; you take the glass and shatter it!

"Hey. Hutch?"

Hutch opened his eyes and held out his hand to ward off Starsky's approach beyond a certain point. "What took you so long?"

"Got a patch-through call from Records while I was down there."

"Sta—arsky?"

"God, it is Penny?"

Hutch nodded.

Starsky balled a fist, popping himself in the thigh, and poked his head in the room. "Hiya, Penny. Know you're feelin' lousy. We got helping coming. Hang in there."

"Don't… go."

Hutch slammed his palm against the doorjamb. "We won't leave you like this, Penny."

"Hutch and me, we're both here; we're staying put 'til the ambulance comes." Starsky ducked back out of the room, his expression neutral again, all business. "None of those locker names pulled sheet. Only six lockers were reserved that day, three under male names. I think they were… yeah, a Daniels, Lewis, and Steele. I asked for a DMV search on all six names, just in case."

"I didn't really think any of the names would send up flags. Did you? I didn't want to agree with Anderson and give him reason to turn us down, but if this guy with the attaché isn't on the side of the angels, that locker's probably rented under an alias."

Starsky agreed with a nod. "Well, we got a last known address for the fifth possible on our pickpocket contact list. Soon as the ambulance shows here, let's go knock on the last door and maybe by then we'll get a read-back from the DMV."

~*~

"Just how 'last' is that last known address?" Hutch asked when Starsky got in the car.

Starsky slapped the steering wheel. Waving at the windshield didn't transform the purple Quickie Photo film development booth into a by-the-week apartment house. "Girl behind the counter said she's worked there two years. We got a killer virus about to rip through the city and we can't get fresh information!"

"This is a dead end anyway. Let's face it: we can't round up everybody who might be infected. We need to concentrate on the guy in that photo."

"Yeah. How's this grab you? We get some of Anderson's airport security crew to flash those photos at the various cabbies and the rental car people. Maybe we'll get lucky and the guy took a cab somewhere, and one of the drivers will remember him."

Hutch didn't smile or nod, just turned his head to the window. "You know the problem with that. If this guy is the carrier, and he took a taxi, his driver might already be…."

Dead.

Hutch didn't have to say the word.

Starsky got that clenching chill around his throat again. "Worth a shot. Comes down to it, the attaché guy himself might be dead already."

"Don't say that. I have a suspicion that would be worst case scenario in this situation."

"Okay, I won't say it. What's our next step? Hm? We need a line on the guy in the photo. What do we know or, hell, even assume in this case, 'cause at this point, I'm willing to chase hunches. Anderson thinks the guy was a passenger. We got reason to believe he picked up an attaché out of a locker. Makes you wonder what's in the attaché. Case that size? Money, drugs, weapons maybe. More important question: was he picking up the attaché on arrival or departure?"

"Arrival. Had to be, if we assume he had contraband, like weapons or drugs. He couldn't get it past security scanning to carry it on, and checked luggage gets scanned eventually. That's why he needed the locker. He couldn't carry whatever it was with him on the flight, but someone here made sure that attaché was waiting for him on arrival."

"You're thinking he's some imported—"

"Imported!" Hutch thumped the dashboard and turned in his seat. "That's it, Starsky. Dropping in the street. The Monte assassination. What'd we do with the photos?"

Vic Monte. One attempt foiled by two street cops — one on the front lines and one laid out wounded on a couch and praying to any god that would listen for his partner's life — didn't stop the international syndicate. Monte had to go, and when out-of-state killers couldn't do the job, the higher-ups called in an out-of-country triggerman. The prince of pros. With the typical arrogance of mob bosses, Monte didn't learn his lesson about frequenting one restaurant on a regular schedule. From what the Organized Crime Unit with the LAPD could piece together afterward, Thomas Callendar had surprised ole Vic at his new favorite place, and dropped him to the street out front with a perfect kill shot.

Starsky wanted to know what Bay City had done to piss off the universe and get hit with a plague and Thomas Callendar. "You're talking about the syndicate's top mechanic. Ex-top mechanic. Didn't Callendar take his millions off somewhere to live the good life?"

Hutch rapidly flipped the photos. "Not if I'm right, he didn't. Syndicate! That's it. Starsky, remember at lunch with Jake, we talked about unrest in the Bay City syndicate ranks?"

"Yeah, hey, you got something there. Jake said Stern was in Naples, and Interpol was taking a real big interest in why. You think it's cause and effect that Stern's over there and then Callendar flies in here from parts unknown with an agenda locked up in an attaché?"

"I think it's possible. If we can confirm that Callendar came in from Naples, we have a likely connection between him and Stern. Doesn't tell us who the target is, but it's a start. What we need is someone who knows how to work the lines of communication with Interpol. Jake was the BCPD's best go-between. That's why he was invited over there."

"Allan Kelsey, he's our guy. He's forgotten more names on the syndicate playbook than we ever knew, and he's in real tight with Interpol." Starsky liked the idea enough to key the ignition. "But he's LAPD. We're supposed to keep any epidemic talk to a minimum."

"I know that, but if we don't ask the right questions, how long do you think it'll be until LA is staring down a plague with us? We'll feed him a cover story. Play it off as part of our investigation of increased activity in our district. He'll buy that."

"Works for me." Starsky backed out of the space and cut across the small parking lot. "I'll let you explain that reasoning to Dobey when he starts bellowing."

"Chicken."

"Uh-uh. I got a strong instinct of vacation-preservation. After he saw me with those candy bars yesterday, I can't afford another Dobey headshake. And for what, I askya? You only ate half your peanut bar, and our lady doctor friend doesn't even eat candy." He zoomed into a tiny opening in traffic. "Who doesn't eat candy? I guess that's how she plans to stay a size two."

"It's not that, Starsky. She's diabetic. She has to watch what she eats, and when."

For that, Starsky had to turn his head. "What?" Uh-oh. When had Hutch found time to make that kind of in-road with Dr. Kaufman, DC? "She tell you that?"

"Of course not, turkey, do you think we had time to sit and chat about her medical history? Last night at the lab, I heard Dr. Meredith ask her if she'd checked her sugars."

"No kidding. Huh. I thought diabetics wore that special jewelry."

"Maybe she wears hers somewhere it's not readily visible."

Starsky concentrated on the road ahead. He knew he had something readily visible on his face he wasn't ready for Hutch to see. Yeah, buddy boy, don't you plan on finding out where she wears her medical jewelry.

~*~

As it turned out, they didn't have to worry about carrying tales to Los Angeles. Lieutenant Allan Kelsey had gone through a few life stressors in the last year, among them divorce and retirement, and had settled in Bay City to devote himself to his second love. Their contact in the LAPD Organized Crime Unit pointed them in the direction of Mandalay Heights Airfield, where the ex-cop "lived" with his beloved Piper Cub in a rented hangar.

After Hutch saw Starsky crane his neck in nearly a 360-degree threat assessment and then whirl at the clatter of a wrench or some other tool on the tarmac nearby, he risked a finger tap to Starsky's jacketed shoulder. Starsky jumped, thrusting his hand inside his jacket.

Hutch smiled. "What are you so nervous about?"

"I'm not nervous, I'm alert." Starsky went right back to eyeballing all four directions. "Seems like every time we come here we get shot at."

"Oh, don't be—! Starsky, we're here to visit an ex-cop. A police officer. A colleague. One of the good guys." Hutch snickered. "You think he'll use us for target practice?"

"Very funny." Starsky's hyper-tense stance relaxed a little.

"There it is."

"There's what?"

"The hangar, and look, there's an opening. Should be able to squeeze through sideways. I know I will. You'll need to suck in some air." Hutch shook his head. "All those chili-cheeseburgers."

Starsky gave him a light shove to the back. "Go on, smart ass. You're not paper thin."

Hutch ducked away. "You first."

"No way. We go together."

Their face-to-face sideways shuffle through the opening lodged them half in, half out. Aware of the close proximity, afraid of viral what-ifs, Hutch kept his face averted, holding his breath, but Starsky jutted his pelvis forward by a fraction of an inch at the exact time Hutch did the same, trying to dislodge them.

Hutch turned his head; Starsky's eyes shot wide, and circulation worked against them. The tiniest mutual nudging below had them drawing in harsh breaths in unison. One of them had to move. They had to move, and separately, and fast! This was insane.

Suddenly the seemingly arbitrary regulations against fraternization in police partnerships made good sense… when the smallest, most insignificant contact could do that!

For years they had played their partnership like a contact sport. They'd crushed against each other behind a swinging door, pushed each other out of danger, bumped butts on a dance floor. They hugged away each other's torment, both physical and emotional; they touched, swatted, and pinched to tease, and danced and dipped in jest. All those times, too many to remember, to count, they'd never triggered the Fourth of July.

Now the merest brush of bulging denim against bulging denim had just given Hutch a better understanding of that "bombs bursting in air" lyric from The Star Spangled Banner.

With choppy breaths, Starsky shuffled an inch one way, Hutch an inch the other, and they cleared the opening, Starsky the winner by a second or two. They stood apart, avoiding eye contact, both taking in loud gulps of air like they'd come off a two-mile sprint. Finally normalcy returned.

"Nifty little plane." Starsky cocked his head to the side in the once-over he gave anything from unusual cars to eye-catching strippers. "Allan keeps her in tiptop shape."

"I've seen prettier. That brown-black paint job makes it look like some big, metal wasp."

Side by side they started past the single-engine aircraft toward the wood paneling and glass windows that closed off hangar space for an office, or in Allan's case, an unofficial apartment. In the blink of an eye, World War III erupted around them, the tat-tat-tat of semi-automatic and staccato revolver cracks louder than a firing range, against the zudda-zudda-zudda back beat of machine gun. Reaching for his Magnum while trying to side step in front of Starsky, Hutch got pushed down and slammed on to the unforgiving hangar floor, Starsky draped halfway over him. They stayed down, prone, as if they'd simply gone down for a nap on their bellies, snuggled together.

"That's what you get for insulting the man's plane," Starsky gasped right in Hutch's ear.

Warm, safe….

Contagious?

"Starsky! Get off me, stay down, but get off me now!"

Starsky rolled a few feet away and ended up on his belly, lifting his chest just inches to aim the Beretta in a careful two-hand grip. His what-the-hell look included Hutch. "Where's it coming from? That much firepower, we'd see somebody."

"It's not coming from the rear office." Hutch held his gun steady, twisting his neck and shoulders for a sweeping glance along the hangar's curved ceiling, behind them, to either side. "Wait. The plane's not catching a single round that I can see or hear."

"You kidding me? Many rounds as we've heard, the thing should've gone up, taking half the hangar and us with it!"

The rhythmic thunder died.

In the silence, a man called, "Okay, daddy-o, you can get up!"

Hutch tried to place the origin of the sound. "Allan?! That you?"

"The one and only. I'll be out there in a wink."

Starsky rose to his knees. "He could've gone with a welcome mat, a fake doorbell."

"Starsky, remind me not to downplay your instincts when it comes to this airfield."

"I'll hold you to that."

"After we get Callendar, and this plague's under control, why don't you try out just the first part of that?"

Starsky's grin warmed Hutch's sudden chill. "You got a deal."

Hutch pulled himself into a crouch and then to his feet. He reached out instinctively for Starsky's lifted hand but clasped instead his elbow through the double layers of clothing, giving him the lift up. The disappointment in Starsky's quizzical frown told him he'd guessed right: Starsky had wanted the clasp of hands more than help standing.

Ah, Starsk. That contact sport thing again. You're not used to me pulling away from a chance to touch you. I never did, even before I realized why. Damn this virus, this uncertainty, this…. Oil?

Hutch sniffed. He caught another pungent whiff of fuel oil and looked down at his shirtfront and from there to the floor where the iridescent spill had smeared. "There goes one good shirt."

Starsky held out the side placket of his jacket. "I got it on me too."

"Hey, sorry about that, hepcats. I run a tight hangar, you could say, but the little tow vehicle has a tendency to leak. I have to keep the eyeballs rolling and go behind them with my cleaner. You just hit the deck at exactly the wrong spot."

"Why'd we have to hit the deck at all?"

A short, graying stick of dynamite with a long fuse, Allan Kelsey had apparently never heard of the Napoleonic complex. He didn't have one. He didn't need it. Heavily muscled, thick necked, and voiced like a man eight inches taller, he had no problem commanding or intimidating, whatever the situation called for. He didn't bat an eye at Starsky's bark.

"Oh, you mean my little early warning system? How'd you like that? Isn't it just the ginchiest? Works every time."

The ginchiest? Starsky mouthed at Hutch.

"Very effective." Hutch plucked at his soiled shirt. "We'll send you the laundry bill."

"You didn't tell us why, Allan."

"Didn't think I needed to, Starsky. You know what I did with the LAPD for over twenty years. You think I made friends in high syndicate places? I have fifteen years on you hipsters. I need a little extra time getting ready for action. Anyone crosses that sensor, they do what you guys did, and I get the chance to see if they're friend or foe before they have the chance to complicate my life. It's just a harmless recording."

Hutch patted his ringing ears. "Not sure I buy the harmless part."

"Me neither." Starsky retrieved the set of Callendar photos from inside his jacket on the opposite side of his holster. "Sergeant Jamison over at the OCU was supposed to call and let you know to expect us."

"Nope, never got the call. Jamison's probably choking on his donut with laughter right now. Little joke between brother cops."

Some joke. Hutch glanced at the hangar floor. Christ, I hope Starsky wasn't too close, too long. Maybe I should've let Judith put me back in quarantine. He cleared his throat. "Well, Allan, we're here to complicate your life. Take a peek at those; tell us if you recognize the guy."

Allan seized the photos and held them in both hands at arms length, sliding them one behind the other, pulling them closer. "The one that got away. Man, it's been a real dark seven, but this is better than a headache grappler for what ails me, dig my groove? Never thought I'd see that face again. Can I have one? I have a collection, but this looks fresh."

Collection?! Starsky and Hutch exchanged a glance of unprintable comment, but they followed their former colleague across the hangar to the rear office. Hutch could sense Starsky's relief blending with his when they got a look at Allan's quarters. The retired cop had transformed the space into a miniature squad room and academy dorm, but the walls held no shrine of Thomas Callendar newspaper clippings or pictures.

Allan went straight to one of several four-drawer file cabinets. "C for Callendar."

"Well, there's our confirmation," Hutch whispered behind his hand to Starsky.

"Of what? Your good memory for old case files, or this guy's problem with obsession and channeling Kookie from 77 Sunset Strip?"

Allan returned with a bulging file. "Here. I'll trade you one of these for one of those." As if swapping baseball cards, he held up a black-and-white glossy of Callendar that resembled some actor's pose for a publicity shot. "It's okay, I have two."

Hutch had to pat his hip to keep from pressing his finger against his temple in a cuckoo-warning for Starsky, who was wide eyed and slack jawed.

How short-lived relief could be….

"Uh." Starsky eyed Hutch and got a shrug in return for his. He handed Allan one of the airport photos. "You're sure that's Thomas Callendar?" Hutch shot a look up at the hangar ceiling and caught Starsky's glare on the way down. "That's, um, one hell of a file you got, Allan. The LAPD know you keep copies of case files over here?"

Allan could play the shrug game as well. "What the LAPD doesn't know—"

"Can't hurt them?" Hutch finished.

"Would fill Dodger Stadium." Allan's grin was a few inches on the wrong side of sanity.

Whew boy.

"I almost nailed him for the Monte murder, guys. That happened on my turf, and I came this close—" Allan held up two fingers with no distinguishable space between them. "To catching up with him before he could skip the country. How recent is this photo?"

Hutch pursed his lips, unsure how much information they could reliably share with a guy three steps from playing the kazoo all day at Cabrillo State. "Less than a week old."

"Really?!" Allan's face lit up. "He's back?"

"Allan, we need information outside official channels, understand? Only way we stand a chance sneaking up on this guy is keeping radio traffic to a minimum. Got it?"

Oh, yeah. Knocked that one out of the ballpark, Starsk. Hutch gave him a subtle smile. Talk Allan's game and serve our purposes at the same time.

"Sure, sure, what you need to know?"

"Well, anything you got. We need to find him and double quick."

"Best thing is to find his syndicate flunky. I got a make on his west coast flunky, but he's slippery. Warrants still out on him. Callendar uses one guy on the west coast, one on the east, one in Europe, one in Asia, you get the picture? A guy who makes arrangements for him: finds him a place to stay, makes sure he has access to the weapons he needs."

Hutch mouthed "rental locker" at Starsky.

"Risky business." Starsky had on the deadly serious expression he used to show respect for someone's inside knowledge. "Leaving people around who could put the finger on his itinerary. Or not. I guess one finger's all they'd put before they got a bullet in the brain."

"Here on the west coast it's a weasel too greasy for cuffs. Goes by Bob Chino, one of fifty aliases. Birth name Robert Cicchino. Originally from Naples, been over here since childhood. I got a picture of him too, but it's poor quality. C for Cicchino."

Behind Allan's turned back, Hutch whispered, "Interpol."

Starsky held up his hand in his sign language for "patience, patience."

~*~

"Starsky?"

"Um?"

"If we ever start going that far off the deep end, we quit. Right then. We toss our badges, walk away, and we don't look back."

"Really."

They looked at each other across the Torino's roof.

"Ready to chase a ghost that drove a good cop mad?" Hutch asked.

"Got no choice. Need to throw out a net for this Cicchino dude too."

"All right. We'll swing by Metro and brief Dobey, then wait for that call from Interpol."

"Hutch, you really think Allan's still got friends over there who'll put the rush on contacting us just 'cause he asks them to?"

"I think we have to hope he wasn't spinning us one. When the call comes through, we'll verify the source independently, and we'll make a few official calls to be on the safe side. We're racing the clock, Starsky. Any shortcuts within reason, we need to take them."

"Yeah. Speaking of which, you got a spare shirt in your locker at the station?"

"I think my green t-shirt's wadded up in the bottom of my locker." Hutch turned a frown down at his oil-stained shirt. "I do need a change before we go by Lincoln."

"Lincoln Hospital?" Starsky was proud his voice didn't squeak. "Why we going there?"

"Don't you think the docs want an update on Callendar?"

Uh-huh. Like Hutch gave a damn about Dr. Meredith. Starsky knew a cover excuse out of Hutch when he heard one. He got an upside-down-rollercoaster head rush. "I guess. Any reason it's gotta be today?"

Hutch looked away. "No point in sitting on the information."

"Well, it needs to be a quick visit. Callendar's not here for the surfing. He's here to do a job. That means a target, and we gotta find out who the target is."

"And Allan couldn't help with that. I know, Starsky. Has to be related to the syndicate activity we've heard about lately. I think we're one step closer to tying in Stern. We need to bend a few ears on the Gambling squad, talk to a few people in Vice."

"Let's get to it."

~*~

Hutch stared at the row of vitamin bottles on his locker's top shelf. His t-shirt smelled like a locker, and he'd had to press the cloth against the door to rub out the wrinkles. He didn't care. He wasn't aiming for a fashion statement with a hitman on the loose carrying more than the potential weapons in his attaché. He had other things to worry about… such as giving Judith that fresh blood sample without Starsky getting wind of it. He reached for a few of the vitamin bottles.

"How many'a those you take in a day?"

He nearly dropped the vitamin C. Tucking two bottles in the crook of his arm, Hutch schooled his face, turned around. Starsky had exchanged his oil-stained khaki jacket and plaid for brown leather and burgundy. Trust Starsky's locker to keep clothes laundry-fresh. "With a nasty virus on the prowl, it can't hurt to load up on a little C, E, zinc."

"Toss me a few. Anything in there for energy? Come two a.m. when we're staking out that poker game I'll need a boost. I'll need one before then after we make the rounds of the morgues, hospitals, and clinics looking for Callendar. Hutch? What's wrong?"

Hutch bent over to pick up the bottles he'd dropped. "Didn't get much sleep last night."

"In that damn chair? Guess not. Toldya to quit acting loony and get in the bed."

Waiting for the shoe to drop… when this shoe drops, they'll hear it in Copenhagen.

~*~

"You boys created a power vacuum when you ran Malinda out of town." Cupcake pulled her jacket tighter around her low-cut top. Both the jacket and top were no thicker than a lettuce leaf, and did nothing to conceal her plentiful cleavage. Her head was probably toasty warm under her long platinum wig, but the rest of her had to feel the bite in the air, judging by her perked nipples. Starsky took a nice long look, glanced up and caught Hutch staring too, and they looked at each other, and back at Cupcake.

"Cold?" Hutch asked her. "Hot out today but it's cooled down a lot tonight."

Cupcake and Georgie Girl exchanged scornful smiles, no doubt at the ignorance of two dumb men who'd never tried hooking.

"You think our pimp watches the weather forecasts and tells us how to dress for comfort?!" Georgie Girl snapped, trying to hide a shiver in sequined hotpants and a leotard that gave johns two plums to ogle if they got tired of Cupcake's peaches.

With a shared glance, Starsky and Hutch shot a double bird at regulations about covered holsters, and shed their jackets. Starsky draped his around Cupcake's quaking shoulders; Georgie Girl got Hutch's to wrap up in. The girls offered them genuine smiles.

"What you were saying about a power vacuum?" Hutch got them back on track.

"Oh, yeah." With a loud jangle of bracelets and bangles, Cupcake waved her arm around in a wide circle. "See this posh piece of real estate here, Fourth and Hayes? It's been our man Vincenzio's turf for a few years. He used to answer to Malinda. Then he answered to Stern. Now he's bowing and scraping whenever Roper shows off his muscle."

Pale yellow headlights got brighter with the louder roar of a custom engine. Georgie Girl swished her Cher wig around, looking over her shoulder at the street. "Pimp patrol."

Cupcake pushed Starsky back against the storefront; he ran his hand up her side under his jacket and then under her jacket to just short of her breast. "Another inch up and over," Cupcake said, "and I'll grab your gun."

"Which one?"

"Honey, the one strapped under your arm just doesn't thrill me. I have one myself."

Georgie Girl hiked her leg up around Hutch's waist, wrapping her arms around his neck; he took firm hold of her rear curves and didn't look unhappy with the turn of events. They held the poses until the light blue Eldorado convertible cruised by with its flashy dressed Italian stallion behind the wheel. The flash ride sped up rounding the corner.

Hutch straightened his jacket around Georgie Girl's shoulders as she unhooked her leg from him and stepped back. "Vincenzio, I presume?"

Detective Georgia "Georgie Girl" Newcomb could slice a man to ribbons with her bubblegum voice and cotton-candy pink frown. Starsky was very glad not to be Vincenzio. "Yeah, that's the creep. I could die a happy woman if I busted his ass."

Detective Carmen "Cupcake" Shea squeezed her partner's shoulder in solidarity. "We'll get him, GG. Take a little time, maybe, but we'll get him."

"He's smellier than the usual garbage?" Starsky asked her.

"The smelliest. Word is, with Roper taking over, Vincenzio's importing some '64 models manufactured in the Far East. Wants to add a little exoticism to his stable."

"Christ! Thirteen year olds?" Hutch fingered his holster snap, evidence of his probable desire to blow out all four tires on that Eldorado if it did another prowl down the street.

Starsky wanted to share the fantasy. Hutch could aim for the tires; he would take a shot or two at the windshield. Give the scumbag something to think about besides underage girls.

"Why else you think we're freezing our tushes off out here?" Georgie laughed. "We're not out to bust lonely old men who don't get any at home. Haven't seen any sign of the young ladies yet, but when we do? Boom! We're dropping the bomb on Mr. Pasta Primavera."

"Well, I hope you get him, ladies. Anything we can do to help, let us know. Right now Starsky and I have to go stake out a poker game we're not supposed to know about."

"Don't you boys have better things to do than ruin somebody's good time?"

Hutch patted Georgie's cheek. "We're not planning a raid, just waiting for our contact to find a break in the action and slip away. We need information. Same reason we dropped by to socialize with you girls tonight."

Carmen drew her hand down Starsky's chest. "Get everything you needed?"

Starsky took a small step backward in a natural move that wouldn't draw attention or hurt feelings. "I got one more question."

"What's that?"

He visually inspected her skintight leather skirt. "Where you keep your badge?"

She canted her hip. "Hey, buy me dinner at Claud's Fine Steakhouse and bring me fresh flowers, and I'll show you next time I'm off duty."

Georgie nudged her in the arm. "Where is this Claud's? I keep hearing about it."

"Over on Elmwood. So expensive they take credit references with your reservation." Starsky patted his pockets. "No Claud's for me this week, Carmen; I'm all tapped out." He snapped his fingers at Hutch. "Reminds me. Hit them with the green."

Hutch gently removed his jacket from Georgie's shoulders and pulled two folded bills from the interior pocket. "Here you go. Courtesy of Dobey's flash money fund."

Georgie unfolded the bills, whistling as she handed one to Carmen. "Fifties! You guys are top drawer. Simmons and Babcock were here earlier, and they left us with twenties."

Starsky accepted his jacket from Carmen. "Have a pimp patrol while they were here?"

At the matching headshakes, Hutch smiled. "Well, there you go. All you gave Simmons and Babcock was talk. You gave us the full ride."

Georgie fanned herself with her crisp fifty. "Don't tempt a couple of hardworking police officers beyond what they can stand!"

~*~

They stopped a few feet into the alley where the Torino waited. Starsky's sigh of relief let out so much air Hutch thought he saw wadded up potato chip bags and crumpled beer cans move six feet away.

"I told you nobody would bother your precious Tomato if we left it here."

Starsky pulled his hand out from under his jacket where he'd likely had a just-in-case grip on his Beretta. "Man, I'm glad I didn't have to draw on anyone getting cute with my car."

"Risk of excessive force, you mean?"

"No. We got no time to go by Metro and fill out weapons discharge forms in triplicate."

Hutch stared at him. "Starsky? You should give serious thought to the possibility that you're as obsessed with this car as Allan Kelsey is with Thomas Callendar."

"Obsessed?! I'm obsessed 'cause I didn't want my hubcaps gone and my windows busted, my sound system ripped out?" Starsky didn't open his car door. He propped against it. "Why we arguing about cars right now?"

Hutch stood in front of him and indulged in a quick glance below the hem of Starsky's jacket. "Wound up from the pimp patrol?"

Starsky looked down at himself and with a sheepish smile swept a glance up Hutch's telltale stance. "You too. Confusing, huh? What gets to a guy and how and when. Women like to throw off on men having one-track minds. Driven by the basics, you know? I think we're more complicated than they give us credit for."

"How's that?"

"Well, I got a theory. I think men are like slot machines in Vegas. You know, you pull the lever and give it a roll, and only way you hit the jackpot is pulling up three of a kind."

"Oh, boy. I'll probably regret asking, but how do we as men compare to those machines?"

"I think guys got three places a person can get to." Starsky grabbed his crotch. "Here." He tapped his temple. "Here." He thumped a fist over his heart. "And here."

"I'll buy that. So?"

"So, Carmen back there? She got to me here." Starsky grabbed his crotch again. "Like Georgie got to you there. Lots of girls get to me here. Get to you there too."

"You won't hear me argue with that."

"Now take Sharman Crane. When I was a horny teenager, she got to me there. When we met up with her last year, she got to me here." He tapped his temple. "I wanted to figure her out. Same with Rosey. She made me think. Then you got the kind who gets to a guy here." Starsky thumped his chest. "Kind who makes you better just knowing them. Helen, Terry, they got to me there." His voice thickened. "They're still there. Always will be. You got a couple of special ladies who'll always be there in that same place."

"Starsky—"

"But a guy only hits the jackpot, the real blockbuster, sirens blaring, all those coins shooting out, when someone gets to him all three places. That's when a guy is ready for the big leagues, Hutch. How often you think that happens? Yeah. Guys don't have it as easy as women wanna think we do."

"It's an interesting theory, Starsky, and I'd even say it makes sense, but I still think I'm missing some point you're trying to make."

Starsky folded his arms over his chest and lounged against the car with one leg slightly bent, one hip jutted. Hutch got socked harder in the crotch by that sight than he had from Georgie Girl hiking her leg up around him and letting him cup her ass.

"At Lincoln, after we got through passing around the pictures of Callendar, and you sent me out to the car while you doubled back to the john, you didn't go to the john. Did you?"

Hutch got socked a different place then. The mind, yes, but not the way Starsky meant. His conscience throbbed, and he had to fight the weird urge to rub the tiny piece of gauze still taped over the interior of his left elbow.

Starsky nodded. "You went back to see the good doctor, and I don't mean Meredith."

"All right, I had a few questions for her."

"Yeah? About what?"

"You know, contagion, incubation period. What else is there to talk about right now?"

Starsky had on a smile. "It's okay, Hutch. Like I was sayin', some women get to you here." He lightly thumped his temple. "I think that's where Doc Kaufman gets to you."

Hutch wanted to lift his left arm and say, No, Starsk, she got to me here. He made a face at his tendency to land between rocks and hard places. "Can we change the subject?"

Starsky's smile vanished. "Sure. What you wanna talk about instead?"

"Recent technological advances, the nuclear non-proliferation pact, I don't care."

On his way around the car, Hutch rechecked the pros and cons of keeping silent about the encounter with the pickpocket in the alley. They added up the same way, more pros than cons. He was fine, no unusual weakness or dizziness, and he and Starsky would find Callendar. In another week, Judith Kaufman would be a memory, and when he didn't moon around like some jilted Romeo, Starsky would lose the greenness around the gills.

With no dark tunnel of panic for Hutch's safety to stare down….

"Okay." Starsky cranked the car. "How 'bout this? You done any reading on that Wow signal they got back in August? Ohio State University."

Hutch settled in the seat. "You mean the Big Ear radio telescope?"

"Yeah. They got a radio signal from deep space." Starsky backed out of the alley. "Brave new universe out there, Hutch, and we're not alone in it."

"You should know. When the little green men finally do show up on our doorstep, it'll be one hell of a family reunion for you." He looked away from waving out the window at Carmen and Georgie as they passed by. "That one fell flat?"

Starsky nodded. "Flatter than splat. I'm no Martian." He split the fingers of his right hand into that Vulcan salute. "Live long and prosper."

Laughter caught Hutch by surprise — his own, bursting out, while that new warmth burst inside his chest, his heart racing. "You're sure as hell no Spock."

"Maybe I'm Spock's sexier cousin."

"I'll give you the sexier part. Okay, talking about a brave new universe, have you been following the Harvey Milk thing in San Francisco? First openly gay elected official in a large U.S. city."

"Yeah, actually. Kinda impressed with the guy. Hope he does all right up there."

Hutch bit down on the tip of his tongue. Yes, it was there, he hadn't swallowed it. "You're serious? Starsky, the guy's Mayor of Castro campaign did exactly what you weren't impressed with about Peter Whitelaw's. Personal life as platform. Sexuality as activism."

"Maybe I've done a little thinking about the things I said to Whitelaw that day."

"Really."

"Really. You don't have to sound that skeptical, Hutch. Fact is, I got a little bummed out when the results were in and I saw how bad he lost. I didn't think he had much of a shot at winning, but it says something about Bay City that the other guy ran away with it."

"Yes." Hutch wondered if it was his imagination in overdrive or if the city outside his window really did look darker all of a sudden. "Something I don't like. I thought about calling Whitelaw, telling him to hang in there, but I didn't think the poor guy needed a heart attack on top of a loss like that one, and—"

"And it would've been a risky phone call."

Hutch smiled. "You really have some new political ideas I need to hear?"

"Nothing earth-shattering. But yeah, I've been thinking some."

"Is that why your hook shot was so much better last time we went one on one?"

Starsky grinned at him. "You know me too well, damn it."

"Well, let's hear it. The Starsky Manifesto."

While he listened to Starsky talk about level playing fields and a few other sports and car metaphors that actually fit politics remarkably well, Hutch felt his heart leap with the pull of some imaginary lever. Sirens blared in his head. That metallic flood of "coins" pooled in the front of his pants. Heart, mind, and body….

Somewhere in Vegas a slot machine had pulled up three matching Torinos.

~*~

"Stretching it!" Starsky grumped. "Can you believe Dobey? Up half the night last night waiting on that guy from the Gambling squad, and we're in Dobey's office bright and too damn early this morning with solid leads pointing to Roper as Callendar's target, and what's Dobey say? Huh? We're stretching it."

"Starsky, what's eating you? You've complained about that five, no six times today."

Why was he complaining?

Yeah, he and Hutch hadn't seen a bed in twenty-four hours, but the hours they'd spent hadn't exactly crawled. They'd talked. From politics they'd gone on to baseball in Canada to that horrible plane crash in Mississippi involving Lynyrd Skynyrd. Then they hashed out the case: Roper, Callendar, their next move. He'd never met anyone he could talk to the way he talked to Hutch. Somehow that meant so much more now than it ever had.

So, what had him crankier than he got before an IA questioning?

"I'm tired of chasing my tail, Hutch. That DMV read-back on Cicchino was a wash-out. We've been in and out of every flop-house, fleabag, and dive in the city today and nobody knows a damn thing. No hint of Callendar; it's like the guy landed in California and just vaporized. Then there's Dobey acting like nothing real big is going down, drawing those lines on whatever the hell that was, and throwing our hard work back in our faces."

"Dobey has a whole precinct to worry about, Starsky. To us, this thing's personal because we spent days in quarantine staring it down. To him it's just one headache out of many."

"What's it gonna take to make it personal to him?" Starsky pulled his hand back through his hair and rubbed at his achy neck. "I don't know. I got this strange feeling I need Dobey all fired up about what we're up against with this thing."

"You know what you need? You need real food. We both need fresh clothes. I hope Judith and Meredith can stand to let us in their nice clean corporate rental."

The colony of ants in Starsky's pants had a sudden population spike. "We showered and shaved at Metro. That ain't good enough, tough. Must be nice. They go on assignment, and the DC in Alabama doesn't put them in a hotel. They get a two-bedroom apartment."

Hutch laughed. "Well, they couldn't exactly share a hotel room, Starsky."

"What's got you in such a good mood?"

Please don't let it be where we're headed right now.

"I think we're close, that's what. We'll fill the doctors in on our new Interpol info and get out there, stake out Roper's mansion, and nab Callendar before he gets to the target."

"You make it sound so easy."

"How hard could it be? This is ABC police work, Starsky. Listen, on the way to Roper's we'll pick up deli sandwiches and get a thermos of coffee from that place you like—"

"Sully's?"

"Yeah. The strong stuff, so much caffeine it should be a controlled substance. I'll buy."

Starsky gaped at him. Hutch had on that soft, indulgent smile again. That and an open wallet meant one thing: Hutch was falling. Falling hard. Never failed. Let him get his head good and turned, and he started springing for candy bars, deli sandwiches and coffee, until Starsky teased him about ending up in the poor house.

Maybe Doc Kaufman had found her way to more than just Hutch's mind.

Then Starsky remembered something that jazzed him more than a vat of Sully's coffee.

~*~

"Tired?" Fitz asked.

Yawning, Judith pulled herself up off the sofa. "Yes."

"Should I get out the ARM and Dextrostix? You're very drowsy. That wine—"

"I'm not hyperglycemic. I had three sips of wine, Fitz! I only poured myself a glass so—"

"So the detectives wouldn't notice you weren't drinking?"

"You know I don't like… questions."

"I realize you would prefer to ignore your condition, Judith, but Kellman was offering you job security when he invested in the glucose meter for you to carry on assignment. He can praise your work, but that's vastly different than appropriating special funds. You may be the only diabetic in the Southeast with a personal Ames Reflectance Meter."

"I know what I owe Kellman. Under his bureaucratic exterior, he has a heart of gold."

Fitz's smile was wry. "I wouldn't go that far."

"No. I shouldn't have to depend on a glucose meter usually reserved for physician offices. I was already in medical school when Dextrostix came out. I won't talk about life before then. Home glucose monitoring for laypeople, that's the only future for diabetics."

"I agree. I think that future is even closer than we imagine."

She wanted to change the subject. Immediately. "Hutch is still asymptomatic."

"Hutch." He had a slight furrow to his brow. "You're getting fond of Officer Hutchinson."

"I like him. Other than you, he's one of the few men to take me seriously, so casually, from almost the beginning of our acquaintance. Until today, he called me 'Doctor' or 'Doc.' I want to believe he's out of danger. We'll be going back to the lab at daybreak?"

"Yes. With the virus spreading, we're looking at a tiny window of opportunity to develop a serum before this epidemic outpaces the one in the Sudan last year."

She wanted to shudder at the memory of those slide shows, but Fitz would probably mistake shuddering for sudden-swing hypoglycemia. "We'll be tethered to the hospital by a short string until we get a serum synthesized. I'm turning in. Goodnight, Fitz."

"Goodnight. Leave the wine glasses. I'll get them."

"Thank you."

Yawning again, she went to her room across the small apartment, and straight to the bathroom to brush her teeth and cleanse her face of makeup and eye-shadow. Her suitcase sat empty on the dresser; her blazer, carefully folded, went inside it for the trip home. The epidemic had reached that critical point. She would spend the rest of the time in clothes that fit comfortably under her lab coat.

She pulled her satin nightgown down from its hanger in the closet. Facing the mirrored dresser, she lifted the hem of her turtleneck and pulled off the sweater with minimal static cling to her hair. Her medic alert pendant hung low on her chest, in the hollow between her breasts, the red Caduceus on its silver background a reminder she hated.

Mason liked to play with the pendant before venturing fingertips over to her lacy bra.

Mason.

She had promised to call when she could.

Judith rarely took advantage of the amenities provided with the DC-funded rental, but she needed the comfort of Mason's naturally wood-smoky voice in her ear, and Fitz would say she had earned a few minutes of long distance. Without bothering to change into her nightgown first, she sat down on the edge of her bed and reached for the nightstand phone. The clock beside it made her think twice.

"Call any old time, Judy, and I do mean any time."

Before she lost her nerve, she dialed. She expected to hear a sleep-roughened greeting, but she got an earful of canine song and softer music in the background.

"Hay-uh-lo?"

"Mason. I know it's late—"

"Shoot, naw. Late's best time of all. You sound like you been put through the wringer and then hung out on the line to dry in a stiff wind."

"I'm tired. What are you doing? What's all the noise I hear?"

"I'm still in mourning. Not even a month since the crash. I got Skynyrd on the tape deck and me and Shrimp and Grits all howling to beat the band. Redneck opera."

Their running argument; just what she needed to take her mind off viruses, diabetes, and Ken Hutchinson's exposure to contagion. "You're not a redneck, Mason."

"Oh, now. Them's fighting words, little lady. I breed, train, and handle champion Treeing Walker coonhounds. What's that tell you?"

Her lips twitched. "You're an animal lover."

"Um-huh. My idea of vacation is a weekend in my bass boat on Logan Martin."

She smiled. "You like getting back to nature."

"Mama thinks she raised a Southern Baptist, but the only religion I got is Crimson Tide football. When I die I wohnta be buried in my old Tide jersey, the one I wore for a week before Bama won the national championship in '65. You seen my Roll, Tide, Roll tattoo."

"I like that tattoo. You take pride in your alma mater, and you're a sports enthusiast."

"I could bait a fishhook before I could read and shoot a thirty-thirty before I could drive."

"You had an interesting childhood."

"I live out in the sticks in a place that's half log cabin, half singlewide. I hate to be the one to break it to you, beautiful, but I'm a redneck."

She was laughing now. "You also have friends of various ethnicities, you hate beer, you don't have more year-round ornaments in your yard than on your Christmas tree, and I've never seen a rebel flag within a mile of you except on a Lynyrd Skynyrd album cover."

"Okay, I'm a civilized redneck. Question I ought should be askin' myself, if I had a lick of sense, is what's a sophisticated Yankee like you hanging round me for anyhow?"

"You make me laugh."

"Well, hell damn, ten years since I was on the Bama squad, a whole decade of keeping myself in shape, and the pritty girl tells me I make her laugh. I'm goin' right out tomorrow and blowing a wad on a case of Natural Light."

She laughed harder and had to remind herself to be quieter. No need to disturb Fitz. "No, you won't. You hate beer, remember? You know I appreciate your physical attributes."

"Yeah-huh?"

"Yes. Your long legs, your cute butt, your tight stomach, your strong arms, your big—"

"Good Lord'a mercy, I'm gohn crawl through this phone line to get at you, you don't stop talking like that. What's got into you, Judy?"

She sobered quickly, something raw within her flinching at the fresh air as she opened up, letting herself feel. How had she ever thought she could control feelings? "I may not always have the courage to say what I feel, but that doesn't mean I don't feel it."

~*~

"I'm gettin' tired of this. If Roper is the target, where's Callendar?"

Hutch hid a smile. Starsky had the morning-after-stakeout grumps, down to ragging on him for tossing empty coffee cups in the backseat. Nothing could dim Hutch's almost euphoric mood. I'm too happy for my own good. The kind of happy that usually got him kicked in the ass when he least expected it. "Maybe he's looking for an opening."

"Or at the bottom of the lake in a concrete overcoat. If we were able to get a make on him, then Roper's gorillas would too. Maybe that's what checked his fever this long."

"Well, it's all we've got." Hutch let the morning breeze cool his face. Why wouldn't he feel a little flushed, stuck in the car all night long? "You know, if Callendar is alive, Judith says he's beat it. Judith says his blood is manufacturing antibodies right now."

"Judith says."

"Yeah."

"You two are gettin' pretty tight."

Surprised, Hutch glanced at the grumpy, coffee-sipping driver. "It's Judith and Meredith."

"Oh." Starsky could pack a hell of a lot of skepticism into one syllable.

"They think there's an outside chance that maybe his body has developed a degree of immunity, maybe enough resistance to give him an edge."

"Meredith's grabbing at straws."

"That's all he's got."

They had followed Roper's chauffeured sedan to the edge of the business district. Hutch faced the open window again, wanting more of that breeze. "Starsky, I know this isn't the time or place, but maybe we should clear something up."

"What's that?"

"You know Judith isn't the one I want to get that kind of tight with, right?" He didn't turn from the window, but he could feel Starsky's look, almost a touch to the cheek.

"You tell me you got a thing for Dr. Meredith, and we'll have words. The man's too old for you and he's got zero sex appeal."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Well, okay, you kinda threw me the day we met her. That 'I think I'm in love' shit."

"Oh, come on, Starsky. We both enjoy flirting with beautiful women, and I doubt a surgeon could lobotomize that out of us. My flirtation is just more sophisticated than that 'peruse my person, ma'am' line you gave that airport security woman."

Starsky chuckled. "She dug it."

"That's where you're wrong. If you weren't a cop, she would've shoved that metal detector somewhere you'd still be feeling it, buddy. I saw the look on her face."

"Yeah, sure. Thing is, partner, you've been acting like you do when, you know—"

"When what?"

"When you're, you know, in love."

"What's that mean, how I'm acting?"

"You get a different smile on your face, and suddenly your pockets are real deep, and you're doling out extra money for candy and paying for meals."

"And you've got it in your head that Judith's responsible for that?"

"I fell for the red herring at first, but then I started thinking."

Hutch decided the Bekins Moving and Storage warehouse didn't need his attention. He gave Starsky's profile a brief study and spotted a smile in progress. "Yeah? About what?"

Starsky turned the Torino down the warehouse district side road, keeping textbook tail distance from Roper's sedan. "Day we took Jake to the burger joint. I was supposed to buy lunch, but you took it off my hands, and you laughed at my jokes and got that softie smile on your face. I'd bet my badge it wasn't 'cause Jake got back from Europe."

Gaze straight ahead, unwavering, Starsky telegraphed sudden nervousness in his hand's tight grip on the steering wheel. Hutch watched Starsky clench down tighter on the wheel until five pale knuckles stood out against their tan backdrop. If Starsky clutched that coffee cup half as tight, he'd end up wearing the coffee.

Hutch understood the feeling. He couldn't feel more vulnerable himself if he peeled out of his old shoes and jeans and blue shirt and light leather jacket in broad daylight in front of Metro, and stood on those steps down to nothing but socks and holster.

With a quick shift in the seat, he gave the breeze drifting through his window another chance to cool him down, and remembered his decision to blaze these trails at Starsky's side. Maybe this time he could walk a few steps ahead, and show Starsky the path had no dangerous holes or traps.

"I am, Starsk." Hutch concentrated on the slowing blur of scenery.

"What?"

"In love." He took a deep breath, waiting for the seat to drop out from under him, or for Starsky to slam on brakes, or the earth to tilt differently on its axis. "And Judith Kaufman doesn't have one damn thing to do with it."

He heard a harsh intake of breath and then a softer sound, like a sigh.

"Hey. Hutch? Look at me."

He gave Starsky a sideways look.

"You think you said something I don't wanna hear? Think again. You just made me the happiest Joe on the planet. Got that?"

"There's one problem with that, Starsky."

"What?"

"Your name's not Joe."

Starsky groaned and flung the little Styrofoam cup at him. "That's one'a your worst ever. Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Enough with the soap."

Hutch tossed the empty in the backseat with the others. "Well, for now anyway, when we can't do anything about it."

"Really. I think Roper's reached his destination. Time to do more sitting and waiting."

~*~

"We had him."

"Well, at least we know he's alive."

Starsky swallowed rage he didn't understand. Sure, he hated like hell lousing up a collar after spending all night crawling back and forth between the driver's seat and the back, trading places with Hutch, sleeping in shifts. Besides, this was no ordinary collar.

Frustration he could get, but he was furious.

Callendar, right there, a five-second sprint away from them the whole time they bickered over waiting, longevity, and National Geographic, and they hadn't seen him for who he was until the hit went down. Jesus Christ, if they told Allan Kelsey about it, the man would need electroshock therapy or something.

And Hutch…. This weird rage had his name on it. Starsky struggled to blank his mind of Hutch wheeling to the ground away from Callendar's car. Hutch had almost eaten a pavement breakfast, and he sat over there now, no anger, no frustration, just sounding grateful as all hell that Callendar was still alive. Something didn't add up.

"I'll call it in and get an APB out on the escape vehicle."

Starsky continued to stare out the windshield.

"Starsky? The new plan is to sit here idling all morning?"

"No one behind us. Somebody comes up behind us, I'll move."

The radio's scratch-squawk of transmission beat Hutch to the punch. "Zebra-three."

Starsky's glare at the radio shifted into open-mouthed surprise. Hutch had reached for the mike but stopped short, his hand hovering inches from the receiver, as if the muscles in his arm couldn't get a clear brain signal to move the rest of the way for the pick up.

"Hutch?"

"Zebra-three? Do you copy, Zebra-three? Dispatch over."

Starsky grabbed the mike. "Zebra-three, we read you. Loud and full'a static as usual."

"Zebra-three, stand by for patch-through from Captain Dobey."

"Starsky? Hutch?"

"It's Starsky, Cap. What you got?"

"What I got is a call from Lincoln Hospital. Those doctors from Disease Control want you and Hutch to drop whatever you're doing and get back to the lab."

"Ah, man, what do they want? Did they say why? We just had Callendar in our sights."

"No, they didn't, Starsky, and that means when you get there and find out what they want, I need to hear about it. That Dr. Meredith didn't sound cheerful."

"He never does. All right. We're on our way." Starsky re-cradled the mike. "Damn it, forgot about the APB on Callendar's—" He looked up, startled, at the sudden clasp of his arm, Hutch gripping him so hard he heard the faintest squeak of skin on leather.

"Starsky."

He couldn't shake off Hutch's vise grip on his arm. "No! No, I know what you're thinking. You think they're calling us in to tell us one of us has it. Get it outta your head, Hutch. They could've made some breakthrough or—"

"Meredith could've relayed that information through Dobey. I'm sorry, Starsky… I… I think you'll be hunting Callendar without me from here on in."

"You don't know that. Why you, why not me? Huh? I had the same contact with Jake you did, close enough, and, yeah, you got closer to Virgie, but she wasn't sick yet."

"Starsky, listen to me. When I went back to the lab day before yesterday, and you thought I wanted to talk to Judith, I went to let her draw more blood. Remember the day we cornered the airport dipper in that alley and you ran back to the car to radio it in?"

"Yeah?"

"He tried to make a run for it." Hutch's quiet laugh sounded too much like a smothered shout. "Sick as he was, he tried to spring off that fence and knock Judith and me down if he had to. I didn't think. Didn't fucking think about my gun or, hell, my feet. I could've kicked him, but… I just reacted, went in close, elbowed him under the chin, and he went down in a heap."

Starsky tried to focus through the icy cold around his throat, the hot flush of anger across his forehead, the pain around his eyes. He remembered making some remark about that pickpocket, about him being down for the count. Oh, shit. Shit!

"Why," he spit the word through pursed lips. "Why's this the first I'm hearing of it?"

"Judith called it minimum-risk contact. I hoped, I, I wanted to believe it was nothing."

"Nothing like the 'nothing' Anderson thought Jake's scratch was? Jesus Christ!"

Starsky twisted so viciously fast in the seat he got a stinging pain in his back. He grabbed Hutch by that Dijon-mustard leather jacket. Hutch had yet to let go of his arm. They sat there, attached in three places, staring at each other. Starsky knew he had violence on his face; Hutch only had sadness in his eyes, more sadness than anger or fear.

Resignation.

Starsky loosened his fists around Hutch's jacket, pushed back from him, jerked free. Later, he knew, he would wish he'd let Hutch hold his arm for a solid hour. Right then, he couldn't take it. He roughly geared the Torino into reverse, gunned backward, then slammed into drive and pulled over to the side of the warehouse service road.

Outside, turning a tight circle, running his hands through his hair and wanting to pull out clumps of it, he couldn't plug his ears to the sound of his own voice in his memory. You don't have it, hear me? What the hell you aiming for, a self-fulfilling prophecy? Live long and prosper. Or the sound of Hutch's. Starsky, get off me, stay down, but get off me now!

He wanted to kick Hutch's ass and kiss him at the same time, all too aware Hutch would let him do neither. He gulped in air only to feel it slam against his tight throat.

"Starsk?"

So soft, that voice. Soft, steady, the same husky tenderness Starsky had heard that morning when Hutch told him…. Oh, God. Starsky suddenly throbbed all over, and knew why. Hell of a long way down from the moon he'd been over, to the asphalt of a plague-ridden city, and one hard damn landing. He thrust out his hands to grip Hutch's shoulders. Hutch clutched his forearms, squeezing him with those long fingers.

The look they shared had the wet heat of ten impossible kisses.

~*~

The shoe had dropped, and it made one doozy of a thud. Hutch had to believe he'd made the right decision for a change, letting Starsky hear it first from him, letting Starsky get out the anger, shock, and denial with no audience but him and that abused Torino steering wheel. Starsky had swatted it with the heel of his palm every half mile or so on the way to Lincoln, until Hutch expected the poor thing to bleed rubber.

In front of Judith and Meredith, Starsky put on the face of a soldier. Hutch would never forget the quiet strength he saw in those pain-darkened eyes when he handed over his holstered gun, and he also had to believe he would have more than forty-eight hours to remember it. He hoped if he managed to sleep, he would dream of his name in Starsky's voice, that gruff whisper and that promise of hope Starsky offered him.

"I'm gonna find Callendar."

Hutch finished tying the yellow hospital gown in the back. He heard a knock on glass. Looking over at the observation window, he dredged up a smile for Judith. She pointed at the dedicated phone. He picked up his receiver and joined her at the window.

"How do you feel?"

He shrugged. "No different than five minutes ago. Ask me in about twelve hours, after Starsky gets back here with Callendar under cuff and key, and you whip up a serum."

"You believe he'll find him that quickly?"

"Hope's all I've got, right?"

She looked away as a nurse passed down the hall behind her. "I need to ask you a difficult question before you're feverish with symptoms."

He almost swallowed wrong. Did she think—? But he and Starsky hadn't even— "Let me ask you something first. Did Starsky give you a fresh blood sample? I told him on the way here he'd better not hassle you guys about it. He didn't think it was necessary, but with two stakeouts in forty-eight hours, we spent a lot of time in close quarters, and—"

She was nodding, a small smile curving her pretty mouth. "He let us draw blood, but made it very clear he was going after Callendar regardless. He said we'd need heavy artillery to keep him in the hospital, no matter what we found in his sample. I tried to reassure him. If Dr. Meredith's correlation is accurate you won't be that highly contagious until your symptoms appear."

"Thank God for big favors. Do I need to give you a list of other people I had contact with?" He thought about holding Georgie Girl during the pimp patrol, letting her wear his jacket. He remembered sitting in Dobey's office. Dobey… Edith, Cal, Rosie!

"I really think you have nothing to worry about, but give us a list, and we'll contact each individual and decide if the contact requires testing. I'll have the nurses bring you paper and pen, some magazines, anything else they might have that can fight boredom."

"Thanks. Okay. Hit me with your difficult question."

"Do you have family you'd like for us to call?"

His quick intake of breath hurt his throat. "That's a little premature, isn't it?"

"I know it has to seem that way to you now."

"I… no."

"No, you don't want us to call your family?"

"Not now. Not until you're absolutely certain I won't…." He'd lost eye contact with her again. Hard for you, Doc, seeing the human face on all this, those tiny killers you study? "My parents are in Minnesota. I want them to stay there, more than a thousand miles from this thing. I don't want them anywhere near this city or this hospital."

"With no warning, the news will come as a hard blow."

He bit off a laugh. "Judith, I'm a cop in a dangerous city. My parents have lived for years with the possibility of getting a call like that. You don't know my mother. She can handle what I do from a distance. She can handle anything from a distance. She used to nag me about making sure I had clean underwear in case I was in an accident, so I wouldn't disgust the nurses. You understand?"

"Ah. I see."

"Mom wouldn't know how to start coping with oxygen tents and how ugly this thing gets before it's…" Christ. I don't want Starsky left with that for a last memory of me, but an armored battalion would never keep him away. "If Starsky doesn't find Callendar in time, and you can't develop a serum, then you can call my father. Call him at his office. Week day, weekend, he's there every day. Captain Dobey has the contact information. Dad's solid, level-headed. He'll know how to talk to my mother."

"All right, if you're sure—"

"Judith, my closest family already knows. My closest family is out there getting ready to tear this whole city down to molecules looking for Callendar."

"I understand." She smiled again. "I've seen your partnership in action. Well, I need to get back to the lab, but I'll check on you later. Let us know if you need anything."

"Thanks."

They hung the phones up at the same time. Hutch didn't watch her walk away. He stared through the window at the empty hall, thinking about Starsky and family, and wanted to take his badge out of his pants pocket and kiss the damn thing. That cover of shield and partnership had given him what many men involved with men didn't have: safe disclosure in time of illness, or at the end of life.

No! Starsky would find Callendar.

Hutch winced, closing his eyes. Or get himself killed trying.

~*~

Hutch was dying.

Starsky stormed across the parking lot, nearly busted the station doors, and stormed down the hall, strong-arming a clear path through cops who didn't get the fuck out of his way fast enough. His storm didn't blow itself out until he got to the locker room. Face to face with Hutch's locker, he splayed his hands across the cold surface and bowed his head, chest heaving, all his wind swirling on the inside now, cutting a swath through his chest.

Hutch!

Dying!

Limousine service. I'll bet you ladies have a wardrobe change. Why don't you nice ladies show me to my new quarters? Marvelous talking to all of you. Well, do it, buddy, because I plan to be around for a hundred-forty-eight years.

"Goddamn it!"

He couldn't do it yet. He couldn't match Hutch's joke-cracking in the middle of this disaster. Not yet. Next time he saw Hutch, he would. He would paste a smile on his face he'd need rubbing alcohol to wipe off, and he would find a way to make Hutch smile. He needed another glimpse of that smile and the special light in Hutch's eyes that now shone for him…and brighter than it ever had for anyone else. Until then….

Starsky fumbled with the lock, yanked the locker door open. In the privacy of the empty room, he snatched Hutch's olive green button-up, wadding it against his face, but he got more fuel oil smell than Hutch's scent in his nose. He tossed the shirt down in the bottom of the locker. The row of vitamin bottles caught his attention. Enraged, he shoveled the bottles of useless pills to the floor. Those left he grabbed and threw at the neighboring section of lockers. He had the irrational fantasy of tracking down the manufacturers and wringing their necks for bottling false hope, or false sense of security, something false.

All your vitamins and yogurt and seaweed, what good's it, Hutch? What good's that shit? You take care of yourself, and look what happens! Why you? I'm the shit-for-brains who didn't care to live a hundred years. Yeah. I should be the one in that isolation room.

He wasn't. He was out in the world, free as a bird, healthy. He was Hutch's hope. He would be his savior. First things first, he had to go break the news to Dobey and rub the man's face in it if he had to, make the captain see that this plague had just got personal.

Part two

When Hutch heard the tap on glass, he almost didn't look up from his boring movie magazine, but a peripheral glance showed him blue jeans, black shirt, and brown leather. Hutch threw the magazine down and burst out of the uncomfortable plastic chair, drawn to that sideways smile Starsky wore for him. Noting the lack of hallway traffic, Hutch gave him a flirtatious smile in return, and flipped the hem of his hospital gown, hiking it a few inches above his knees.

Starsky's smile heated to a grin on his way to the wall phone.

Hutch picked up the receiver and hid behind the wall.

"How you feelin'?" Starsky's tone had forced cheer in it.

Hutch could joke him out of that. One of the services they rendered each other. The one suffering usually cheered the other up, knowing the other suffered more. "Humiliated."

"Why?"

"Well, how would you like to walk around all day in a paper dress that makes you look like Florence Nightingale? Wait a minute, you've already done that, and better." Caution made him lower his voice. "You have the ass for it."

Starsky's voice dropped to a matching whisper. "It's what's underneath that counts. You got the legs for it, Blondie."

"Now you tell me." Hutch eased over to the window. "That's what you're hot for?"

Starsky got closer to the glass. "Your legs aren't hard on the eyes, I'll say that. Bet you'd do a mean tango in that paper dress."

"Watch it, Ramón. Keep talking like that, I'm gonna break right through this window."

"It's your mouth." Starsky rubbed his thumb over the glass at the level of Hutch's lips.

Hutch ached to feel that thumb on his lips. "What is?"

"What I'm hot for. What that smile, the one I told you about, what it does to your upper lip. Gets me right here." Starsky balled a fist and thumped himself in the chest.

Hutch expected the phone to melt in his hand. He had the best kind of fever spiking his temperature to a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. He wanted to ask if he got to Starsky in the other two places, if he made Starsky's slot machine light up and wail sirens and shoot money all over the place, but some questions a man just couldn't ask another man.

Instead, he turned Starsky's joke from the other day around on him. "You're just talking like that because you're out there, and I'm in here." Starsky winked; Hutch laughed. "Well, don't do it."

"Come on. You know me better'n that. I don't say what I don't mean." Starsky looked down the hall again in an obvious check for inadvertent listeners or eavesdroppers. "I'm gonna get you well, get you outta here, take you somewhere special, and prove it."

"I'm counting on that, Starsk. Counting on you. What's the word? Any leads?"

"A few, yeah. They found Callendar's car abandoned on the side of the road. Out of the city, one of the farm-truck routes. Got sheriff's deputies out combing the fields, but I doubt they find anything. Car rental under the name Mullins."

"Another alias or a stolen rental."

"That's my guess. Huggy got in touch with me through dispatch. Told me to pick him up and we'd go see this guy who might know something about that Robert Cicchino. You know, the 'syndicate flunky' Allan Kelsey told us about? Guy won't spill on the phone. Only in person and only with Huggy there. We're on our way there now, but I wanted to stop and check in, see if you got settled okay."

"Cagey snitch."

"Yeah, well, the guy's getting ready to dump on a dude with connections to international organized crime. He's got to know interesting things could happen to his life expectancy if he's not careful." Starsky's smile twisted into a grimace, revealing raw agony that punched Hutch right in the bread basket. "My God, I—"

"Don't, Starsky. This is me you're talking to. I'm the one person who doesn't want you putting some kind of television time delay between your brain and your mouth. Look at it this way: you're out there, on the job, you'll probably have Callendar in here getting his blood drawn before I have a chance to sweat up this hospital gown. I'm more likely to die of boredom in this—" He broke off, empathizing with Starsky's inward anger.

Starsky smiled with just his lips, not his whole face the way he did when genuinely happy. He stroked the glass, a touch Hutch would have felt on his hair without the glass wall between them. "What's that you said about no time delays? Look, I gotta run. Huggy and me can't make this guy wait. You know how it is with snitches like that. You get there one second later than they think you oughta, and they're gone, poof."

"Does he know? Huggy, I mean."

"Yeah."

"You be careful out there, Starsky."

With a salute and one last smile, brighter this time, Starsky turned and started down the hall. Hutch knew he should let Starsky go do what he did best, free him from this setting of dark, heavy emotion that could hamstring him worse than sliding wrong in a police department softball game. What Hutch knew and what he needed clashed in a battle of wills. More frightened than he wanted to let on, he wasn't surprised that need won.

He tapped on the glass. Starsky stopped in his tracks.

When he had Starsky's attention, he beckoned him closer to the glass. Starsky got close enough to fog the glass with his breath. Hutch did the same. Even with the hallway still empty behind Starsky, they didn't risk pressing their lips to the glass, or closing their eyes, but they watched each other from the proximity of a kiss and then took a step back in tandem for a longer look.

Hutch committed to memory details he could think about while in isolation. Trivialities that combined to create the only man he'd ever fallen in love with. He saw how the last twenty-four hours had taken their toll on Starsky: the unruliness of his hair, dark stubble on cheeks and chin, sleep-loss purple circles developing under his bright eyes. Hutch looked for details he could see on a normal day: the little "blemishes" by Starsky's right eye and on his left cheek, the slight sheen on the bridge of his nose, the hollow of throat framed by the leather necklace that dangled those coins. He realized he was smiling when Starsky's eyes flashed something hotter than affection at him.

He realized next that they weren't alone.

He pointed behind Starsky where Huggy waited with an ill-fitting lab coat on top of his suede-and-denim pullover. Starsky whirled. A heated conversation followed, both men talking more with their hands than their mouths, and Starsky took off in a dead run down the hall. Hutch motioned for Huggy to pick up the wall phone.

"What're you trying to do, Huggy? Get yourself arrested for impersonating a doctor?"

"Knew I had to get in here some way, brother. That squawker in Starsky's car started doin' its thing, but dispatch wouldn't talk to me. Lucky I saw this coat at the nurse's station. Looked so lonely I decided to adopt it. How you bearing up in these conditions?"

Hutch rolled his eyes. "Conditions? That's a hell of a way to talk about a death sentence." He tapped his ear with the receiver. "Damn. Morbid humor. Seems to be the trend today."

"I hear that. Better any kinda humor than tears. Really, you okay? For now anyway?"

"I'm fine, Huggy. The one I'm worried about is Starsky. Stick close to him, would you? For as long as he'll let you. He's wired, he hasn't had much sleep, and I'm not out there to put the brakes on when he gets a crazy idea that could put more than his ass in a sling. It'll get heavy, Huggy. Be ready for him to explode in your face. You'll have to accept that it's not you, it's the situation."

"You wrote the Starsky Instruction Manual, my friend, but I've read a page or three over the years. I know how heavy it gets. I saw what he was like those times you did those involuntary disappearing acts, and man, this time I think it'll go easier, 'cause he knows where you are, and you got people watching out for you."

"You don't understand." Damn. Someone needed to know what Starsky was really dealing with out there. Hutch made a unilateral decision to trust the man staring at him now through glass. He could worry about any potential Starsky discomfort later… if he lived to worry about anything. "This time there's a new wrinkle. Starsky's not just out there trying to salvage a police partnership or keep his best buddy above ground, and that's all I can say."

Huggy's face could contort itself into expressions impossible for most humans, but that time he showed only even-lipped, dark-eyed solemnity. "If you think you was ever just anything to Starsky, or vice versa, I got news for you. All right, I'm gone. I loiter in this restricted area, I might get Starsky in hot water with the guys who wear these coats for real, and then my ass would be grass. You hang in there. Next time I talk to you I want it to be over brews and a steak and baked."

"Thanks, Huggy."

Huggy tilted his head to the side. "Worries me how you so calm."

"I saw this coming, Huggy." Hutch shooed him. "What're you standing around, waiting for? Get out there with Starsky."

Huggy boggled the phone in a rush to hang it up, and got a move on.

After putting his receiver on its base, Hutch stood in front of the glass with his plastic smile on until he'd counted over thirty seconds. Then he let his smile slip, and he paced over to the plastic chair and flung it a few feet across the room, scattering magazines and making one hell of a racket.

~*~

Starsky pulled into the last space in front of a dive bar that wanted to be mistaken for a restaurant. His memory took him back in time to the day he shared a table with a little pickled cockroach named Mickey, desperate for any information about Hutch.

Memories, he didn't need.

Determined to be first to the door and make an intimidating entrance, he used the car bonnet as a footbridge in a move he would've smacked Hutch in the back of the head for. Huggy hung back, letting him take the lead.

The place never changed. Waitresses still wore tight black skirts, white shirts, and mod haircuts. People crowded the checkered cloth tables and rickety wooden booths. Huggy nodded at the last booth on the right where a guy waited behind two empty beer mugs. His faded skin and red nose stood out with his bad comb-over and worse fashion sense.

Motioning for Huggy to slide in first, Starsky gave the exit a hard look before he sat down. He hated having his back to the door, but he couldn't risk spooking this guy by playing up his training. He might have to play the heavy later. "Huggy says you got something for me."

The guy ran his hand over the four strands of hair he'd combed across his dome head. "You don't remember me, d'ya?"

Starsky counted to ten, clearing his throat. "Look, I've had too little sleep, too much coffee, and my partner's life might depend on what you got to say. That's all I got on my mind. Truth is, my mother could walk by this table and I wouldn't recognize her."

"You and Hutch got me off a rape rap last year. Witnesses fingered me for it, 'cause I had the shit-ass luck of looking too much like the guy who did do it. Man, I thought I'd be sent up, but you and Hutch kept hammering away at the thing. You knew rape's not my bag. I play the ponies and I get in over my head with poker. Sometimes I sell stuff for people who can't take their goods to a reputable pawn shop. But rape? Give me a break, man. I want my ladies happy little wildcats in bed 'cause they wanna be. Anyway, you guys found the bastard who did the poor girl, and so, yeah, I owe you one."

"Thanks for letting me call in a marker. What you got?"

The guy looked uncomfortable. "Um, Huggy said—" He wiggled his fingers in a silent request for some green slapped down on his palm.

Starsky stared at him, turning the look on Huggy before the jittery snitch could soil the old wooden bench seat. Huggy shrugged.

"Hey, man, I'm here 'cause I owe you and Hutch one, yeah, but I got debts, and nasty people dogging me who want their money."

Starsky held up a crisp fifty between two fingers. He tightened down on the bill when the guy reached for the other end. "I let up on my end when you hold up yours," he told the gambler. "One more time: what you got?"

"Huggy said you wanted a line on Robert Cicchino. Me, I know him as Bob. He plays the ponies too. We hang out and gab sometimes between races. Lately he was telling me about this major bad dude he does some work for when he has to come to town. A killer, sounds like. Pro mechanic. Bob calls him Steele. Bob does things for this Steele. Sets stuff up for him. This time he rented him a room out of the want ads and a locker at the airport for some shit the guy couldn't bring in the country with him."

Steele? Starsky knew that name… where… oh, one of the names on the airport locker rental sheet. Callendar! "You know what paper your track buddy found the room in?"

"No. Bob didn't talk that much. But he did say he was thinking about asking for a raise this time on account of this Steele had a real juicy target, and Bob felt he was sticking his neck out more than usual. Only fair he get compensated for it, right?" The snitch smiled, putting crooked yellow teeth on display. "Next time I see him at the track he'll have more bread to lay down."

"Don't bet on it. You won't be seeing your track buddy again."

The guy's smile fell. "Say what?"

"I can't tell you specifics, but you don't have a hole in your head. Figure it out. How long you think Cicchino would last after he went back on his word with some heavy dude like this Steele? Huh? Sorry. You know where your greedy pal crashed at night? Address we got on him hasn't been occupied in two years."

Stunned, the guy had let loose his end of the fifty dollar bill. He sat opening and closing his mouth, blinking at Starsky. Out of patience, Starsky slammed his other fist down on the table. He felt Huggy's hand come down on his shoulder, squeezing.

The guy jumped in his seat. "Okay. Bob spent nights at his woman's place. You know the Orange Springs Villas? Hers is on the third floor. Something like 324 or… yeah."

"Did she know what Cicchino was into?"

"Sure, man. That's how Bob made it with her. He kept her in new clothes and shoes."

"For that you get your fifty." Starsky dropped the bill on the table and slid out of the booth. "Come on, Huggy, I ain't got all day."

Out in the car, cranking up, Starsky felt Huggy's stare heavy on him. "What?"

"I know you up against the wall, my man, and I know when Hutch is up against it even harder, you get real blind to lines in the sand even if they spray-painted the same color as this car. I dig that, but you had to let that broken-down guy think his friend is dead?"

"Some friend. He finked on him for fifty bucks." Starsky pulled into the flow of traffic. "I wasn't playing a head game on him, Hug. Cicchino is dead. The radio call you came to tell me about was Dobey trying to get hold'a me. Guy matching Cicchino's description was found at a high-rise construction site. Workers found the body. Knifed. ID on him matches one of Cicchino's known aliases. Get this: he had an envelope fat with five thousand worth of hundred dollar bills on him."

"You mean this Callendar cat knifed him for the double cross then left the money?" Huggy whistled. "Holy shit. That puts a new spin on Judas's thirty pieces of silver."

"No fooling. Let's see if Cicchino's lady friend can tell us anything useful."

~*~

Quarantine was worse without Starsky. Hell, it was worse when he knew he had reason to be isolated from the rest of humanity, including his partner, his best friend… his….

Hutch walked the length of the hospital room for the hundredth time. If he thought about what might never be, he'd go bonkers. He had tried imagining Starsky's lips against his, how Starsky would taste, how it would feel giving Starsky tongue, and getting it in return. The fantasizing only brought home to him, hard, that his lifespan might not match up with the lifeline on his palm.

Planning for the future lost all of its fun when that future itself was in question.

He tried writing letters, several to Starsky that he crumpled into paper balls and tossed in the trash. None of the words sounded right or like him. They read stilted, too dark like Poe or too perky like Pollyanna, and besides, he could be spreading germs on the paper for all he knew. For that same reason he cut short an effort to write his parents.

He tried jotting down case details from the Callendar investigation on the off chance he could come up with some brilliant new suggestion for finding the assassin, but brilliant new suggestions were in shorter supply than diplomacy probably was for Starsky by that point. Maybe the damn virus gobbled brain cells before it brought on fever and chills.

Darkness had fallen, but he didn't want sleep.

The phone on the wall started a strange buzzing.

Well, well. Something new to think about.

Hutch went over to investigate the phone. He lifted the receiver. "Hello, Waldorf Astoria, Dignitary Suite, Ambassador Hutchinson speaking."

"Very funny, funny guy."

"Starsky?"

"You know, I don't like the question mark I heard at the end'a my name, Hutch."

"I just didn't… hell, I didn't even know this phone had an incoming or outside line."

"Well, I would've come up there in the flesh but the charge nurse on duty has this weird notion visiting hours end earlier on your unit than anywhere else in the hospital. I flashed my badge, tried to charm her, nothin' doing. Can't reach Judith or Meredith. Guess they're holed up in the lab trying to synthesize that serum. How you doing, huh?"

"Stir crazy, Starsky, that's all. Already fed up with being cooped up. How's it going?"

"Street's tightening down, Hutch. Word's out that Callendar's in town and looking to strike. I dropped Huggy off at his place for the night; I'm picking him up early in the morning and we'll make the rounds again, see if we can get anything to turn."

Hutch ran his fingers up and down the wall beside the phone. The breaking-point tension in Starsky's voice disturbed him. No good. No good. Wound tighter than dental floss, Starsky would implode before long if he didn't get some kind of release. "How'd it go with the cagey snitch?"

"He put us on to Cicchino's girlfriend. Cicchino's dead. Looks like he tried some last-minute haggling with Callendar and got knifed for it. Girlfriend tried to brick wall me."

"Yeah? How did you get past it?"

"I reminded her that sweetie pie was an accessory to more murders than she had pairs of shoes, and since those shoes came out of his mob paycheck, and she knew it, she really didn't wanna play Philadelphia lawyer with me. Search turned up nothing much. Cicchino's gambling buddy told me he rented a room for Callendar under the name Steele. Found the room in the want ads. Didn't know what paper. I've been gathering copies of every major newspaper from the whole week before Callendar landed. Real long shot, I know, but I thought I'd try to call the numbers for any rooms to rent, and—"

"Starsky, I can do that."

"What?"

"Sure I can. Now I know this phone has an outside line, I can do telephone canvassing. What else do I have to do in this glass cage?"

"You sure you feel up to it?"

"Starsky, I'm bored out of my skull. I don't want to think about… well, you know what I'm trying not to think about. The magazines they brought me might hold the attention of a fourteen-year old for a few minutes, the food is lousy, and there's nothing on TV. You'd be doing me a favor. Can you get the nurse to deliver the papers?"

"Oh, yeah. You bet. Ah, man, Hutch, it'd be great. It'd—" Starsky's voice tightened, cracked a little. "You'd be working the case with me."

"Damn right. Send them on up."

"I will. I figured I'd ask about Chino, Cicchino, Cicchi, Steele, Mullins, or Callendar, the names we know either that flunky or Callendar's been using. If they used another one for the rental, that's just our… uh… tough luck."

"Right." Now, what could he do to prevent Starsky from cracking more than just his voice? Hutch remembered his bittersweet imaginings earlier. If he made it about his need, not Starsky's, he had a shot. "Are you on police band patch-through?"

"No, I'm down in the hospital lobby. Payphone. Why, Hutch?"

Hutch scratched his cheek, flushing. "Maybe I'm crazy, but I've been trying to keep my mind off you-know-what, and something occurred to me. I know every sound you make except one. I need to hear that sound, Starsk." I need to hear it in case I never get another chance. "I want that sound stuck in my head instead of some song I heard on the radio."

"Oho. I follow." Starsky's chuckle had new life. "Can't help you with that here, buddy boy, but I got a lead near Venice I'm following up when I leave the hospital. I could stop by your place, call you from there. Take a quick peek at your leafies if you want."

"Why not your place, Starsky? If you haven't been home at all today, you need a change of clothes, a shower, something to eat."

"No, Hutch. Until you get to go home, I don't go home."

"Ah, Starsk."

"Tell you what: I'll call around nine sharp. If you're making those room rental calls, take a break then so I can get through."

"It's a… " Hutch swallowed hard. "It's a date."

"Sounds good. I'll send the papers up with one of the ladies in the smocks and masks."

"Talk to you later, Starsky." He hung up, his mood lighter, his heart beating fast.

He felt alive.

Ah, the power of anticipation.

Perhaps ten minutes later one of the masked nurses draped in yellow paper knocked on his interior window and gestured at the brown grocery bag she'd set on the anteroom's cart where meal trays were delivered. He nodded at her with a smile. With her safely out of the way, he opened the door and leaned into the anteroom to grab the bag.

He dumped the bag out on the room's other bed. Sifting through the newspapers, he saw that Starsky had only sent up the classified sections of each one. In the middle of the newspaper sections, he spotted a piece of scrap paper and very familiar handwriting.

Don't forget our date at nine. Love, Starsk

"Oh, man," he said out loud. "Starsky."

Yes, they were taking chances. The hospital phone likely had the security of a 1920s party line number, and certainly a nosy nurse could have rifled through the bag and found the note. What did any of that matter if he really did have less than a few days left on earth? He knew Starsky. If it came right down to the wire, no hope left, making sure Starsky had a police career intact would be the least of his worries.

He'd have to make sure Starsky still wanted a life.

To crowd that out of his brain, Hutch threw himself into the telephone work. First he marked off duplicates to make efficient use of his time. Once he learned how to dial for an outside line, the usual "eight" before the number, he was in business.

He knew part of the long shot involved the kind of man they were chasing. Callendar knew cops had a make on him. If the hired killer had risked returning to his rented digs, he could have the landlord hostage or in fear of his or her life. Keeping that in mind, Hutch asked each person who answered his call to respond with yes or no answers. He only needed confirmation that a room was rented under one of the names pertinent to the case. Then he could alert Starsky to close in, preferably with two no-sirens patrol units for backup, but he didn't think he'd get Starsky to go for that.

When 8:55 rolled around, Hutch took his break, his skin tingling with excitement. In a few minutes, Starsky would call, and….

The phone buzzed.

Early for their "date," Starsky was obviously excited too, hopefully in more ways than one. Hutch dashed for the phone, hospital gown flapping against his legs. "Hello?"

He heard short breaths, panting. "Hutch? You… ready?"

"Let me have it, Starsky."

He heard a muttered curse, a choked groan, rapid gasps for breath, and then Starsky's deep voice reached an octave Hutch had never heard from him, a sexual growl-shout that boned Hutch to full hardness under his thin paper dress.

"Ohoomigod, omigod, Hu-u-utchahAhahahHutch!"

Dizzy, Hutch closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to the wall. "Starsk." He listened to the change in breathing.

"Man, I needed that," Starsky said after a moment of not-quite silence. He chuckled. "Why do I get the feeling you thought I needed it?"

"I did. Yeah. I needed it too, Starsky. I'd love to know what you were thinking about."

"Well, it wasn't Eartha Kitt. You, dummy."

"I know that, considering the name you were shouting at the end. But—"

"Oh. I'll tell you when you're outta that place."

Hutch opened his eyes. "I'll look forward to it. Sorry I can't return the favor for you."

"That's okay. I'll see yours in person." Starsky laughed again. "That sounded lewd, huh?"

"Hell, yes. You and lewd go real good together. Where are you?"

"Where you think? Times Square? I'm at Venice Place."

"No, I mean—"

"Your bed."

No. Our bed. One day. Please.

"Hu-uh-tch?"

"I'm here. That had a yawn in it. Maybe you should sack out for a few hours."

"No way. Too much to do."

Hutch held in his frustration. He would give Starsky another common-sense nudge in a minute or two. "What was your lead in Venice?"

"Report of a counterfeit C-note. Based on the info I got from Cicchino's girl and the money found on Cicchino's body, Callendar does the occasional business with hundreds."

"Aha, and you're thinking some businesses that don't see many hundreds automatically think they've gotten funny money and call it in. Yeah, that's true."

"Uh-huh." Starsky yawned again. "I asked one of our contacts in Counterfeit to give me a call whenever they get a report on a hundred."

"Good thinking, Starsky, but it's still the longest shot yet. The odds that a counterfeit called in would actually be real aren't good, but beyond that, for the hundred to come from Callendar in a city this size? Nah, nah. I doubt that'll turn much."

"I know, but it's a no stone left unturned thing. The one long shot I don't take a chance on might be the one that'd break this thing wide open."

"Can't argue with that. I guess the report in Venice really was a counterfeit?"

"Yeah. Damn it. You get anywhere with those room-for-rent calls?"

"Not yet, but I should get a few more calls in before the nurses hound me about sleep."

"Don't… " Another yawn. "Don't wear yourself out."

"Starsky, you're one to talk. You sound whipped. You won't do me any good if you wrap your car around a telephone pole. Get a few hours of shut-eye, grab a shower, and raid my fridge. Should be something clean there you could change into."

"No. All right, I'll do some'a what you said, but I can't go around wearing your clothes."

"Why not, for God's sake?"

"I'm human, Hutch. It'll distract the hell outta me, way things are for us right now, and me all keyed up. I can't afford the distraction. You think I was just pulling your leg earlier today when I said I'm hot for you? When I got here tonight I didn't know if I'd even get it up, I was so tense, crazy to be out there running down every hint of a lead, but man, one look around your place, seeing you everywhere, and soon as I hit your bed, I was hard."

"Starsk. It's mutual. I have to stand behind the wall right now or part of me would be poking at the glass, and I don't mean my finger."

"Man. You and lewd do all right together too."

Hutch knew his smile had its fair share of smugness. He was entitled, making Starsky sound that breathless. "You're not in this alone. You're not really out there alone."

"I know that. Only reason I'm not talking in backward sentences already. And you keep in mind I'm there every way I can be, okay?"

"Yes." Before he said the next thing on his mind, Hutch had to find confidence within so Starsky would hear it in his voice. "We'll get through this. Get some rest. Thanks for—"

"Hey, that was nothing, babe. I get you alone somewhere with no glass walls and I'll show you what you been missing all your life. Get some sleep, Hutch."

At the dial tone, Hutch held the receiver for a minute before he could bear hanging up.

~*~

"Nothing! A big, fat nothing!" Starsky had struck every piece of furniture in Dobey's office on his angry circuit. "Huggy says he can't even call in for a favor. All day on the street, we turned nothing but bogus addresses. One for retired nuns. I didn't know nuns retired!" He hit the water cooler. "I'm offering everything from my car to one'a my kidneys, and getting no where. Creeps who'd roll over on their mothers for one thin dime won't talk to me for fifty bucks." He slapped the back of the chair facing Dobey's desk.

"Sit down, Starsky. I'm tired of watching you abuse my furniture."

Starsky shot the captain a vile look but slumped down in the chair he'd just assaulted.

Dobey put down his pen and closed the file folder in front of him. "You shouldn't even be out there without a partner."

"I got a partner," Starsky snarled. "I don't need another one."

Dobey frowned. "Where's Huggy?"

"I took him home on the way here. He's making some calls. I had to cut him loose. I got a little rough with him out there today. He took it like the stand-up guy he is, and he wanted to keep on sticking like glue, but…."

"He knows you didn't mean anything by it. Those calls Hutch made didn't turn anything?"

"Not one damn thing. He called every number in the papers I gave him, called some of them two or three times until he got someone to the phone. Nothing. Either Callendar's there and he's got the landlord too scared to spit yes or no, or the landlord's lying for other reasons, or Callendar really never was at any'a the places. Who knows? Maybe Cicchino booked the room two weeks in advance, and the ad wasn't in the papers I got. Maybe he used a name we don't know. Maybe he used the want ads in some small circulation paper I didn't get copies of. Maybe, maybe, maybe!"

"Okay, we didn't expect this to be easy. Callendar's the kind of pro who can blend into the pavement if he has to. Man like him doesn't get where he is if he's easy to run down."

"Tell me something I don't know." Man, Hutch would be proud of that sarcasm!

Dobey's scowl threatened deeper cuts into Starsky's vacation time, but the phone rang, holding off any verbal retaliation. Dobey grabbed the receiver. "Dobey here. Oh. Allan. Good to hear from you. It's been a long time. What? Yes, he's here." Dobey thrust the receiver across the desk, then lifted the whole phone and shoved it closer to Starsky's side. "It's Allan Kelsey." He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "You and Hutch were right. Man sounds like some TV beatnik."

"What's he want?" Starsky took the phone. Might as well talk to the man. He had a gut instinct before all this was said and done, he'd make Allan Kelsey look sane. "Allan?"

"Starsky. Cop grapevine's burning up, daddy-o. Jamison called from the OCU and told me there's a plague in our fair city, and Callendar's mixed up in it somehow. You and Hutch were holding out on me the other day. That's the squarest of the square, man, holding out on an ex-brother-cop."

"Not on purpose, Allan. We were under tough orders what we could say, what we couldn't. Should've known it'd get to the LAPD by now."

"You know how it is. Cops talk, man. You get close to Callendar yet? I'm not feeling the vibes, so I'm guessing you're still light years away."

Starsky regretted his decision to take the call. He might snap if Allan suggested they all get together around some campfire one night and spark up. Or wait, beatniks got together in coffee bars. Hippies dug campfires. Man, he needed sleep.

"Allan, you helped, pointing us to Callendar's flunky, but the man's a stiff in the County Morgue. We know he rented a room for Callendar, but if it's in the city, we can't find it."

"That's 'cause it's not in the city, man. Callendar prefers the boonies."

"What?!"

"Yeah, man. When it comes to piling up the Zs, he likes his flunky to find him some nice little isolated pad out in the ranch lands or the agricultural belt, with some unsuspecting family that has, like, those framed velvet pictures of Jesus or something hanging on pine panel walls, and pretend he's something real mundane. A writer or salesman, something like that. I think he's a frustrated middle class family man in hitman's clothing."

The agricultural belt! That was why Callendar had headed out in that direction. He wasn't running from the city, he was running to somewhere. Christ, if he'd known—!

Starsky would've cursed the skin off a sane cop's ear through the phone line, but with Kelsey he kept his voice low, controlled, "Allan, you could've mentioned this when Hutch and I came to see you."

"You didn't ask."

"We asked you for any ideas how to find— ah, damn. Forget it."

"Say, Starsky?"

Starsky had to work for a few seconds to un-grit his teeth. "Yeah?"

"I heard from Jamison that Hutch maybe has this plague thing. That so?"

"Sergeant Jamison needs to fill that big mouth with more donuts."

"I hoped he was wrong. Is Hutch real sick?"

"Not yet. Right now it's a waiting thing… " Starsky felt something inside, fragile as glass already, suddenly shatter. Waiting. All that complaining he'd done about waiting.

He dropped the phone receiver.

From a distance he heard Dobey's voice. "Starsky?!"

He couldn't answer. He was in the ER waiting room on the night of Jake Donner's death, listening to Virginia Donner complain about waiting. He remembered nearly every word.

"You know what the worst thing about being a cop's wife is? It's waiting… it's waiting until the doctor comes and tells me my husband's going to be all right."

Starsky pushed out of the chair and stood in a daze. He'd complained about waiting, wanting action, wanting time to pass quickly, wanting something to happen. He hadn't understood yet what another kind of waiting would do to him. Now, he knew what Virgie Donner meant. He knew his heart was no longer single.

He'd known several nights ago in that alley; he just hadn't let it sink in, so busy defending his territory, trying to make Hutch see the difference between what they could have and what Hutch could have with some visiting lady doctor, here one week, gone the next.

Hutch got to him all three places where it counted. Knowing it while Hutch walked around healthy and full of life was one thing, but feeling it while Hutch was dying….

This was it. This was really it. No vows spoken, no consummation yet, but his heart was locked to Hutch's in solidarity years in the making.

"And so help me God, nothing's gonna unlock us!"

Something dark entered his field of vision. He blinked. Dobey's hand. A little cup of water. Starsky swatted it. His shoulders were grabbed. He got a good shaking.

"Starsky, snap out of it!"

Starsky blinked again. Dobey had the starkly frightened expression of a man who'd seen the devil spring out of his water cooler. His eye-popping shirt and bad tie were both wet.

"I do that?"

Dobey looked down at his shirt. "You damn sure did."

"Sorry."

"I'll take it out of your next paycheck." Dobey sounded shook up, not himself. "Starsky, you're running on adrenaline. How much sleep have you had in the last few days?"

"Does it matter?"

"I asked you a question, Detective!"

"Maybe six, seven good hours in the last four days."

"I thought so. Chasing Thomas Callendar already drove one veteran cop out of his mind. I won't watch the same thing happen to you. Hutch wouldn't want that. Go home. Change clothes. Frankly, you smell."

"I had a shower last night."

"Did you shower your clothes?"

"I can't go home. I can't. Not while—"

"Okay. Don't go home. Just get the hell out of here, get something to eat, and don't come back in this office until tomorrow morning at the earliest!"

~*~

And on the second day, God created regret.

Hutch had done anything he could think of to avoid thinking.

In the morning he'd had telephone work left to do, and an update phone call with Starsky lifted his spirits even with nothing to report and no good news from Starsky. After that he'd flipped cards into a bedpan, reread the mind-numbing movie magazines, and stopped Dr. Meredith for a chat over the dedicated phone. To avoid thinking he'd asked for a look at the magnified picture of the damn thing responsible for him not wanting to think. Hell of a lot of sense that made.

He could feel the ugly little sucker inside him. He was weaker, and he couldn't blame it all on being stuck inside a hospital room with nothing to do but pace and not think.

Meanwhile, his traitor for a brain wanted to think about what he'd left undone, what he might never do, what he wished he'd done. He thought about Starsky, his parents, Venice Place, his greenhouse, his plants, and the morbid possibility that whatever state the place was in now might be the way it remained until after his fune—

No. He wouldn't even think that word.

Instead he thought about the ramshackle house in old Mr. Eldarov's neighborhood. He hoped this ugly little killer hadn't struck in Mr. Eldarov's backyard. Forever ago they'd talked about Azerbaijan and a community on the move. Hutch regretted missing out on his chance to be part of that community as a property owner with a vested interest in seeing the neighborhood reach its full potential. He regretted he hadn't seen that potential the day Starsky took him to the see the place.

He regretted he hadn't seen the potential of what he had with Starsky the day he met him.

No, that was unrealistic.

Enough regret. He had to think positively, believe in the power of his partner.

He switched from regret to resolution, bargaining with himself.

If I make it out of this alive, I'll do the things I've always wanted to, not think about them.

If I make it out of this alive, I'll find more time in my life for more than police work.

If I make it out of this alive, I'll fight for whatever Starsky and I can have together.

He was too tired to make any more resolutions.

He didn't want to think about the day to come, when Judith said he would get too weak to leave bed, when he would need that bedpan for more than a card game, when he would have to face more needles… and eventually that oxygen tank in the corner.

Yawning, shivering a little, he got in bed and pulled the covers close around him, letting himself escape in the memory of that heated phone call with Starsky, their nine o'clock date. He tried to imagine Starsky's sensual face at that special moment.

"Ohoomigod, omigod, Hu-u-utchahAhahahHutch!"

~*~

Judith sat back from the microscope and rubbed her eyes. "No, Fitz." Her voice sounded loud in the quiet of the after-hours lab. They had sent several of the technicians home for a few crucial hours of sleep. "We're missing something. This sample is still leukopenic."

"Well, we've eliminated one more possibility."

"Unfortunately, we're running out of possibilities and time." She rolled her shoulders. "I need a break. I think I'll check on Hutch."

Fitz looked up from his notes. "Judith."

She paused at the door. "What?"

He had that worried furrow in his forehead. "We've seen how quickly this virus progresses once symptoms appear. I very much doubt he'll be with us thirty-six hours from now. Even if Officer Starsky does locate this man Callendar, and we can synthesize a serum based on the antibodies in his system, we're still running out of time to spare Officer Hutchinson vital organ damage. In the deceased, autopsy showed massive damage to the kidneys, liver, lungs. If we save him at all, he won't be the man he was."

"I realize that. I am studying the same virus you are, Fitz."

"That's my point. We're epidemiologists. By definition, we focus on the epidemic. We can't become emotionally attached to each individual outcome."

She tightened the barrette slipping in her hair. "I'm not the only one in danger of that. I saw how upset you were after you'd rechecked Hutch's blood sample and found evidence of the virus. You could hardly break the news to me."

He glanced down at the magnified slide captures of the virus. "Officer Hutchinson compels an emotional response."

A little woozy, she shoved her hands down in her lab coat pockets in search of her zippered baggy of graham crackers. "Is that what you're really concerned about? My objectivity? Or stress, grief, and blood glucose in combination?" She hurriedly dug out a cracker and broke it in half, nibbling on it.

He leaned his elbow on the lab table, cradled his brow in his hand. "I think we both need a break. You check on Officer Hutchinson. I'll get a cup of coffee and call Cassie."

"Give her my love." Judith finished her cracker, tucking the baggy down in her pocket with her lipstick and glucose tablets.

~*~

Starsky officially hated this Lincoln Hospital elevator. It creaked and groaned like some zombie fresh out of the dirt, and oozed from one floor to another like one too. He braced his hand above the floor number panel, resting his weight, lowering his head.

Voices tuned out the zombie noises.

"Wait, wait, wait. Thought I finished that routine in the army."

"You see there, that's what I mean."

"What?"

"Well, if you knew you were gonna live for a hundred years, you'd probably develop some patience."

"That's the dumbest thing I ever heard."

"Oh, come on."

"Well, who wants to have one hundred years to wait?"

"You don't just wait, clown! You've got time to think, to meditate, to explore other areas of your mind. You know?"

Starsky clutched his forehead, hoping he could squeeze the throbbing headache out his ears. A glance up at the panel to his right and he almost laughed at the sign on the wall.

Maximum Load 2500 pounds.

Yeah, right, and he had about twice that weighing him down from shoulders to ankles.

I'll get you through this, Hutch. Then if you wanna go to Azerbaijan and sit around eating yogurt and meditating for a hundred years, hell, I'll go with you. We'll raise llamas. Or, wait, llamas are Peru. What they got in Azerbaijan? Camels? Yaks? Mountain goats?

Finally, the zombie elevator shuddered in place and stopped, the door squeaking open. Starsky wanted to run, burn off energy, and get to Hutch's room quicker with every second ticking away a little of his life, but he didn't need to borrow trouble with the charge nurse. Judith had promised to leave word that he was "authorized" personnel, but who knew if she remembered, working in that lab day and night, going cross-eyed from staring through a microscope. Now, Meredith, he'd probably come out of the womb with a microscope and Petrie dishes.

Starsky got lucky. A different nurse waved him through with a smile and barely a glance at his badge. He pushed through the double doors into the silence of the isolation ward, but no Hutch waited at the window ready to flirt through the glass.

Hutch was asleep.

Starsky stood staring through the glass, staring so hard he noticed tiny details: Hutch's bed hair, the curl of his lip, his fidgeting in sleep, the hospital bracelet around the wrist he'd shoved back up under his pillow. Hutch couldn't rest. Something had followed him into sleep, tormenting him.

No fair.

It wasn't fair that Hutch couldn't find peace in sleep. It wasn't fair that this fucking virus kept Starsky from going in there, getting in that bed, and pulling Hutch into his arms to hold him, touch him, and breathe with him, until Hutch found the peace he needed.

God, Hutch, you're it. You're the jackpot. You're the big leagues. Never felt like this before. I don't know what to do, damn it.

"He looks like a little boy."

Oh, shit. Judith. He didn't look at her. He didn't know how long she'd been standing there, or if she'd seen anything on his face. He didn't care. "How's he doing?"

"By tomorrow the symptoms should appear."

"How you doing?"

"I'm exhausted." She'd had to catch her breath halfway through her answer.

He couldn't worry about her. He couldn't add one more ounce of weight to what he already carried. "You find anything?" He did look at her then.

She tossed her hair in a vigorous headshake. "No."

Damn. He couldn't stay then. He couldn't spend time watching Hutch sleep. He had to get back on the streets, hit some of the late-night hot spots, throw his weight around, and find some lead to Callendar. If he didn't, Hutch might be looking at a much longer sleep, one Starsky couldn't wake him from with a kiss.

He needed something to leave with Hutch to show he was here. Hutch moved in the bed again. Starsky watched the slight movement of Hutch's lips… and felt his own move in response. Lips! He heard the rustle of lab coat as Judith started to walk past him. "Hey. Do me a favor and don't ask any questions."

"Sure."

"Got a lipstick?"

"Yeah."

He didn't look at her. What he felt, if it was on his face, was between him and Hutch. He took the lipstick tube from her with the smallest nod of thanks and waited until she walked on by before he drew the first letter of his name on the glass. He wouldn't write what he wanted most to. He'd save those words for when Hutch could hear them.

~*~

Hutch woke again, and knew in seconds that this time had the last time beat for torture. He shook so hard with chills he expected seasickness. His body couldn't decide if it was roasting on a spit over an open flame or sprawled out on an inner tube in the wintry North Atlantic. He tried a deep breath and felt burning breathlessness he'd only experienced after endurance running in wintertime Duluth.

STARSK.

Those blurry red letters calmed him again as they had when he woke for the first time that morning, and turned this day of misery into a red-letter day.

Hutch made his trembling lips form a smile.

He heard a noise and rolled his head on the pillow, trying to lift up for a look at the door. No use. Shaking, sweating, hating the memories that brought back, he psyched himself up to face another needle.

"How are you feeling?"

Staid, deep voice. Hutch rolled his head and blinked up at the tall masked man in lab coat and shirt and tie. "W-Well, well, D-Dr. Meredith. You're p-playing nurse th-this time?"

"I needed a break from the lab." Meredith tightened the tourniquet.

"Any word f-from S-Starsky?"

"No."

"H-He was here last night. Did you see him?"

"Dr. Kaufman did."

"How did h-he look?"

"She said he looked and sounded very tired."

"H-Have you rechecked his blood sample f-from the other day?"

"Yes. There's no sign of infection."

"B-Best news I've heard in d-days." Hutch turned his face to stare at the blurry red letters on the glass and winced at the pinch-burn of the needle. "Where's J-Judith?"

"She's resting."

"How's she h-hanging in there?"

"Why do you ask?"

Hutch turned his head again and saw surprise in those cool gray-blue eyes. "I'm n-not supposed to be concerned about one of the people trying to beat this thing before it beats me? In case you're interested, I was about to ask h-how you're hanging in there n-next."

The mask concealed any smile or frown on Meredith's lips, but his gaze lost its cool remoteness for a moment. "I need to get back to the lab. Dr. Kaufman will be by to check on you later, most likely at your next blood draw."

"Doc?" Hutch called when he'd heard enough footsteps to carry Meredith to the door.

"Yes?"

"It's o-okay to s-see this situation for what it is. It's lousy, it s-stinks. Sometimes y-you have to call a spade a sp-spade… and th-then dig deeper with it."

Meredith said nothing. Hutch heard the door open and close. He turned his head again on the pillow. He didn't watch Meredith's stride down the hall; he stared at those red letters.

STARSK.

And he took the spade and started digging deeper… until he hit a new well of strength.

~*~

Starsky waited five beats, no more, and ducked his head into Richie's bedroom again. "Mrs. Yeager? I need to ask you some questions before the ambulance gets here."

She turned a savage, wet-eyed glare on him and wouldn't budge from her place on the edge of Richie's bed. "Your questions can wait."

"No, they can't."

"Can't you see I have a sick child here?"

"Mrs. Yeager, if you don't answer my questions, you might have a—" Starsky dropped his voice down from a yell and didn't voice at all the words running through his mind: dead child. "Look, the man you knew as Steele, he's the key to a cure for this thing. If I don't find him, your son won't…. He'll get worse, hear me? Much worse."

"Oh, my God."

"So, please? Come out here in the hall and answer a few questions?"

"All right. Let me get some more cold water and fresh cloths—"

"Mrs. Yeager, the cold water can wait! Don't you understand? You won't bring down a fever like this kind with cold water and cloths."

"You're mistaken. Richie and I did just that for Mr. Steele—" She flinched. "What?"

"When I told you this thing's a killer, I didn't exaggerate. So far, except for Steele, everyone with the virus who got the best care available at hospitals still didn't make it." Starsky swallowed hard and clutched at the doorframe. "My partner's down with it now."

She brushed her hand across her boy's forehead, smoothed his hair and tucked the blankets around him for the third time, then joined Starsky in the hall. "Are you—?"

"What?"

She did that nonchalant half-shrug he'd seen too much of already. "Your eyes are red, bloodshot. You look like you haven't slept in days."

"I'm fine." Starsky had to swallow four times before he could get another word out. Fine? When his reason for living had less than a day or so to live? "I got no time not to be."

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything you can tell me about Callen— Steele. How'd he leave this morning? Hitch a ride at the main road, cab, what?"

"I called a taxi for him."

"What company?"

"County Yellow."

"Okay, now tell me everything you can about him. What he wore, what he ate, what he talked about. Nothing's trivial, got it? I need all the info I can get to help me find him."

~*~

"D-Don't tell me you need m-more blood?! I o-only have a few ounces left."

Judith came over to sponge-dab the sweat off his forehead. "No. I wanted to tell you we heard from Starsky. He located the address where Callendar was renting a room."

"Y-yeah? Wh-where?"

"Well outside of the city, he said. A Mrs. Yeager and her son live there, and they're on their way in by ambulance. The young boy has definite symptoms."

"D-Damn. Poor k-kid. N-No sign of Callendar?"

"No. He'd left before Starsky got there."

"Still a solid lead. Did he s-say how he f-found them?"

"Mrs. Yeager used a hundred dollar bill for groceries. He said to tell you that. I don't know what connection it has, and he didn't have time to explain."

He was shivering, scorched on the surface, icy underneath, but he smiled up at her. "Th-that's my Starsky. No s-stone unturned."

He didn't realize what he'd said, or how it might be taken, until Judith had left after showing him something damn near a twinkle in those serious dark eyes.

~*~

Starsky burst into the County Yellow cab company's dispatch office. He heard the cheap wooden door slam against the wall with a rifle-sharp crack and didn't care if the thing splintered in half. If the hick asshole behind the desk had bothered answering his goddamned phone, Starsky wouldn't be wasting valuable time on a face-to-face visit.

He was already fed up to the base of his throat. With everybody! Fucking ambulance attendants had balked at letting Mrs. Yeager in the ambulance with her son, whining about isolation protocol, and procedure, and their precious jobs. The whining stopped when Starsky got in their faces with his badge, his jacket conveniently shrugged to the side, baring his holstered gun. Mrs. Yeager got a mask and gloves and a ride to Lincoln with her sick boy, and Starsky got to leave and run down the cab company lead, promising Mrs. Yeager he'd see her later at Lincoln.

Behind the dispatch desk, the stringy-haired guy tried to puff out his chest in a shirt that looked sewn together out of every moccasin he could scrounge. He couldn't intimidate a Chihuahua. "Who the hell you think you—"

"I'm Detective Sergeant Starsky, Metro Police, that's who the hell I am!" Starsky already had his badge out, high in the air, reaching at the same time for his Manila envelope with Allan Kelsey's black and white glossy of Callendar. "You never heard of the telephone, that thing right there on your desk that makes a ringing noise every now and then?"

The guy flipped his toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other. "I was busy."

"Sure you were. If you're done pickin' your teeth, I need to see the driver who picked up a fare at 165 Whitmore this morning."

"How'd you get our call? We called the sheriff's."

"About what?"

"The stolen cab, man."

"Where's the driver?"

"In the showers—"

"Get him out here now."

"I told you, he's in the shower! He just got in from hoofing it all the way—"

Starsky leaned over the counter and grabbed the guy by a fistful of suede. "I don't give a flying fuck if he hoofed it all the way from Tijuana! Get him out here now, naked, dripping wet, I don't care! I gotta talk to him, and I don't have time to dick around."

Wide eyed, pale faced, the guy nodded, trying to pull his shirt free. "Okay, okay. Jesus."

A few minutes later, the dispatcher returned with a tall, flabby man wearing nothing but a towel under his pot belly. His round red face darkened on sight of Starsky. "I talked to the sheriff's deputy. I don't know what's so all-fired important I can't finish cleaning up—"

"You can clean up later." Fresh out of patience, Starsky grabbed a metal folding chair from its place under a nearby card table and yanked it out into the center of the small office. He pointed at it. "Sit down, I need to show you a picture and ask some questions."

"That's all?! A damn picture? Well, officer, you can wait until I—"

"It's Detective Sergeant!" Starsky seized the guy's arm and pulled him over to the chair and slammed him down in it by the shoulder. While the man blinked up at him, rubbing his arm and shoulder, Starsky flashed the photo of Callendar. "You recognize this guy?"

"He's the fare I picked up this morning at Whitmore, the sumbitch who pulled a gun on me and hijacked my hack, left me stranded out in the middle of no where. Man, I been driving a hack out here for ten years, and this is the first time anything like that shit ever happened to me! My wife's all the time complaining about the violence on TV, rotting people's morals, messing up our civilization, and I think maybe she's got something—"

"Did I ask you for commentary on our civilization? No. You're real lucky you don't have a bloody third eye in your forehead right now. The man you picked up, he's a killer, and what's more, he's carrying a plague, and that's a killer. You tell me everything about him from the time you picked him up to the time he left you on the side of the road. After that, I'm sending you in to the city, to Lincoln Hospital, so the docs can look you over."

~*~

Halfway down the hall to the doctor's office she and Fitz had made their own, Judith stopped, swaying on her feet. Pain throbbed over her eyes, sweat beading on her forehead. She flicked at the sweat with her fingers. Had she eaten lunch? She couldn't remember. The hours all blurred together, one false step in the lab after another, no progress with synthesis, no hope for Hutch or any of the other patients, including that sweet-faced little boy.

She couldn't keep an image of that innocent, suffering face in her mind. She couldn't. She'd seen other innocent young faces twisted with suffering; she'd seen other innocent children die. Fitz was right: she had to focus on the epidemic. Study the killer, know the killer, kill the killer.

In the meantime, she had to face Mrs. Yeager, and she had to stay calm. Whatever state Mrs. Yeager was in, however she reacted, Judith had to take it in stride, talk herself through the exhaustion and stress. Last thing in the world she wanted was a hypoglycemic reaction in front of a panic-stricken mother whose son was dying.

Calm, Judith. Calm. Level and calm. Don't raise your voice. Don't get excited.

Sometime she'd find a few spare minutes to check her blood sugar.

~*~

Starsky stared through the window blinds that divided the city into strips of asphalt, skyscrapers, and sunlight. Why the sun hadn't crashed down out of the sky, he didn't understand. The APB on the missing County Yellow cab had turned up the abandoned taxi on a side street in the city's garment district. No sign of Callendar. The man was in the city now, a thousand places to hide, a thousand personas he could assume, and who knew if Hutch even had a thousand minutes left to wait for Starsky to find the bastard?

He heard the office door close and sensed Judith still in the room.

"How's Hutch?"

"His temperature's up, and his white count is dropping."

Damn her calm, quiet voice. Didn't the woman ever get stirred up about anything? He'd listened to her talk to Mrs. Yeager about that dying boy like it was all in a day's work; no hint of understanding for the mother wanting to be near her son. And Hutch! Fever worse, and that white count meant something bad.

He had to hear the truth again, take it on the chin; he needed the pain to wake him up, shake him up, and ready him to go back into battle. "In other words, he's dying."

"Yes."

He started for the door with hardly a side glance at her. "Can I see him?"

"You can look in through the window but he's too weak to get out of bed."

He wanted to shake her. Didn't she get it? "I wanna talk to him."

She showed a flash of spirit, a snap in her voice. "I said he's too weak to get out of bed."

"You can put me in a mask. It's what you do with the nurses who take blood. Come on."

He watched her rise from the chair, and held the door open for her. On the way down the hall to the elevators, they met Meredith, and Starsky wanted to pull his gun or something else insane when the older doctor stopped Judith with a hand on her shoulder.

"Where—?"

"I'm taking Starsky up to the isolation ward."

Meredith gave him a quick, stern look. "If he has to go right this second—"

"Look, Doc, with all due respect, I don't know how many seconds I got left."

Meredith tightened his mouth, nodded. "I can take you."

"No! No." Judith shrugged her shoulder away from Meredith's light clasp. "I'll go. I'll meet you in the lab afterward. The nurses are settling Mrs. Yeager in Observation."

~*~

Hutch thought at first he was hallucinating. Judith he could believe, but the masked miracle walking behind her seemed too beautiful for reality. Clutching his bedcovers, something to cling to in the middle of the pain cyclone, he lay still and didn't let himself believe his dreams had come true until Starsky stopped at the bedside.

"Hey."

That voice! So real. Judith began dabbing sweat from his forehead with that cool cloth, but nothing could compare with the relief he got from one word in Starsky's voice.

"Hey yourself."

"We're getting closer."

"Yeah?"

"We're gonna nail Callendar any hour now."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Starsky reached out and clasped Judith's wrist, and Hutch felt the cool cloth leave his forehead. "You mind?" Starsky asked her. "A few minutes? Just him and me."

Quiet as ever, Judith slipped around the bed. Hutch heard a whoosh sound and saw that she was pulling the privacy curtain between his bed and the empty one that waited for another casualty of this little sucker corkscrewing his chest. "I'll be outside in the hall."

Starsky nodded at her. "Thanks." With the click of the door closing, Starsky sat down on the edge of the bed, so close Hutch could smell him over his own fever-sweat stench. Starsky smelled gamy, unwashed, sweat-stained… he smelled alive, wonderful. "We're gonna nail Callendar, Hutch. Judith will tap his veins, find a serum in his blood, give you a shot, and alakazam, Captain Marvel, you'll be up and around—"

"That stinks."

Starsky's eyes gleamed. "Okay," he whispered. "You don't wanna be Captain Marvel? Would you believe—"

"Oh, no. It's no good, Starsk." His breathing got more painful with each word. Half of him wished his lungs would go ahead and explode like they wanted to, get it over with. "N-Never were a very good liar. Except when you're undercover."

The pain twisted him from windpipe to stomach. He gasped for air, looking away, unable to stand seeing the agony of shared pain bloom in Starsky's eyes above that mask.

"What can I do for ya?"

"Just take c-care of the little sucker that's twisting my chest into a knot."

Starsky took his hands, gripped them, squeezed them. Amazingly, that tight hold on his hands eased the pain, lifted the invisible boulder sitting on his chest, crushing, smothering him, and he got a halfway decent breath.

"You… you did it." Hutch managed a slight nod as proof. Much as he needed the comfort of Starsky so close, he had a greater need for Starsky to be safe. Safe, alive, well, out there fighting for both of them. "Now… get outta here, will you?"

"What's the rush? Tired of looking at my pretty face?"

"Hey, no more fun and games, huh?" He winced at another stab of pain right through his chest under their clasped hands. "This ain't no fun, and the game is… Hutch is dying. So you get out there on the streets… check the s-sewers, hop in the holes." He saw the bright sheen of wetness in Starsky's eyes and wanted to scream. "God. That hurts. It hurts."

"Okay, no more games." Starsky's voice hardened. "You, me, we got everything." He rested their clasped hands against his chest. "I'm yours. Understand. You're mine. Hear me? I. Will. Not. Let. You. Die."

Even as he felt the fever cooking him inside, Hutch believed.

What fever could hold out against that force of will?

"You do not give up. We don't give up. We don't give in. Your life's in my hands. My life's in yours. I find Callendar, you keep breathing. I save you, you save me. That's the deal. You up for it?"

"You… know… I'm… up for it… Starsky."

Starsky leaned over, his masked mouth descending. Hutch wanted more than he'd wanted anything in his life to feel the touch of those masked lips to his, but he used every ounce of strength left to pull his right hand free and stop Starsky's downward momentum with his fingers against the mask.

"No… I want… need you alive. Alive and strong and well."

"That's twice you've stopped me kissing you. Third time I try you won't stop me." Starsky moved his face from Hutch's fingers and bent to touch his masked lips to Hutch's cheek, his forehead, the sweaty hair over his ear. Hutch got pole-axed by the pain in his chest, and then some unseen sadist filled the resulting cavity with acid. He opened his mouth in a silent scream. Starsky leaned back, pulling him with that firm, strong body.

"Starsky… no… c-contagious."

"I don't give a shit."

Hutch let himself be pulled, rested his chin over Starsky's shoulder, and couldn't lift his arms hanging limply at his sides. Propped in Starsky's arms, leaning against warm solidity, he sighed as air rushed freer through his chest. Starsky turned his face, brushing that mask against Hutch's ear. He barely heard Starsky's whisper through the cloth of the mask, but to his heart, it was a shout.

"Love you, Hutch. Fight for me. Fight."

And then Starsky was lying him back down, pushing off from the bed, storming over to the door, already stripping off his smock and mask on his way out of the room.

~*~

"I'm circulating copies of the composite sketch that cab driver gave us and the most current description of what Callendar was wearing when he hijacked the taxi."

Head down, Starsky sat bent over in the chair. "We won't find him that way. You can bet soon as he hit the city, he turned into a different person."

"Well, what else do you have?"

"What we know about Callendar? One thing we keep running up against is he's a pro. He doesn't miss. Right now he's a pro who missed. If we assume he hasn't tried again, and Roper's still around, then long as Callendar is out there walking around he'll be on the lookout for a chance to complete his contract."

"I'll agree with that. Where's that leave us?"

Starsky sat up straight, slapping his knees. "I'm going back to Roper."

"Starsky, you can't keep staking out the man's estate, and if he does leave the grounds, then what? Last time you and Hutch were looking for Callendar and didn't see him until it was too late. Like you said, he's a pro; he knows his way around disguises."

"No, I mean I'll put it right to Roper where things stand, give him a chance to throw in with us, help us find Callendar before Callendar has a chance to get to him."

"How?!" Dobey yelled. "You think you can go up to a syndicate boss like Roper and ask him to play pigeon? Have you lost your mind? If you're lucky he'll laugh in your face. If he decides to take real exception to it, you might get a gangland contract on your head!"

"Roper's not putting a hit on a cop just 'cause he gets his sensibilities in a knot."

"Are you forgetting why we're in this mess, Starsky? Callendar's over here in the first place because Roper's got more ego than brains. You and Hutch sat in this office days ago and told me Roper's the target because he was fool enough to take a bite out of Stern's territory. You think he won't let his hired muscle take a shot at you?"

"Roper's a nothing. His own syndicate doesn't want him. You let him come after me. He tries to hit me while I'm going after Callendar, it'll be the last mistake he makes."

Dobey took the pencil out from over his ear and stabbed the air with it. "Damn it, do you hear yourself, Starsky? With you talking like that, I should pull you off the street right now before you do something you can't undo, or get yourself killed!"

Starsky gave him a darkly intense stare. "You been to see Hutch?"

"No, I got tied up with…" With a grimace, Dobey looked down at his desk and flung his pencil down on the blotter. "I have a department to run. You think this precinct trucks along by itself?"

"Hey. We're talking about Hutch here. Strongest man I ever known. Kicked what he did couple years ago. Last year when he nearly got his hand blown off, he went around with it wrapped in bandages, working the case with me until we pulled Solkin off the street for good. Lasted in that canyon, hurt that bad. Man like that, and this bug's got him so weak he can hardly take a breath or lift his arms. So, yeah, I'm desperate. Desperate enough to walk into Roper's house and give him a shot at joining the human race."

Dobey scratched his sideburn; then wagged his fist at Starsky. "Go on then. Go talk to the man. It won't do you any good, but I know better than to order you not to try it."

Starsky pushed himself out of the chair. "Go see Hutch. I know you don't wanna see him like that. It'd gut anybody, seeing him like that. Go see him. Then you'll know we can't play this the easy way."

~*~

Hutch wanted to know when someone had installed a concrete block in his chest somewhere between his lungs and his throat. Every breath he tried to take in slammed against the concrete, going no where, every breath he tried to exhale jammed up against the other side of that block, pushing his chest out, pain ripping through him.

He didn't know how to fight this. He'd always had two robust lungs able to do anything with ease. Now those lungs had shrunk in half, or half of them had gone on some kind of labor strike. And for the love of God would someone come in and stop the invisible murderer from smothering him with an invisible pillow?

He turned his head, arching his neck, but all he saw around him was the oxygen tent.

He heard a z-z-z-zip, and turned his head again. Tall masked woman. Thin. White top under yellow paper. Pale blonde hair. When she stuck a syringe through the unzipped opening in the tent, Hutch tried to thrash away.

"No… " He gasped. "No." He wanted no needles from a tall, thin blonde woman. That was very important though he couldn't remember why. He tried to roll his body away from her, wracked with shudders and pain. "No."

He felt no pinch of needle. The woman in white and yellow zipped the tent and left.

Time had turned to liquid, thick liquid, oozing slower and slower.

Hutch's vision blurred. The oxygen tent looked foggy, then clear, then foggy again. He heard another z-z-z-zip. He fought to roll his head on the pillow for a look. He saw yellow paper smock, gray turtleneck sweater, mask, dark curly hair. Hadn't Starsky worn black earlier, and he'd shrunk a little. Never mind what Starsky wore, or how many inches in height he'd lost, Starsky would never give him anything bad in a syringe.

Hutch lay quiet and let Starsky give him the shot.

I'm fighting for you, Starsk.

~*~

"No. No, I can't do that."

Exhausted, burning with anger, Starsky kept his arms firmly folded over his chest. If he loosened them, he'd be over there shaking Dobey the way the captain had given him a good shaking. He let his tone of voice speak for him. "Hey."

"Callendar's a professional killer."

"Okay. Jail for Callendar… or Hutch's life. What's it gonna be?"

Dobey gave him a pained look. Starsky stared it down. Yeah, this was a shitty position to put the captain in, but Starsky couldn't waste time worrying about Dobey's feelings or his pension when Hutch had less than a good night's sleep left to live.

Sitting down heavily in his chair, Dobey leaned over, his elbows on the desk. He took his pencil from its perch over his ear and scratched his bowed head, making um-um-um noises that matched the pain in the look he'd given Starsky.

"I can't—"

"Goddamn it, Captain—" He hadn't shouted, but his vicious whisper had crossed the line.

Dobey flung the pencil across the office and shoved his chair back, coming to his feet. "Don't take that tone with me, Detective Sergeant! If this was my decision alone to make, I'd make it, and damn the consequences! I don't have the authority. Callendar is an international assassin with warrants out on him in half a dozen countries. No city police captain can sign off on immunity for him."

"Okay, I'm sorry. I should've heard you out. Who you need to run it by?"

"You know who, Starsky. I have to take it upstairs to the chief."

"Ryan? Man. Oh, God. You might as well write up Hutch's d-death certificate."

Dobey glared at him. "If you and Hutch have one failing it's your tendency to think you're the only people who give a damn about the two of you. Hasn't even been six months since you and Hutch taught Chief Ryan a lesson about good cops and good police work. Man doesn't get to the chief's office if he forgets life lessons that quickly. No, he won't ever invite you and Hutch to Christmas dinner at his house, but he's not your mortal enemy. Get back to Lincoln and talk to the man from DC. I'll do what I can on this end."

~*~

Hutch could hear his breathing.

He'd swallowed a harmonica.

He counted each breath, each scrape of razor blade inside his chest.

Darkness, sweet darkness called to him again. Just close your eyes. No more pain.

He didn't want to close his eyes. Awake, he could hear the harmonica, feel the razor. If he slept, his lungs might take a permanent vacation… and invite his heart to tag along.

He couldn't fight, asleep.

Darkness coaxed him. Starsky wouldn't want you to hurt like this.

No! Pain meant he was alive. Pain meant he was fighting. Starsky wanted him to fight.

~*~

Starsky had to make them see!

Less than seven hours left in the hourglass Judith and Meredith had given Hutch, and Callendar had either climbed in a dumpster and died or changed himself into a stray street dog down to mangy fur and tail. An entire police force couldn't find hide or hair of him. Starsky had cornered both of the DC doctors in their temporary office, and by Christ on a crutch, he wouldn't leave that office until they went for a television appeal. If he could convince Dobey to go to Ryan for an immunity plea — and miracle of miracles, Dobey had persuaded Ryan to pardon a professional assassin — he could swing this.

"There's no reason to hold up. The word's out on the street already. In another couple days you're gonna have an epidemic. You have to go for it!"

He got nothing but silence from Meredith. Silent as her partner, Judith braced herself on the desk. The office door opened. In stormed Helen Yeager, clutching her sweater and purse. Fresh tears streamed down her face. "They said you're busy," she railed at the doctors. "Meanwhile, my Richie is dying." She looked around at all of them.

Starsky could offer her no solace. He couldn't offer himself any until Hutch got another hundred years added back to his lifespan. With gulping sobs, Helen Yeager rushed back out of the office, slamming the door shut.

It hit Starsky.

Right then.

What Allan Kelsey had said… something about Callendar being a frustrated family man, and not the kind of family associated with mobsters and contract hits. He remembered Helen Yeager elaborating on why she'd asked Callendar — Steele — to leave. Steele had doled out money for Richie to buy new sneakers, and promised to play catch out in the yard when he got over the flu. He'd given money to Helen for football tickets next time the Washington Redskins, Richie's favorite team, were in town to play the Turbos. Helen didn't want her son getting used to a father figure who would only leave him heartbroken.

That was the key!

Richie Yeager.

They had to put an appeal on the tube, and put Helen Yeager front and center. Geared for another battle, Starsky sized up both of the doctors. He knew the strategy of offensive warfare: attack the opponent's weakest front. He swung a glare on Judith. "You still agree with him?" He jerked a thumb at the statue of Meredith sitting behind the desk.

Judith clutched her forehead between her fingers, just over her eyes, and dipped her head down, that long dark hair shielding her face. "You don't understand the decisions we're faced with, when it comes to—"

"Oh, baloney!" He yelled, wanting to say something else entirely. "You're gonna let that woman's boy die? Huh? You're always so calm. Quiet. Like nothing ever touches you. You're a woman, for Chris'sakes, you got no motherly, no maternal feeling at all?"

Shaking, she whirled on him with a look that should have scorched a hole through his nose. "That's enough!" she screamed. "I won't be browbeaten by a chauvinist bully, when I know damned well this epidemic has been about just one person for you, and it's not Richie Yeager or anyone else on that isolation ward. Well, you might have that luxury, Detective Starsky, but Dr. Meredith and I don't."

"Judith, you shouldn't—"

She wheeled on Meredith, her voice shrill. "Don't you start on me, Fitz, I'm your partner, not your patient!" She thrust her tiny fist at Starsky. "The word's on the street? You think this city is made up of those streets you and Hutch work on? Well, it's not. What about suburbia? What about the outlying areas? How many epidemics have you seen? One! Between Fitz and me, we've seen ten! We've seen communities torn apart by early press coverage. We've seen people die in accidents trying to flee an area with reported cases, or the spread of contagion beyond city limits because people didn't heed advice and stay put. We've seen ERs overloaded with people crowding in, afraid their sniffle or cough is the dreaded disease, causing backups in patient care that led to unnecessary patient deaths."

Meredith reached out to her, trying to pull her arm down. "Please, Judith, you'll—"

"Stay out of this, Fitz!" She glared at Starsky, shaking harder, her teeth chattering. "You're right: I don't want Richie Yeager to die on that isolation ward. I have an idea what a special m-man Hutch is, and I don't want him to die. B-But F-Fitz and I-I can't focus on the sp-special p-person. W-We have to think about cities full of people, because if we don't, we might kill thousands by making the wrong decision!"

Starsky watched, stunned into silence, as she clutched the lab coat tight around herself and strode unsteadily toward the door. Meredith had jumped to his feet behind the desk, faster than Starsky had ever seen the man move. Judith gave both of them a look of controlled violence and slammed out of the office. Seconds later Starsky heard an odd thump against the door. Meredith ran around the side of the desk and over to the door.

Starsky beat him there, opening the door to a crumpled woman on the floor. "The hell?"

Meredith shoved past him and went down in a crouch beside Judith, who had her eyes open but didn't seem aware of anyone. "Right lab coat pocket. Glucose tablets." With Starsky's help he propped Judith against the doorframe and dug in her pocket. A nurse hurried over, and Meredith waved at her. "A cup of orange juice, quick as you can, go!"

The nurse dashed away. Meredith allowed Starsky to help him get Judith into the office and settled in the chair in front of the desk. Then he ordered Starsky out, firmly shutting the office door in Starsky's face. Staring at the closed door, Starsky got shoved aside next by the nurse. She hurried into the office; the door got shut in his face again.

Pacing the hall, Starsky called himself a few vulgar names. He heard Hutch's voice in his head: Good one, Starsk. He remembered telling Hutch once not to antagonize the people he needed. Well, at least Hutch hadn't put Cheryl Jennings on the floor!

The door opened, Meredith joining him in the hall, closing the door with the quietest click. His face had flushed. "I want to hit you right now," he told Starsky.

Starsky rubbed his eyes. "Doc, if I caused that, whatever the hell that was, I'll take a swing at myself later, and let you take your best shot after."

"That was a severe hypoglycemic reaction. Judith's what we call a brittle diabetic. Have you ever heard of that?"

"Nope, can't say I have, sorry."

"It means her blood sugar can swing between 50 and 450 faster than some people blink. That's only a slight exaggeration. You wanted to know why she's always calm, quiet, why she acts like nothing touches her. Well, you just saw what can happen when she lets something get to her!" Meredith's voice calmed. "You aren't entirely to blame. She told me just now she may have missed lunch yesterday. She did miss breakfast today, and tried to make up for it with too light a snack. She's under a lot of strain, working too many hours trying to achieve serum synthesis."

"She'll be okay now?"

"Yes." Meredith glanced over his shoulder at the door behind him. "The nurse will sit with her a few more minutes. It's just a matter of bringing her blood sugar back up to baseline." When he looked at Starsky again, his face was haggard. "Don't ask her about it later. She's embarrassed."

Starsky nodded. "Got it. No questions."

"I understand where you're coming from. You're watching your partner die, and you're willing to do whatever you have to. I'm sure you convinced your captain to get approval for offering that man Callendar immunity. Judith's not just my partner. She's the daughter my wife and I never had. I've invested years teaching her everything I know. With her, I have a chance at synthesizing a serum. Without her, I won't, with too much data, too many variables for one person to process in the time we have left. Do you understand?"

"Maybe it's time you take a page outta my book, Doc. Judith said if she had Callendar's blood it'd be easier to put together a serum. That means less strain on her, less chance of this happening, or am I off the mark? What you scared of more? Getting in trouble with your bosses at DC for going public with this too soon or Judith pushing herself into more of this kinda thing?"

Meredith stared at him. "You're a dangerous man."

"Maybe I am. What's it gonna be, Doc?"

"Call the press, get them here. You can use this office. Judith won't mind."

Starsky nodded and Meredith stepped aside, letting him open the door. Inside the office, Judith still rested in that ugly orange chair, the nurse hovering close. The nurse gave him a blank look; Judith didn't meet his eye. When he turned his back to her, pulling the phone across the desk, he heard a whisper.

"I think I owe you an apology."

He swung around. "Well, Doc, if we put my apology and yours on a seesaw, mine's so heavy yours would hit the sky, so do me a favor, lemme save face, and let's call it even?"

She nodded, smiling. He heard Hutch's voice in his head again. Nicely done, Starsk.

"Can you do me a bigger favor?"

"What?"

"You mind going on TV?"

"I thought…" She raised her eyebrows at Meredith, who raised his eyebrows at Starsky.

Starsky waved his hands in a crisscross that meant business. "Can't be you, Dr. Meredith. To a man like Callendar, Judith's no threat. Good chance he won't see her as a police trap or the Feds trying to get smart. We need him watching long enough to see Mrs. Yeager."

She nodded again. "All right then."

~*~

Hutch clung to consciousness the way a child held on to a balloon string to make sure the balloon wouldn't float away forever. His breathing sounded higher pitched to his ears. He'd swallowed a wood flute to go with the harmonica. The more, the merrier. Anything but darkness. He didn't want to close his eyes to darkness that might never lighten.

Darkness whispered to him. You need rest. A man with a high fever needs rest.

No! He had an argument against that one, he just couldn't… think… of it.

He heard Starsky's voice in his head. I'll give you an argument, ya big lummox. Did I say you could quit fighting? No. So, you hurt. So, you can't breathe. So fucking what? You're tougher than some fever. You want those hundred more years with me? Keep breathing.

He remembered that he had Starsky's life in his hands.

He kept his eyes open.

He listened to the harmonica and flute, and counted every slash of razor inside his chest.

~*~

Fingers hooked in his pockets, Starsky waited in front of the hospital's rear drive. Waited for Hutch's only hope. Meredith's right. Hutch's life is on the line, and I'll do whatever, say whatever, make any deals with anybody, and pay the price later, whatever it is.

The first price he'd pay? He couldn't pummel Callendar for every sweaty minute of stabbing pain Hutch had suffered. He couldn't even take the guy in and watch the jail doors slam shut on him. He had to drive the son-of-a-bitch to the airport and wave bye-bye, have a nice flight, send me a postcard from sunny wherever. No one, no one on earth, should get away scot-free after what Hutch had been through!

But Starsky would gladly pay that price for Hutch's chance at life. He'd racked up some bad karma over the last few days. He knew it. He felt it gut deep. As long as the price tag had his name on it, and Hutch's no where near it, Starsky didn't care.

~*~

Hutch dangled from a cliff ledge. Impossible climb back to the top; sheer drop below. Starsky stretched out topside on his belly, reaching down, straining, stretching, trying to make contact with Hutch's outstretched hand. Clinging by one hand, Hutch tore at the muscles in his arms, his chest, trying to hold on and reach up at the same time. Starsky was pleading with him, calling to him, fierce love on his face, fiercer love in his voice.

Hutch made his last mistake. He looked away from Starsky's eyes. He looked over his shoulder and down at the darkness below. The darkness gathered, swooped up.

The darkness claimed him.

~*~

Starsky's ears were still aching from ricocheting bullets, whizzing chips of palm tree trunk around him, shattering glass. He took the opportunity to call in to Dobey for a report: Roper wounded, one Roper associate wounded, another Roper associate dead on the grounds there at Lincoln, Callendar in emergency surgery, blood samples safely on their way to the lab.

Waiting at the ER nurse's station, he rested against the counter, phone gripped tightly in hand. He had to grip something, prop against something, or he'd fall on his face, the adrenaline rush about to backfire on him, big time. Half asleep, he almost missed Dobey's gruff pick up. "Cap'n? Starsky here. I—"

Overhead, the intercom blared. "Officer Starsky. Officer Starsky to Isolation."

Starsky dropped the phone and ran.

~*~

Hutch caught hold of a rock protrusion and hung by one hand, darkness all around him, touching him, brushing against him, trying to burn his eyes, fill his nose, crush his chest.

"Hutch!"

Hutch strained his neck looking up at the cliff top. "Starsky! You stay up there."

"No! I'll get down there to you. Hang on, Hutch, hang on, babe, just… hang on, Hutch!"

"Damn it, Starsky, stay where you are! I'll get back up there to you."

"You can't, you're too weak, you got a bad fever."

"Yeah? Watch me. Starsky, I mean it, you stay where you are. You've done your part. It's my turn. I'm not leaving you. Not like this."

Hutch gripped the rock protrusion so tightly he risked permanent markings on his palm, and swung his other fist out at the thick darkness. "Out of my way!" he shouted at it. "Get the hell out of my way." He punched his fist into the darkness, feeling it give. The darkness bulged, then parted, showing him the pattern of rock face and a few hand holds.

He started to climb.

~*~

Running too quickly to stop quickly, Judith almost collided with Fitz in the corridor outside Hutch's room. Her partner watched the smocked and masked code team's rapid resuscitation choreography. In their haste they hadn't drawn the privacy curtain.

"Oh, God. Oh, no. I came as soon as I heard the page."

"I had Officer Starsky paged." Fitz's voice was hoarse.

"You did?"

"I'd come up to the unit to…" He frowned. "I knew Officer Hutchinson was drifting in and out of consciousness, but I thought someone should tell him Callendar had given us samples for synthesis. I was doing a bedside assessment of his vitals. His pulse was trip-hammering against my finger. I had my hand on the alarm button when I lost his pulse."

"You called the code?"

"I did."

"I'm surprised you're not in there running the code."

"Judith, I'm a researcher. My practice of medicine is largely academic. I haven't run a code in years. I thought I should let the everyday experts handle it." Fitz's headshake was so jerky he reached up afterward, rubbing his neck. "This isn't multiple organ failure. Not yet. This is electrical. I'd stake my license on it."

"Hyperkalemia? Virus attacking the kidneys, disrupting the excretion of potassium? Tachycardia leading to cardiac arrest?"

"It's possible. I haven't seen today's charting on his Is & Os. We'll know more when—"

A force of nature in blue jeans and leather burst through the swinging doors. Starsky skidded, stumbling, slammed himself against the observation window, clawing the glass, and his soft, horrid moan belonged in nightmares. Judith was certain it would haunt hers. Right that second, the ICU physician in the room looked over at them, handed the defibrillator paddles to a waiting nurse, and gave a thumb's up sign.

Starsky whipped around, his face stark, terrible. "What's that mean? What's—What's—"

Astonished by the timing she'd seen, Judith couldn't open her mouth. Fitz said, "It means they captured a rhythm. It means they got him back."

"They got the oxygen tent down. He can't breathe!"

"They had to deflate the tent and turn off the oxygen to use the electric paddles on him."

"Oh. Right. Yeah." Starsky sank to his knees on the hard floor, shoulders slumping, and let his head hang down.

Judith crouched down beside him, touched his shoulder. "Starsky?" She heard gasping, but he wouldn't lift his head or look at her, and the sound was moist. "Fitz and I need to get back to the lab. The techs should be finished prepping the samples for us. We need to get a serum in Hutch as quickly as possible." He didn't lift his head, but waved her away.

Fitz motioned for a nurse on her way down the hall and pointed at Starsky with a silent order for her to stay with him. Judith knew she'd never forget the image of Starsky on his knees in the hall.

~*~

The first thing Hutch noticed on waking was the absence of plastic tent around him. He sniffed; plastic itched the inside of his nose, oxygen burned his nostrils. The second thing he noticed was the absence of hundred-pound boulder on his chest. He inhaled; the breath went somewhere it needed to go, with no scrape of razor blade.

He turned his head on the pillow. Covered in the yellow smock, mask around his lower face, Starsky had scrunched himself into that weird plastic chair by the bed. Behind him the blue privacy curtain divided the dimmed room in half. Nighttime?

"Starsk?" he croaked.

Starsky woke with a grunt and shot forward in the chair. "Hey. Thought you planned to sleep for the next hundred years."

"Sleep?"

"Yeah, you've been asleep. Over a day. Judith said your body needed the rest. She said the nurses kept telling her you were fighting the sleep that comes with a high fever like that." Starsky eased over to sit on the bedside and brushed his gloved finger down the bridge of Hutch's nose. "How 'bout that, huh? You really are Captain Marvel."

"It's got… nothing to do with… tights and a cape. You know me. I don't like anyone or anything to do with the medical profession telling me what to do, even some lousy fever." He yawned. "But I must have given in at some point."

"You didn't have much choice, Hutch."

"What?"

"Your ticker stopped ticking for a minute or two. Judith or Meredith can tell you." Turning his face, Starsky clutched a handful of bed sheet, squeezing it in a fist.

Starsk. I won't make you talk about it, babe. "I'll… get…" He yawned again. "A full rundown later. Just… hit the highlights for me right now."

"Well, you're getting serum treatments. Your breathing's better. First they took down the oxygen tent. Then they took off the mask and stuck the tubes up your nose."

Hutch moved his mouth. His lips did what he asked. He smiled. "You're all covered up."

Starsky's grin made up for the absence of light. He whispered, "You sound disappointed. I like that. Nah, the nurses on this unit, it's their way or the highway. The docs think you're a lot less contagious by now, but until your temp's back to normal, they won't sign off on moving you to a regular room, and the nurses won't let me stay in here without gloves and this paper wardrobe."

"Stay in…" He begged his mind to clear enough for basic math. "Starsky… don't tell me… you haven't been… home at all yet."

"Okay, I won't tell you."

"Damn it, Starsky."

Starsky's grin reappeared. "That sounded even better. Normal, everyday Hutch. The docs worked it out for me to get showers in their lounge." He plucked at the red jersey under his smock. "Huggy stopped by my place and picked up some clean clothes for me."

Breathing had started to tug on those sore places left in Hutch's chest. He gasped, then blew out, trying to make his chest expand. "I also know how stir-crazy you get in these rooms even if you can wander the hospital. Starsky… go get a night's sleep… in a bed."

"Hutch—"

"I'll be fine. Just gonna lie here and enjoy not looking at an oxygen tent, maybe sleep some more myself. Go. Go on; get out of here, will you? You have dark circles under your eyes I can see in a dimly lit room."

"I won't sleep in…" Starsky's jaw tightened down again, and he was back to squeezing the hell out of his fistful of sheet. He lowered his voice. "I won't sleep in my bed until you can sleep there with me. Got that?" He rested his hand light as a fallen leaf on Hutch's chest. "But maybe I'll go out, get something to eat that doesn't smell like a hospital. You ever notice how hospital cafeteria food still smells like the stuff they send up to your room on a tray?"

"Only you would notice that, Starsky. It's why I keep you around… so you can… point stuff like that out to me." He nodded. "Go. Get some decent food. Drive that striped parade float like you have… some sense… while you're so… sleep deprived."

"You sound more and more like the Hutch I know." Starsky started to lean over again, pressing down just a little on Hutch's chest.

Hutch blinked at him. He remembered something about…"Is this the third time?"

Starsky gave him a serious look that dared him to try any blocking maneuvers. "Yeah."

Hutch tilted his head, Starsky angled his, and their mouths met. Less contagious or not, he didn't risk opening his mouth to Starsky's parted lips, but he wanted to shout in triumph when he found he could lift his arms this time and wrap them around Starsky. He pushed his hand into Starsky's hair, and stroked his back, and the mask took nothing away from the most important first kiss of his life.

Starsky looked dazed. "Damn. Imagine what we could do with no mask in the way."

"That's what I'll lie here and think about while you're gone."

"Won't be gone long, Hutch."

"Next time, I'll…" Hutch eyed the privacy curtain and remembered to whisper. "I'll plant one on you…and if I haven't… lost my touch… you won't be able to stand up afterward."

"I'm countin' on it." With one quick stroke of his thumb over Hutch's cheek, Starsky left the bedside, but he didn't storm away this time, or start ripping off smock and mask before he got to the interior door. His slower pace gave Hutch a chance to push his weakened brain cells for auxiliary power.

"Starsky, what about Callendar? I'm getting a serum. Does that mean you found him?"

Starsky turned. "I'll fill you in when you're not half asleep. Long story short, he's dead, Hutch. He came in voluntarily, but Roper and his goons were lyin' in wait. That's the problem with a press appeal. Can't control who watches the tube. Callendar took a round in a firefight outside the hospital. Died in surgery. Meredith said under normal conditions he might've pulled through, but his body was too weak from the virus. Too weak for a lower gut shot, too weak for emergency surgery. Roper's dead too."

"Christ. They both got what they were aiming for, then."

"That's the way I see it."

"Dobey's not making noises about you bringing Stern in for the hit? Not without me, you don't, and you can damn well tell Dobey I said so."

"Nah, that's nothing for you to worry about. I'm on leave." Starsky started to turn again.

"Leave? What kind of leave?" When Starsky didn't stop, Hutch cleared his throat, pushing for more volume in his voice. "Starsk, don't make me try… to get out of this bed and tackle you. I will, damn it. What kind of leave?"

"Dobey's orders, but from the way he fidgeted with his tie knot and wouldn't look at me, I think pressure's coming down from the chief's office. I'm not suspended without pay. I'm on paid leave. Some questions are being asked downstairs in the commissioner's office, that's all, and Dobey's making sure I don't say something a time machine couldn't take back. I got no problem with it. Don't wanna be tied to a desk while you're here."

Hutch heard more to worry about in what Starsky didn't say, but he was suddenly tired and too fuzzy headed to probe at shadows. He yawned.

"Sleep, Hutch. When you wake up, I'll be back."

Hutch slept.

~*~

"You know, this reminds me of the night we spent at your place after we were sprung from quarantine." Hutch stretched his arm out under the table pulled across the bed, and thumped the sole of Starsky's sneaker. "Only in reverse."

Morning newspaper folded over his lap, Starsky lounged in the visitor's recliner pulled close to Hutch's bed, and had his feet propped on the bedside. "Eat your mush."

Hutch dropped his spoon down in the bowl. "Mush? I didn't get that lucky. This has the taste and consistency of cement mix. I should be out of here already!"

"Patience. They only moved you down to this unit two days ago. You heard Judith. They're watching your kidneys and your liver panel. I didn't know the liver had panels."

"I'm starting to wish mine didn't."

The bedside phone rang.

Flashing a wink at the scowling patient, Starsky stretched sideways, dangerously close to tilting his chair over, and grabbed the phone. "Cement Gruel Café."

"Starsky?"

Starsky did nearly tilt his chair too far at the sound of Allan Kelsey's voice. For a crazy man, the guy had to have some kind of connections to get this number. "Allan. Hiya."

"Listen, hip daddy, I waited long as I could. I gotta know, man, just gotta know. The papers, the TV, they're all saying Callendar's dead. A goner. Dearly departed. That's the straight skinny? I called your captain at his office, but he talked like he was all thumbs and had them shoved up inside his mouth, and gave me this number. What's that about?"

Dobey doesn't deal well with loony tunes. "This ordeal, it's been rough on him, y'know?"

"I hear, I comprehend. How's Hutch?"

"Right now he's giving the room service menu at this four-bedpan hotel a bad review."

"Take him for some good eats in pizzaville after he's out. What's the dope on Callendar?"

Starsky heard something in Allan's tone that changed his mind about his answer. The man was retired, divorced, living out of an airplane hangar, and a whole suit shy of a full deck. Robbing him of Thomas Callendar might really land him in Cabrillo solving Sam Spade's cold cases with good ole Freddie. "Uh, Allan? I'm gonna tell you something I could get my ass handed to me for, so listen close, 'cause I can't repeat it. You ready?"

"Hit me with it, man."

"The newspapers, the TV, they agreed to cooperate. I needed cover to get Callendar to the airport in one piece, got it? The man had more than just Roper after him by the end. And it calms the general populace, hearing the big bad killer's in a morgue instead'a flying around free as a bird. You gotta keep a lid on that. It's a need-to-know thing."

"Roger on that, Squadron Leader. I tried to tell Jamison I thought it might be something cloak-and-dagger, but he wouldn't listen."

"Ah, man, you know Jamison. His brain's coated in sugar from all those donuts."

"Yeah." Allan laughed. "You think Callendar's retired for good this time?"

"What do you think? Guy like that? Nah. He'll be back next time somebody makes it worth his while. You'll get him the next go round, Allan."

"Real nervous, it's real nervous of you, giving me the goods. Tell Hutch he's been buzzed by germsville long enough." Allan let the dial tone serve as goodbye.

Shaking his head, Starsky hung up the phone and tried to relocate his spot of maximum comfort in the chair. He felt warm all over and looked up. Hutch's scowl had softened into the special smile that would've meant money for candy if they were at Metro.

"What?"

"I was wrong. You are a good liar. Proud of you, Starsk."

Starsky flushed. "Yeah, well, good cause and all. The guy did give us a solid connection at Interpol when we needed it, and his kookiness made me think differently when I needed a new angle. I'll let you write the next fairy tale."

"What you mean?"

"Helen Yeager told me Richie's asking her questions she doesn't know how to answer."

Hutch stirred his spoon around in the oatmeal bowl. "We tell him Steele thought of him as the son he always wanted. Steele was on his way out of the country when he heard the TV appeal, and he came in and gave blood for the serum, but he got sick again and didn't make it. We tell Richie he's a hero for taking such good care of Mr. Steele and helping him stay alive long enough to help all the other people with the plague, and there's a cop in this hospital who's really grateful to him."

"Make that two cops. Man. Nancy Blake's mother was right: you couldn't be a Catholic with that slippery tongue you got." He did flush then. Hutch burst out laughing, and grabbed his chest. "Hey! Watch the air factory in there. It's still under repair."

Hutch coughed, patting his chest. "Starsky, you haven't been up close and personal with my tongue yet. But hold that thought for when they let me out of this sterile prison."

~*~

"Come in!" Hutch didn't look up from his game of solitaire spread across the bed table.

"Where's Starsky?"

That voice wrested Hutch's attention from lining up his seven of spades on the eight of diamonds. "Oh, hey there, Captain. I thought you were a nurse wanting to get friendly with my IV stand over here."

"Do I look like a nurse to you, Hutchinson?"

"Uh, no. Absolutely not." Actually, Dobey had on his dressiest dark blue suit with a shirt in a different shade of blue that didn't clash horribly, and his tie looked not only new but color coordinated to match the suit and shirt. The captain dressed that meticulously could only mean one thing. "Meeting with the chief today, Captain?"

Dobey put down his cellophane wrapped basket of fruit and box of chocolates on the end of the bed table free of playing cards. "Later this afternoon. How'd you know?"

"Lucky guess." Hutch nodded at the get-well gifts. "Thank you." And thank all that was holy, the captain hadn't brought flowers. Hutch had a foggy memory of Dobey waving a yellow bouquet the exact shade of the isolation room curtains, and that sight would last him a lifetime. "Have a seat, Captain. Starsky says that recliner's pretty comfortable."

"Where is Starsky?"

"I kicked him out for a couple of hours. Told him to go for a drive, maybe catch a movie with Huggy. I got back a little while ago from a procedure in the radiology department, and I brought a crummy attitude with me. Starsky was getting claustrophobic. You know how it is. My attitude and his claustrophobia knocked heads. Nothing to it. He'll be back in no time."

"Procedure?" Dobey sat down heavily in the recliner and reached immediately for the box of chocolates he'd just put down. "Painful?"

"No, not really. More annoying than anything. This one was a 'pile-oh-gram', as Starsky likes to call it. It's more the principle, Captain. I want the doctors telling me I'm ready to get out of here, not trying to think of new ways to visualize my kidneys." Dobey had already torn the clear outer wrapping off the chocolates box. Okay, the man liked his sweets, but this was a little out of the ordinary. "Captain, is something wrong?"

Dobey didn't look up from picking over the chocolates in the box. "I know I didn't stop by often while you were in isolation, and when I finally did pay a visit, you were already so sick I couldn't do any more than wave at you."

"Captain—"

"Starsky was right. It was… hard… seeing you in that shape, but that's—" Dobey huffed and popped a chocolate in his mouth. He chewed. "That's not it," he said out of the corner of his mouth. "Part of me wanted to set up a temporary office here at Lincoln and camp out, but I couldn't. Seeing what happed to Jake and Virgie, I—"

"Captain, it's all right. You have children at home. Of course I didn't want you spending a lot of time around this place, possibly taking contagion home to Edith and the kids. I was afraid I'd exposed you to the virus those times I was in your office before they found out I was infected and tossed me back in isolation."

Dobey didn't smile, but he chewed the next piece of candy slower, clearly savoring it.

No time like the present to ask a hard question of his own. Hutch scratched at the tape holding his IV in place on his left arm. "Captain? Why is Starsky on leave?"

"Is he having a hard time with it? I didn't see him complaining too loudly if it meant he got to stick close here while they're fixing you up."

A surge of happiness caught Hutch by surprise. Years of closeness in his partnership with Starsky might have fashioned a comfortable, lifesaving cover for their new togetherness.

"No, he hasn't said much at all. That's what worries me."

"Is the staff here giving him a hard time?"

"No. We've been lucky. This unit has what they call low census around the holidays, and I have a feeling Judith and Meredith went to bat for us. Starsky's been able to use that other bed there. What's going on, Captain? Why is Starsky on leave?"

"Hutch, you know how close you came to ending up like Jake and Virgie. I don't have to tell you what happens to your partner when you're in that kind of danger. Starsky's unorthodox as it is; you both are. In a situation like this, he throws the Procedures book all the way out the window, and runs over it for good measure."

Hutch nodded. "It got heavy. How heavy?"

"Did he tell you about Roper?"

"You mean Callendar completing his contract at the last second? Yeah."

"No, Hutch. Starsky didn't tell you about his encounter with Roper?"

"Starsky's—?! What? When?"

"He marched up to Roper's front gate, got himself invited in, and pretty much told Roper to play pigeon to draw out Callendar, or leave Callendar alone and alive, or else."

"Jes—" Hutch coughed his way out of swearing that blatantly in front of the captain. "Damn. I have to say I'm grateful to Callendar for more reasons than his blood. If Callendar had left Roper alive, Starsky might be looking at a gangland vendetta."

"That's what I tried to tell him. He wouldn't listen. I blame myself. I was throwing every man I could at the search for Callendar, but I didn't force Starsky to take on a temporary partner out there. I told myself it didn't matter. You can rein each other in, but you won't let anyone else get away with it."

"All right. What's the damage? You're still not telling me how he ended up on leave."

"Several federal agencies are screaming to the commissioner that a local police department had no authority to offer immunity to an international assassin, and the commissioner's tired of getting his tail chewed. He wants someone to lash out at, and some complaints about Starsky got to his office before I could head them off. Worst possible timing. Chief Ryan and I made Starsky take leave before he could dig himself in deeper somehow from behind a desk."

"What kind of complaints?"

"Some Delia Foster woman called in and said Starsky came to her apartment with a civilian who never identified himself, and she felt her safety was threatened the whole time he questioned her about her boyfriend, that Cicchino. I know who that civilian was, and I know this woman has an ax to grind, but she's making it sound like Huggy Bear was some serial rapist Starsky threatened to turn loose on her if she didn't talk."

"I don't believe this! That's Saturday night movie material, Captain, and probably racially motivated on top of it. The commissioner is really buying that junk?"

"If that was the only complaint he couldn't make much of it. Unfortunately he got a complaint from ambulance attendants that Starsky threatened them with police brutality when they didn't want to allow Helen Yeager to ride along with her son to the hospital."

"Oh, come on! Starsky said he showed those ambulance guys his badge and told them where they could put their protocols. That's all. Starsky doesn't lie to me, Captain."

"I know. Two complaints came in from County Yellow taxi service, including a driver who said Starsky made him come out of the shower and answer questions naked. Starsky says the County Yellow man wasn't naked. He had a towel on."

Under other circumstances, Hutch would've laughed, but this sounded like a railroading in progress. He drummed his fingers on the bed table. "I haven't heard anything yet that doesn't sound blown all out of proportion. Starsky had hours to stop an epidemic from hitting the city full force. What was he supposed to do at the taxi place? Wait fifteen crucial minutes for some hard-ass to finish his shower, when every second counted? My life wasn't the only one at stake."

"It gets worse, Hutch. The chief and I almost had the commissioner calmed down, but yesterday, Interpol started burning up his phone line because that Allan Kelsey called and told them Callendar is still alive and to be on the lookout for him. Interpol had a word or two with the major media here in Bay City, and now they aren't happy, questioning whether the BCPD is trying to pull a fast one on them."

"Oh, no. Damn. The guy helped us out with solid leads and connections during the case. Starsky was just doing a good deed, giving him a line of bull about some hush-hush deal between the press and the department. Thought it would break Allan if he really believed Callendar was dead. Yeah, maybe we should've known we couldn't count on Allan to keep his mouth shut, but we had no way of knowing he'd go to Interpol with it."

"Well, Starsky's good deed has almost caused an international incident! I'm doing what I can, and believe it or not, so is Ryan. If we're lucky, this will blow over in a week or so."

"And if we're not?"

Dobey sighed. "Let's cross that bridge when you're back to your normal color and not mistaking me for a nurse. The jaundice, is it serious?"

Hutch didn't want to change the subject and certainly not to that one, but he also knew he didn't stand a chance against a Dobey stonewall without Starsky to help him chip away at it. "They don't think so. The liver is a remarkable organ. The virus took a whack at it, but the docs don't think the damage is permanent. Same with my right kidney. Not in jam-up shape right now, but they think it's mostly inflammation leftover from the virus."

Dobey's grunt sounded pleased then changed its tone. "I know you had a real scare with your heart. Don't glare at me. Starsky was on the phone with me when he got the page to come to the isolation ward."

"Oh." Hutch had to look away from the captain's stern dark gaze. "It was only a minute or so. My potassium level got screwed up. That can happen to people with run-of-the-mill viruses. It just got a little extreme in my case, with a virus like this one."

"Hutchinson, I need to hear the unedited version. What has that killer bug left you with?"

"Well, if I'd known I'd have to face a reinstatement committee today, I would've had the nurse bring my chart for you to look at!" Hutch puffed out his cheeks, let out the breath slowly, inhaled even slower. Imagine that: breathing exercises checked his temper and kept him from knocking his cards and fruit basket off the table in one fell swoop. "I shouldn't have a problem going back on duty once they let me out of here. My breathing's almost back to normal. The high fever left me with a tiny neurological deficit."

"How tiny?"

"It's just a reflex thing, Captain. My reflexes are maybe a split-second slower."

"Maybe is a dangerous qualifier when it comes to street duty, Hutchinson."

Hutch stared hard at him. "You know I won't even think about going on the streets if I can't draw my gun in defense of Starsky… or myself… as fast as I did before this virus."

"Yes. I know." Dobey had put the open chocolates box back on the table but only to free his hands for shirt smoothing, tie straightening, small grooming gestures that signaled discomfort of an emotional nature. "Another bridge we'll cross later. Right now you just concentrate on getting well." He rose. "Tell Starsky I stopped by. Edith and Rosie and Cal wanted me to tell you they hope you feel better soon."

"Thanks for the fruit and chocolates, and the visit, Captain. Tell Edith and the kids I appreciate the good thoughts. Listen, I know you took a chance going to Ryan for immunity for Callendar, and he took a chance okaying it. That was a damned difficult position for you both to be in. Thank you, and pass along my thanks to the chief."

"Position of authority isn't worth a damn if it isn't used for the greater good once in a while. Keeping you alive, and all the other people with that virus, was a much greater good than putting one man in jail. The chief and I saw eye to eye on that."

~*~

Starsky busted through the doors, losing traction on the polished floor, sliding and stumbling over to the glass that separated him from his other half. He clawed the window, wanting to shatter it under his fingertips. Nurses flanked Hutch's bed. A doctor held paddles against Hutch's naked chest. They had cut that hospital gown right down the middle. Hutch's body arched but dropped down on the bed and stayed still. The doctor turned to look at the observation window and gave a slow headshake. Starsky spun around for Meredith and Judith to tell him that headshake didn't really mean what he thought it meant. He saw the truth in their solemn faces. No. No! NO!

"Starsk! Starsky?!"

Starsky thrashed around in the narrow bed. Narrow bed? He fisted moisture and sleep crud from his eyes. "What? Where?" Semi-darkness greeted his open eyes. He was twisted in a tangle of hospital bed sheets. Thank fuck the sheets were under white covers, no puke green isolation bed blanket. Starsky had never been so glad to see a regular beige-and-white hospital room.

Three feet away, Hutch propped up and flipped on the greenish light over his bed. "You were flopping around like a hooked fish, partner. Bad dream?"

Starsky smacked his lips, hating the cottony taste on his tongue. "I never sleep for shit in one'a these beds."

"Why don't you see if you sleep better in this one?"

He came awake fast then. "Hutch—"

"We're not in a room with glass walls, Starsky. I know we have to be careful during the day and evening shifts, but this bag of whatever-it-is hanging from my IV stand is the last I'm supposed to get tonight, I think. Come on. Get over here."

"Hutch, I'm okay, I just need to find a better position." He kicked at the sheets, twisting himself out of the mummy wrap, and went to war next with the lumpy pancake pillow.

"If a nurse did come in and find you in bed with me, would it be such a big thing? Nurses talk, but it's not like one of them would get right on the horn to Dobey."

Starsky stopped bunching his pillow. "You know what that bag on the IV stand is? It's liquid numbskull food for a certain blond numbskull. After all that's gone down the last week or so, you think I'm worried about nurses gossiping on their coffee break?"

Hutch was sliding slowly, carefully to the far side of his bed. "If you're not self-conscious about a nurse finding us in bed together, then get over here and prove me wrong."

"Oh, for—! Hutch, I swear t'God, it's not that. These beds are too small. They're maybe an inch or two wider than the isolation ward cots, if that much. Lincoln must have some sorry budget 'cause these beds are half the size of the ones at County or Memorial. Christ, I think the bed at Cabrillo was bigger'n this."

"I don't doubt it. What's the problem? We'll scrunch tight."

"That's the problem. You don't need to scrunch tight. You need sleep. You got IVs here and there, and you're still brighter yellow than the bananas in the fruit basket Dobey brought this afternoon."

"It's jaundice, Starsky. My liver hasn't forgiven me yet."

"Only way you'll get better is letting your body rest. How you gonna rest with me crowding you over to the edge of the bed? I won't sleep for worrying about keeping you awake. Get it?"

"Got it. Maybe you better stay over there." Hutch rolled slowly over on his other side.

Starsky stared at the glimmer of greenish light down on Hutch's hair. He gave his pillow a completely unnecessary punch. "Hutch?"

Hutch didn't turn over. "What?"

"I just want you better and outta this place, okay?"

The line of Hutch's body relaxed. "I know. I didn't think it would take this long."

Starsky wanted to punch himself. "If I'd gotten to Callendar sooner—"

"Starsky, no!" Hutch did roll over then. "You pulled off the impossible as it was. I meant my unrealistic expectations. I thought the serum could reverse everything in a day or two. I should've known better. It's a serum, not a magic potion."

That rare low morale in Hutch's voice twisted Starsky into a knot. He couldn't stay three feet away, nursing his own fear leftover from watching some doctor shock the beat back into Hutch's heart. Before Hutch had a chance to drift off to sleep, Starsky got out of bed and carried his bruised pillow over to Hutch's bed. Hutch smiled up at him.

Starsky tried out a nonchalant shrug. "Few minutes of scrunching tight can't hurt."

"That's the spirit." Hutch eased back to the other side of the bed, leaving generous space.

Starsky climbed in and lay on his back. If he faced Hutch, he'd want a taste of Hutch's lips, and he had no intention of lying awake with a hard-on while he worried about why Hutch's liver and right kidney wouldn't get their acts together.

Hutch stayed on his right side, draping his left arm with its IV line over Starsky's chest. "Some hypocritical ingrate I am, heh heh."

"What?"

"Before I got zapped with this virus, I was preaching patience, wanting time to meditate, explore other areas of my mind. Then I got sick and thought I had forty-eight hours to live instead of a hundred years, and I would've bartered my soul for forty-eight more minutes. Now, I'm alive, and that's what counts, but here I am griping and impatient because I'm not getting well fast enough."

"Nah, it's not hypocrisy or impatience."

"No? How you figure that?"

"It's your mind trying to get you well."

Hutch ran his fingers in a straight line up and down Starsky's chest. Starsky hardly felt the light touch through his t-shirt, but he dipped his chin a little and watched Hutch fingering his chest with the lazy strum he'd use on a guitar just to while away the time. The sight gave him a feeling of completeness he knew he could never put into words.

"Explanation, Starsky."

"Hm?"

"My mind trying to get me well?"

"You're a mind-over-matter type. You know what I mean. Part of what helps you get well is your will to get well. So, if you want something real bad you get impatient for it, don't you? Your subconscious knows the more you wanna get well, the more impatient you are for it, the faster you'll heal. Not saying it always works, but I went through that when I was poisoned. Thought the antidote would turn everything around in minutes. Didn't count on the damage already done. That took longer to get over."

"I know, I remember."

Starsky got a quick kiss on his temple. He touched two fingers to the spot afterward and got a warm chuff of laughter in his ear. Oh, yeah. He should've climbed in this bed a few hours sooner.

"You know, Dobey didn't bring just chocolates and fruit."

Damn! That rapid change in subject could give a guy whiplash. "No? What else did he bring?" Starsky skimmed his fingers up and down Hutch's arm, elbow to wrist and back again. "You ate the other goodies before I got back, that it? Some buddy. Kicks me out of the hospital room and then eats the good stuff behind my back."

"Play that sad song for someone else, buddy." Hutch blew a puff of air that tickled Starsky's scalp and made his cock twitch. "You were a much happier person when you got back. Thanks to me, you've got that t-shirt and those pajama bottoms you're lounging around in, instead of a hospital gown like the one the ladies in white make me wear. Anyway, Dobey didn't bring goodies. He brought information."

"About what?"

"About a certain curly-haired maniac paying a house call on Roper."

Starsky thought about rolling out of Hutch's bed and slinking back over to his, and he must have moved an inch, because Hutch rested his arm heavier on him.

"Oh, no you don't. I am strong enough now to get out of this bed and tackle you. I've been sitting on this since you got back this afternoon. Didn't wanna start another argument and have to kick you out again. Christ, Starsky, you're damned lucky you didn't end up with a syndicate bull's eye on your back!"

"If you hadn't made it, how much you think I would've cared if I had a contract on me?"

"What am I gonna do with you?!"

Starsky went back to stroking Hutch's arm, careful of the IV tubing. "Something to do with sex is always a safe bet."

"You're a hedonist, you know that?"

"A what?"

"A hedonist."

"So long as I enjoy myself."

"Starsky, get serious a second, will you? I want to kick your ass for being so reckless, but I want to kiss you at the same time for going that distance trying to save my life."

"Way I see it, makes us even."

"Even how?"

"That's exactly how I felt the morning we got the radio call to come back here, and you told me about that contact you had with the pickpocket in the alley. I wanted to kick your ass for keeping that from me. Wanted to kiss you for the way you ran interference, protecting me from people infected, from you even."

"Starsk."

Starsky turned his head again at that special tone in Hutch's voice, that soft huskiness. He could let the doctors worry about Hutch's liver and kidneys. He'd worry about keeping Hutch's lips moist. He licked his lips and dropped a quick kiss on Hutch's mouth, an even quicker one on the tip of his nose, and got a yawn in the face. He smiled.

"That's it, don't fight it. We'll duke it out with our lips and asses when we get outta here."

"Hedonist," Hutch accused again through another yawn… and closed his eyes.

~*~

"Umm. Right, yes that is concerning. I'll make arrangements to fly out there tomorrow."

Judith looked up from her notes. She'd had to take out her contacts, but now her eyes were fatigued with the glasses. She took off the glasses, rubbing her eyes. "What is it?"

Fitz hung the phone on its wall base and turned, propping against the lab table. "That was DC. Kellman wants us in Pennsylvania. Amish community. Local GPs are alarmed about a pox they haven't seen in years. Symptomatology is concerning. One fatality already."

"Surely it can't be Variola major. We're very close to eradication of smallpox. I know a natural case was discovered last month in Somalia, but the World Health Organization believes that might be the last we see."

Fitz nodded. "It's likely neither variant of smallpox, but you know Kellman. Hair trigger."

Judith gestured at her notes. "We have work left to do here."

"You do." Fitz started gathering books and papers, shoving them into his open briefcase. "I'll take the first flight available tomorrow. You stay here, finish our documentation, and monitor the few remaining cases."

"Then you want me to join you in Pennsylvania?"

"Not right away. Make a side trip to debrief Kellman on this epidemic. If it looks like the Pennsylvania situation isn't a false alarm, you can fly out then."

"I should wrap things up here in a few days. I expect Hutch will be discharged tomorrow, and Richie Yeager the day after." Smiling, she pulled her hair down out of its loose bun, shaking it free, easing the scalp ache she always got when she left her hair up too long. "I hope Hutch is discharged tomorrow. I have a feeling he'd pull a gun on any doctor who tries to make him stay a minute longer than the two weeks he's already been with us."

Fitz closed his briefcase, locked it. "Remind him how fortunate he is that he isn't looking at a liver or kidney transplant, and that he's back up to eighty percent lung capacity."

"Fitz."

He slid the briefcase off the table. "Yes?"

"You're okay leaving me here while you're across the country in Pennsylvania?"

The look in his eyes was warm, kind. "You proved to our bosses at DC you could do this job. You have nothing to prove to me, and you're my partner, not my patient. Just watch your sugars, don't miss meals, and don't get into any more spats with Officer Starsky."

"I think Starsky and I are on fairly good terms now."

"Right, well, I'm going back to the apartment to pack. While you're home—"

"Look in on Cassie for you? Of course. You know I will, Fitz."

"Thank you. Oh, and the next time we're both home, you should bring Mason over to have dinner with Cassie and me." Fitz smiled. "This epidemic has impacted me in a way none other has in years, and if there's one lesson I'm taking from it, it's that I shouldn't be afraid to care about an individual outcome. You shouldn't be afraid to let people care about you. Cassie and I both do."

"Fitz?"

He turned at the door. "Yes?"

"I'll probably be here most of the night, and I know you're likely to get an early flight, so… well, thank you, for everything, and have a safe flight."

"I'll call and check on you. Keep you updated on the situation in Pennsylvania."

~*~

Part Three

Hutch stroked the seat on either side of his legs, caressed the dashboard, and patted the radio and its mike. Sweltering in his loose navy shirt and khakis, he fought a twinge of panic. Starsky didn't look flushed or uncomfortable, and his black leather jacket over that red cotton button-up and dark jeans should have him drenched with sweat and baked by those solar rays through the windshield. Maybe the late-afternoon sun had found a weak spot in the glass on the passenger side.

It's not fever. The nurse took my temp thirty minutes ago. Good old 98.6, prettiest number in the world. I'm not used to direct sunlight after two weeks in this place, that's all.

In a minute they would leave the patient pick-up bay at Lincoln Hospital, hopefully forever. Hutch gave the Torino's dashboard another fond pat.

"If you offer my car a carrot or sugar cube, I'm taking your ass back in there and telling them to fix the hole in your head."

He gave Starsky a smile. "I never thought I could be so happy to get in this eyesore."

Starsky very lightly punched his shoulder. "And to think a few weeks ago you wanted that guy at the airport to tow it away for good. Okay. Tomorrow we got that meeting with Dobey and then we're escorting Doc Kaufman to the airport. Until then, time's all ours. I'll take you anywhere you wanna go."

Hutch had an immediate answer. "Venice Beach, somewhere decent to eat, then your place." He found his spare pair of sunshades in the glove compartment and slipped them on, waiting for the sound of ignition. He heard muted sounds from outside: traffic, an ambulance siren, muffled voices. No crank of engine. "Starsky, you put the key in that little slot right there—" He got his hand swatted for his helpful effort.

"I offered to take you anywhere, and you pick three places you could go to any old time?"

"You just have to make me explain. For a few days recently I didn't know whether I'd see them any old time ever again. I've been in isolation or a regular hospital room for the last half of November. I need fresh air. I don't have to tell you why I want food that doesn't resemble a chemistry experiment."

"Yeah, but why you wanna go to my place? If we're already in Venice, why not yours?"

"I can go to Venice Place tomorrow or the next day. Listen, that last night at your place haunted me while I was in isolation waiting for you to nab Callendar. I don't need a fancy resort or hotel room, Starsky. I just want privacy, your bed, and you." He turned his head and looked out the window at the sliding door entrance to the hospital. "If you tell me now that we've got no windows separating us, you're afraid to take the chance, I'm taking you in there and telling them to fix more than just your head!"

Starsky tapped Hutch's hand until he turned his hand over and twined their fingers. "You know better'n that. You heard that doctor. You have to take it easy a while yet."

"Doctors have to be strict with discharge instructions so they don't get their asses sued off when some idiot goes out and does something stupid and lands back in the hospital. I have the green light for normal activities—"

"He said you could manage spurts of vigorous activity. You're not even supposed to try running a mile for the next two weeks."

"What's sex but vigorous activity followed by a spurt? I'm a healthy man now, Starsky. If you think you can handle it." He set Starsky's hand free and waited, heart pounding.

Tossing his keys from left hand to right, Starsky jammed the car key into the ignition with sufficient force to snap it in half. He gave Hutch a naughty smile, hotter than the sun, and then they were zooming down the lane to the parking lot exit. Hutch turned in his seat to look out the rear window for scorch marks on the pavement.

~*~

Starsky wanted to give Mother Nature a big smacking kiss for the masterpiece sunset she'd painted in celebration of her biggest fan's first walk on the beach in weeks. Sure, he had appreciation for the sunset himself, but the real attraction for him was the wonder of nature walking beside him. Hutch acted like he'd never seen a sunset in his life, gushing about that golden fire the sun was spreading across the horizon, shooting pink and orange flames skyward, making the clouds look almost purple up top. He and Hutch walked slowly side by side, each carrying their socks and shoes, making the most of the mild weather, scrunching their toes in the sand.

"Ever wonder why?" Hutch asked.

"Why what?"

"Life."

Starsky opened his mouth to say something about it being too close to dinner, or having too empty a stomach, for one of Hutch's National Geographic meets John Lennon philosophical discussions. He shut his mouth. Too recently he would've let someone cut off both of his arms for Hutch to have another day to wax philosophical.

Then again, Hutch probably wanted to know some things never changed in basic ways that counted. "You got a sunset like that to look at and you wanna talk meaning of life?"

"No, think about it, Starsk. I did. In that oxygen tent, listening to my breathing. I could hear it. Every breath I took. I kept thinking there must be something more to life than just breathing in, breathing out. Before I got sick, hell, even before Jake Donner got sick and this whole thing started, I kept feeling something was… missing."

"You find out what it is?"

Hutch stopped walking and turned to face the ocean. "This."

"You were missing the ocean?"

"No, Starsky! This!" Hutch waved those socks and suede sneakers at him. "Us walking on the beach, enjoying the sunset, letting time slip by and not caring."

"We've walked on the beach before, Hutch."

Starsky wouldn't admit it — not yet — but he also felt something different. He watched the sea breeze ruffling wisps of Hutch's hair, and thought his hair in the fading sunlight matched that gold fire Hutch had just been talking about. He shook his head at his own craziness. No way could he say that out loud. Hutch would rush him back to the Torino and tell him to break all the traffic laws to the nearest laughing academy.

Hutch looked at him, something different in his eyes. "We haven't walked on the beach like this, Starsky. Not when we knew…" He glanced around and then behind them as an evening jogger passed by, kicking up wet sand, leaving sneaker prints.

Except for the jogger, a couple playing Frisbee with their black lab, and a girl curled up with a novel on a beach blanket about ten feet away, he and Hutch had their patch of beach to themselves, and the surf offered pleasant cover noise. "Knew what, Hutch?"

"We know later tonight we'll be naked together, Starsk. That makes this different. Out here we might not be able to hold hands or put our arms around each other or stop and steal kisses, but this walk, it's—"

"Foreplay."

Hutch's smile almost made it to a grin. "Yeah. More than that, though. I knew it when I went back into isolation. It's what I fought for when that fever was trying to cook me. I knew it'd be like this. Little things, simple things, made better because now I know I'm sharing them with the person who gets to me…" Stuffing his socks down in one of the sneakers, Hutch tapped himself on the head. "Here." He spread that hand over his chest, over his heart. "Here." He patted his groin. "And here."

Ka-ching! Woo-Woo-Woo! Ding-ding-ding!

"Jackpot," said Starsky.

Oh, man. If Hutch could go out on a limb of words like that, he deserved a guy who could crawl right out there with him.

"Hey, Hutch? You mind if we put dinner off a little while? Thing is, you really do it for me. You and the beach and the sunset and how you get worked up over nature. Yeah, could we do the naked together part real soon?"

"Impatient, Starsky?"

"Hutch, f'the love of everything sacred, including our partnership, now's not the time to give me a lecture on waiting and patience and—"

"Easy, easy, hold on, this is one time I want you impatient. Remember what you said that night in the hospital? Impatience for something is a sign you want it badly."

"You saying you're impatient with me?"

Hutch turned back to the tide and discreetly adjusted himself behind the shield of his sneakers. Starsky gawked helplessly at the spectacle and ended up having to adjust himself behind his Adidas. He caught Hutch watching him.

Flushed, windblown, Hutch gave him that smile. "I wish I could race you to the car."

"Race? You nuts? I don't want you wasting your energy on running, and I'm so hard I couldn't race a snail without busting my dick. Let's walk nice and slow, huh?"

~*~

Hutch hated when strictly worded discharge instructions were worded strictly for a reason, and not the flippant one he'd given Starsky. A walk on the beach and climbing the stairs at Starsky's place had winded him more than walking up and down the hospital corridor with some nurse monitoring his progress. He was wrung out the way he got after double shifts in the heat of summer. Starsky was right: that doctor had warned him.

"Detective Hutchinson, you have to understand. Compared to this virus, influenza is a sniffle, and mononucleosis is a yawn. You're stable for discharge, but don't expect to go rock climbing or endurance running any time in the near future."

"Wait. What are you telling me? Will I have trouble with reinstatement to street duty?"

"In the short term? Yes. Long term? Likely not. You should be cleared for full duties at work after the first of the year, provided your follow-up blood work shows continued improvement in your liver and kidney function. You can start half days on desk duty next week and full days the week after. Detective, you're very fortunate to be alive."

He knew that. Staring down Death, watching It stalk closer and closer, he'd known he was the prey animal, and the zero-hour escape had heightened his senses. On that beach the sunset's colors had popped out at him; he could feel and taste the salt-stinging breeze. The roar of surf, the smell of briny sand, he'd accepted them as gifts while standing at that shoreline with Starsky. His sixth sense had been boosted as well. He'd felt Starsky's nearness in a way he never had.

Now he wanted to use every one of his senses on Starsky. He wanted his hands all over the different textures of Starsky's body, Starsky's hands on his. He wanted to breathe in Starsky's scent, taste him, watch him, and hear him, during the one activity they had never shared in years of an otherwise intimate partnership.

First he would reacquaint himself with Starsky's place and catch his breath until the limp dishrag feeling left him. Starsky's libido might be legendary, a damn good match for his own, but Hutch was fairly certain nothing could throw a wetter blanket over that mythical sex drive than worry for him.

~*~

Starsky stood in front of the bookshelves and watched Hutch give the apartment the same joyful inspection the Torino had gotten. Hutch wandered from blue sofa to kitchen, back to the coffee table to peek at the soil in the plant pots, over to the window for a look at the deck. Starsky stayed put, battling both horny impatience and another case of the nerves.

He had no intention of explaining that nervousness to Hutch. Some things men just didn't admit to. Maybe to themselves, they did, but not to anyone else.

They'd both done so much assuming since that night they shared a quarantine room. They did their best planning on the fly. They had the most success when they put plans into action seconds after they finished planning. With this, they'd had to wait, think, and build up expectations, so often a tall order for reality to fill. Especially Hutch, cooped up in that isolation room, and he'd already had several big expectations fall short.

Hutch had believed Starsky would find Callendar before the first symptoms appeared.

Starsky hadn't, and he might forgive himself in the year 2525.

Hutch had thought the serum could do its work in days.

Days had turned into two weeks of tests on top of tests, IV treatments, and all kinds of exercises to remind Hutch's body how to be healthy again.

Starsky doubted he could handle it if this new addition to their partnership was another expectation that fell short.

Yeah, Hutch could talk romantic on the beach with a sunset to end all sunsets for inspiration, but what if the first time they kissed — a real kiss, not one of those hospital room pecks — they had all the chemistry of two chunks of asphalt trying to smooch?

What if—

Then Hutch was in front of him, and Starsky stomped the what-if monster into the floor.

Hutch ran his hands down the front of Starsky's black jacket then pulled on it, tugging him closer. Starsky expected another closed-mouth brush of lips, but the gleam in Hutch's eyes told him the time for holding back had officially ended. Lifting his chin, Starsky met the challenge in Hutch's hypnotic eyes head-on. He thumbed a few strands of that soft, fine hair over Hutch's forehead, traced his fingertip along Hutch's jaw, pulled lightly on one of the little tie strings at the neckline of Hutch's blue pullover.

The glittering challenge in Hutch's eyes softened to understanding. "I know, Starsk."

"What?"

"Fantasy is about to collide with reality. No one can predict what will happen with that kind of collision. I have only one thing to say that might make it easier."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"'You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh…'"

"'The fundamental things apply…as time goes by.'" Starsky conjured his best Bogart. "'Here's lookin' at you, kid.'"

"Now, don't you see? I knew you'd get the reference. I knew I could count on hearing your Bogey pop out. We know each other, Starsky, and…"

Starsky's attention zeroed in on Hutch's mouth. He started to swoop in and cover those gorgeous lips in motion with his own, but he remembered the night Hutch woke from his fever sleep, Hutch promising to plant one on him. Well, terrific. Starsky could shove aside the macho man instinct for Hutch.

"…and we just have to trust each other and—"

"Hutch?"

"Yeah?"

"Shaddup and kiss me."

Hutch stared at him for two or three heart beats. Then he jerked Starsky into a bruising kiss. The hard heat of Hutch's mouth on his had Starsky's cock growing, lengthening in his jeans, getting good, scratchy friction. With a woman he would've kept his hips still, not wanting her to feel overwhelmed or rushed. With Hutch he didn't try to control his thrusting and grinding. Quick, sharp juts of his hips bounced him right into Hutch who tried to rub against him at every point of contact.

Oh, God. He couldn't take it anymore. He had to have Hutch in his mouth. He stretched his lips wide, slanted his face for the best angle, and palmed the nape of Hutch's neck, trying to urge him forward, beg him without begging. Hutch didn't make him wait. The first slick glide of Hutch's tongue against his, the first flick of tongue against the roof of his mouth, almost made him lose it in his jeans.

Starsky gave as good as he got, taking Hutch's face between his hands, diving into Hutch's mouth, wanting to make up for every second lost to an ugly little virus.

They pushed each other away seconds later.

Starsky staggered back into the bookshelves, pushing a few books through to the bedroom floor; Hutch wobbled back against the sofa arm. They both gulped air. Starsky couldn't look at Hutch; Hutch looked everywhere but at him.

Chemistry, for crying out loud? This was the kind of chemistry that had built the bomb.

"The place looks so neat, clean."

Burning up, Starsky slipped out of his jacket, draped it over the rattan throne chair. "When you kicked me outta the hospital room to deal with my claustrophobia, I swung by here, straightened up some. Went by your place too. Wasn't sure where you'd want to land after you flew the hospital coop so I brought some of your clothes over here."

He risked a glance at his best friend. Hutch's hair was mussed, his lips reddened, and the hard line of his cock showed through two layers of cloth when he smoothed down his shirt hem over his khakis. Starsky was afraid wanting someone this much might break him in half. Hutch gave him a hungry once-over that visually felt him up and down, calming Starsky's doubt. He wasn't in this alone. He was wanted. The confident lover inside him took over, propelling him over to Hutch.

They'd done the hard and aggressive, a rite of passage. This time they melted together into long, wet kissing broken only for them to draw in air and hug tighter. During one small break, Starsky felt the brush of Hutch's nose against his ear, up into his hair.

He turned his face to suck softly on Hutch's cheekbone. "Tell me what you want," he said against Hutch's smooth skin. "Anything. It's yours."

"Starsky, we can do acrobatic, creative, adventurous later. Right now I just want to sweat and know it's not from fever. I want you to make me breathless, the kind that doesn't come from some damn virus. I want to touch you all over. I want you to touch me."

"Oh. Fuck. They give you some mind-reader serum in those IVs you got?"

"What?!"

"You wanted me to let you in on what I was thinking about the night I jacked off for you. That's it, what I was thinking about. How I touched you in that quarantine room, ran my hand up your leg, you know, only it didn't matter it was a quarantine room with windows all around. In my fantasy I kept on touching you everywhere I wanted to."

"Let's make it reality, Starsky. We don't have yellow paper dresses, and if we did I'd cut them up into confetti before I'd ever wear one again, but we can do the rest. Better yet, we have a nice bed in there to do it on, not some isolation ward cot."

First Starsky needed another few seconds of Hutch sucking on his tongue before he got too distracted by other areas on Hutch to appreciate that hot, wet mouth. He took charge of the kiss; Hutch took charge of pushing them, moving them in the right direction. Shuffling, blind to anything but their deepening kiss, they bumped into the end of the bookshelf. Hutch lifted his head, his expression fierce in way Starsky had never seen.

Dizzy with want, Starsky let the shelf prop him as his knees buckled. He raised his arms in seduction, not surrender. "Wanna peruse my person?"

Hutch blew out of a puff of laughter. Then he moved in close, lining his body up with Starsky's. "Peruse, hell. Wanna rub my person all over your person until we catch fire."

After that Starsky had to have another taste of Hutch's mouth. He had his hands in Hutch's hair, then all over Hutch's chest, pushing up that loose blue shirt, and then down to that hard double handful in those khakis. Hutch's hands took a similar journey on him. Grinding together from the waist down, bumping wrists and hands, they got each other unzipped, and Starsky had no clear idea who unzipped whom first. He only knew he had Hutch nipping his jaw, sliding a hand behind him to squeeze and cup his ass, while he got his first touch of Hutch's cock. Three words lit up his brain: silk, slide, steel. Then Hutch curled sweaty fingers around his cock, and Starsky's brain took a vacation.

"I'll move if you will," Hutch breathed in his ear.

"Hmhph?"

"You said, 'In the bed, naked.' I said 'I'll move if you will.'"

"Oh. Okay." Starsky took a deep breath, tried to think. "Here's… what… we do. We run into the bedroom, strip down, and fall into bed. Ready? On the count'a three. One."

"Two."

"Three." With a big step to the side, Starsky spun around, and made a dash for the open doorway. If Hutch touched him anywhere he'd shoot off all over the place.

They stripped the bed down to its clean blue sheets; stripped themselves down to skin. Holding hands, they scrambled onto the bed and into a tangle of arms and legs, rolling, Starsky on top, then Hutch, both thrusting, trying to touch each other everywhere at the same time. They rolled to a stop on their sides, face to face. Starsky took hold of Hutch; Hutch took hold of him.

Bah-bump, bah-bump. Starsky felt the rhythmic beat in his chest; in his dick, pulsing against Hutch's palm; in Hutch's cock, throbbing against his palm. They held each other for ten of those heart beats before they crashed together, rubbing hard, and Starsky felt his balls draw tight at that first good, solid stroke of his cock against Hutch's. One intense look from Hutch, one raw sound from Hutch's parted lips, finished Starsky. He gasped — too soon, too fast, can't hold it — and shot hard against the firm muscle of Hutch's belly.

On the verge of drifting, he heard a snuffle. He blinked down at Hutch's cock. Still hard, it was long, slender, sturdy, a dick that matched the man it belonged to, and the man it belonged to had conked out asleep. Guess that's what the doc meant by spurts of vigorous activity. He gathered Hutch close and kissed him at his hairline.

"Ah, babe. I'll have to wait a while for you to be my tiger in the sack, hm?"

~*~

Awake, Hutch sat up in bed against pillows lined along the headboard shelf. He had to be careful how far back he leaned his head or he'd break the masts on Starsky's model ship. How was this for irony? He had fantasized in the hospital about sleeping with Starsky in this bed, and here he couldn't sleep. Well, he'd slept, all right, at the wrong time. He woke shortly afterward, his subconscious jabbing him. Starsky slept on, his subconscious relaxed for likely the first time in weeks with Hutch out of the hospital.

Hutch looked down at the lump of covers at his side. Sheets couldn't fully conceal the stunning body. Sensual, powerful, endearing. Hutch smiled fondly at the entrance to that cave of covers, the sheets fluttering with Starsky's rhythmic breathing.

He scratched his belly's crusty reminder of Starsky's desire for him. No fantasy in the world could have prepared him for what it would do to him, holding Starsky's erection: velvet over iron, so hot against his palm. No dream could do justice to Starsky's face at that moment, his rugged features tense, straining, so much like his expression when he lifted weights, but with joy making that tension and strain beautiful. Hutch was grateful he'd caught a glimpse of that before he fell asleep on his brand new lover in the middle of sex. Not one of your stellar performances, Hutchinson.

And yet he didn't want to roll out of bed and run until he outran his embarrassment. He wanted to sit here naked in Starsky's bed and redeem himself as soon as Starsky woke up.

He was accustomed to reality falling short of expectation. What had him spinning right now was the opposite. Reality with Starsky had exceeded his expectation. They hadn't mistaken buddy-buddy feelings for physical chemistry. The intensity of their friendship had whipped up a chemical cocktail that could probably replace hydroelectric power if converted to energy. Maybe that was it. Maybe that made the difference. He'd never tried putting the steps in that order. This time, he had, and he'd found something he wanted to keep, to claim for his own, to cherish, to protect.

This time I'm doing it a different way.

The lump of covers beside him suddenly twisted into a blue pretzel. Thrashing around, Starsky went still then popped his head out of the cave. Maybe Starsky's subconscious hadn't relaxed fully yet. Hutch brushed his hand through his lover's sleep matted curls.

Starsky blinked his eyes wide at Hutch, fear visibly melting into a sexy smile. "Hey."

"Hey yourself. Dreaming?"

Starsky's smile wavered. "Probably my empty gut waking me up. We never got dinner." He gave a low teasing snarl. "You won't hear me complainin' about what we did get."

"Me neither."

"You know…" Starsky yawned. "I really get what you said on the beach now. Simple things made better. You and me, we've had to share a bed before, even years ago, so yeah, I've woken up next to you. But never like this. After we got it on, and I can see where you still got some of me on you. Would've been nice to have some'a you on me, but you forgot the spurt part of vigorous activity."

"Damn. Hoped you were too far gone to notice." Hutch scooted down in bed to Starsky's level and rested on his side facing him.

"I have you too far gone to notice I came too fast?" Starsky grinned. "You're supposed to fall asleep after you come, lover boy. If I didn't have unshakeable confidence in my charms, you might've given me a complex."

"How's your recovery time, charmer? I'll show you what I can do."

Starsky's grin narrowed into a smaller smile of concern. "Hutch, I think we proved that doctor didn't get his degree from some diploma mill. Let's wait until you're stronger?"

Hutch knew then the time had definitely come to put some of Starsky's fears at rest. "Stronger? You forget who you're talking to, chump?" Kicking the covers down to the end of the bed, he dug his elbow into the mattress, his forearm vertical. "Put your money where your arm is. Let's see who's stronger."

Starsky yawned, scratching his chest, and stretched. "You're putting me on. I'm naked in bed with the guy I've been fantasizing about for weeks, and he wants to arm wrestle?"

"You're just stalling because you know I'll win."

"You got any idea how weird you are?"

"Well, I can count on you to understand me then. What's the matter, Starsk? You afraid?"

"I hoped you'd be a tiger in bed, but this wasn't what I had in mind." Starsky matched his right arm to Hutch's right, took his hand in an iron-claw grip. "All right, let's do it."

Hutch narrowed his eyes at their double fist. "Are you using your non-dominant arm to give me an edge, or because opposite arms don't match up well in this position?"

"Hutch! Are we talking or wrestling?"

Hutch brought to the wrestling match that stubborn determination that had kept him awake in the middle of a sky-high fever. Starsky started out easy on him, but his eyes widened at Hutch's healthy show of muscle, his face tightening with effort and macho competitiveness. Hutch felt the pull of a similar expression on his face. They both gripped tighter, Hutch pushing Starsky's arm over by few inches, Starsky pushing his back over the same distance. Back and forth they pushed, Hutch realizing he'd miscalculated. A battle between equally-matched opponents usually meant a war of endurance, attrition, and what he hadn't regained yet was endurance.

He saw a flash of perception in Starsky's eyes and knew he'd been made. At Hutch's next push, his last before the limp noodle sensation took over, Starsky gave way under him. Still clasping Starsky's hand, Hutch braced over him and frowned. "You let me win!"

"Ah, hey, nah, you think I'd do that to you?"

"I think…" Hutch smiled as arousal fought back the intruding fatigue. "I think I don't care what I think." He blanketed Starsky and kissed him hard, deeply, and knew his wrestling match had proven his point when Starsky encircled him in arms too strong, too tight for holding a woman, but perfect for another man.

Perfect for him.

He and Starsky jostled, bumped hip bones and groins, trying to find the best press of cock to cock, the soft furrier warmth of their balls meeting at the base of hardness and heat.

Even flat on his back, Starsky didn't know the sexual meaning of "under." He thrust up into Hutch's frantic lunges against him, powering those thrusts with his hips and ass. On one of Starsky's thrusts upward, Hutch slid his hand underneath to grip that ass. He cried out against Starsky's mouth at the sudden grip of his own ass.

Their frottage mimicked their arm wrestling: equals locked in a passionate struggle, and Hutch didn't care about the burn in his muscles. Taking the kiss offered, he pressed close, pulsing hard against Starsky, and lifted his head, needing to shout his amazement.

"Ohfuck… ohohohgood… can't… can't… s-stop-St-Starsky!"

Starsky clasped him behind the neck and pulled him down into another kiss, pushing up rapidly in the erratic rhythm of orgasm. Hutch couldn't tell who stopped coming first, or which salt-musky scent belonged to him and which to Starsky. They sounded like each other; they smelled like each other.

Too much. Too good.

The lethargy trying to pull him under couldn't numb him to the pin-prick sensation that the anvil could drop out of the sky at any second. He'd had that sensation before the radio call to come back to Lincoln Hospital, and he was happier, more fulfilled now.

There was always a kick in the teeth coming when he was this happy.

Hutch used a fistful of sheet to pat dry the silken fluid he wore on his belly again. He rolled away from Starsky and out of the bed, hurrying to find his khaki pants.

"Hutch?!"

Hutch didn't look back. He crossed the dark apartment, navigating by memory, until he got to the kitchen where he flipped on the light. The fridge had little to offer. He was in the middle of raiding Starsky's canned goods when he sensed someone watching him. He turned, can of Boyardee spaghetti-and-meatballs in hand.

Starsky stood by the phone. He'd put on pajama pants that hugged him low on the waist, his tough, arms-folded stance emphasizing all the muscles above his waistline.

Hutch had muscles of his own in all the same places; he thought about conking himself on the head with the Boyardee can to see if he could knock out this new desire for Starsky's musculature. No. He knew he couldn't. Now that his eyes had opened, all the way, he couldn't duct tape them shut, and he didn't want to.

"Didn't get dinner, you said." Hutch rummaged in the drawer where he knew Starsky kept his can opener. "Your fridge didn't have much to pick from."

"Yeah. When I cleaned up the other day I had to toss stuff. Had lots of natural penicillin and new plant life growing in there. Haven't done any grocery shopping yet."

"This'll do." Can open, Hutch found a clean fork in the utensil drawer and jammed it down in the disgustingly congealed tomato sauce and noodles.

"You're not gonna eat that cold?"

"What?" Hutch tried to stir his fork around. "It's room temperature."

"For cryin' out loud, it's— gimme that." Starsky rushed over, snatching the can before Hutch could twine noodles around his fork, and slapped the can down on the counter.

Hutch turned away from Starsky's mild glare and went back to the fridge. If he couldn't have his room-temperature spaghetti, he'd have fridge-chilled beer. He listened to the sounds of Starsky putting a pot on the stove and dumping in the mass of sauce and noodles and fake-looking meatballs.

Good. While the chef was distracted, he would just grab a can of beer, and—

The beer can got snatched from his grasp and shoved back on the fridge shelf.

"You know Judith said no booze until that follow-up blood work on your liver."

"Damn it, Starsky!" He slammed the fridge door shut. "I'm fine. Am I a human banana now? No. My liver is fine. One fucking beer won't—"

"Stop!" Starsky grabbed him by the shoulders and backed him up against the fridge. "Just stop. Here's how the next few minutes will play out. You with me? We heat up that can of Boyardee. Voila. Spaghetti dinner. And while you're stuffing your face with processed food you'd usually never eat if you were starving, you can tell me what's got you ready to run. 'Cause guess what? You're with a guy now. I know ready-to-run when I see it."

"Who's running? I'm standing in your kitchen. Do I look like I'm running?"

"Uh-huh. I know you better'n I know my own dick."

"Besides making me worry about your hygiene, that's an exaggeration."

Starsky stared at him, serious and quiet. Oh, boy. Time to quit pushing. Hutch stood and fumed while Starsky heated the pot of spaghetti. Fumed and promised himself the first night they spent at Venice Place he'd do up a pot roast and vegetables. Then he decided he could fume while he brewed a pot of coffee. As far as he knew, caffeine wasn't on the no-no list. If he heard one word out of Starsky's mouth about coffee, he'd run screaming from the apartment with no shirt on and no shoes.

They sat down in the two red canvas chairs at the table, the pot of spaghetti doled out on two plates, two cups of coffee fixed to their respective tastes. Hutch choked down two forkfuls of tart sauce and gooey noodles and two swallows of piss-poor coffee.

Two, two, two….

Hutch made a mental note to never again attempt coffee preparation while he wanted to jump out of his skin and run out into the night. Yes, Starsky knew him. Ready to run.

"Is it the sex? It's different than what we're used to. I know. I get it. Don't sweat it, Hutch. We're jumping into bisexuality together; we'll figure out the sex together."

Hutch shook his head. This was ridiculous. He wouldn't make Starsky play twenty questions with him. "I'm not worried about the sex. We didn't have one clue between us what we were doing, but you got me off like I hadn't come in a year instead of a month."

"You did the same for me." Starsky's headshake was so affectionate Hutch wanted to kiss him. "What's the problem?"

Hutch dragged his fork through the puddle of tomato sauce on his plate. "If we're that intense now when we're clueless, what'll it be like after we get past the awkward failures, the macho power struggling we'll get around to eventually, and any of our buried hang-ups? What about when we really know how to touch and suck and fuck each other?"

"I can't wait to find out, and hey, I'm looking forward to that stuff you listed that comes first. Meanwhile I'm trying to work out why you're making a good thing sound bad."

Hutch rubbed his back where the canvas chair had made him itch. "I think I'm in trouble, Starsky. I want too much. I won't settle for a little of you here, a little of you there. Damn. I know that sounded—"

"Listen, Hutch—"

"Jesus! This is what happens when I give up hiding my vulnerabilities. I'm trying to say I want us to be exclusive, but I don't know if it's possible in the world we have to live in, or if it's even something you want, or—"

"Hutch!"

Hutch went quiet. Great, now he had Starsky ready to run. They had different bolting points and different boiling points. He drank down a few more swallows of the gym-sock coffee and tried to decipher Starsky's expression. He got a jolt through both the heart and balls. This was the look he'd seen in Starsky's eyes above that mask in that isolation room… both times. This was the look Starsky saw in his eyes.

The look of a man in love.

"What makes you think I don't wanna grab for the brass ring?" Starsky asked. "I want the same thing you do. Exclusive? Fuck, yeah. I meant what I said in that isolation room. You're mine. I'm yours. We try for it all, or we don't try at all, that's my take on it."

"Sounds great in theory, Starsk. How do we square theory with practice? We're cops in a city where Whitelaw lost that city council election by a damned landslide. People — the wrong people — will notice if we're suddenly off the market."

"We keep talking the swinging bachelor game we lived for years, and if we're careful how we talk it, the department busybodies won't bother trying to prove it's just talk for a change." Starsky looked down at the small mound of spaghetti on his plate, made a sound of disgust and pushed the plate aside. "Can't live together. That's out."

Damn it, if Starsky could grab for the brass ring, Hutch could make a grab for it himself.

"No, it's not."

"Hutch, you know we can't—"

"We can't get away with one address. We'll look at this place and Venice Place as ours. Two residences, one household. Like you said, if we're careful, in this case where we park our cars, somebody will have to go to a lot of trouble to prove we're together at the same place every night."

"You think Dobey won't put two and two together when he has to call around looking for one of us more than a few times?"

"We'll find a way around that. We've made a hobby out of putting him through guessing games. We have to protect him anyway. He can't know."

"Two residences. One household. I like it." Starsky pulled his plate back over and twined a big forkful of spaghetti. "I got another idea how we can protect ourselves. Cover of a kind, I guess, not the kind you don't want, but you'll blow your top when you hear it."

Hutch tensed and put down his coffee cup. He didn't want to risk boggling his cup and sloshing hot coffee on his lap. "Starsky, just hit me with it. I always brace for the worst when you try to prepare me for something."

Starsky balled up his napkin and dropped it on the table. "This didn't go over so hot when I did prepare you for it. Hear me out, okay? Don't blow hot until I'm done. Deal?"

"Starsky!"

"Okay, okay. It's about the house. The one you called a money pit with a leaky roof over it? Well—" Starsky chuckled, sounding nervous, and scratched the corner of his right eye. "I didn't exactly call the real estate company and withdraw our offer."

Hutch flatted his palms on the table and leaned on them, wanting support in the middle of joy and surprise that left him lightheaded. "What do you mean, you didn't exactly—"

"I mean I didn't withdraw it. Okay? Look, when we first decided, or well, we talked and you decided I'd call them up and back out, I thought I'd wait, try again to talk you into it, and then that plague hit, and so now we got to be at the closing on Monday."

That little house was still theirs! That beautiful cockroach-hotel was still theirs! Hutch thought he had to look like someone walking into Shangri-La.

Starsky must have seen something else. He got that frying-pan-into-fire look on his face, and he flicked his fingers against Hutch's wrist, lightly brushing the skin, a little calming touch. "Don't start yelling yet, Hutch. Hold on. See, I got this idea we can use the fix-up as cover for spending even more time off the job together. I already spread it around the station that we're into it for the investment, like Yost in Homicide, right, and we can drag a project like that out for months and months. Shit, when you freeze before you start yelling, I'm really in for it. Hutch? How, uh, how pissed off are you?"

"Starsky."

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and kiss me."

~*~

He should've known. Soon as he put on the old brown leather jacket, the one he'd worn for days during the worst of the virus scare, he should've stripped it back off again. When Dobey raised them on police band and told them to meet him in Chief Ryan's office, Starsky knew for certain. The piper was in town, and wanted a blank check with Starsky's John Hancock on the signature line.

On the way down the hall to Ryan's office, Starsky tugged on the elbow of Hutch's jacket sleeve and pointed. "That doesn't look good."

Dobey waited outside Ryan's glass door, and he had on his impress-the-chief suit.

Hutch thumbed a spot under his bottom lip. "Let's turn around before Dobey sees us, go pick up Judith, take her to the airport early, and buy two tickets to somewhere sunny and warm with plenty of water, trees, movie theaters, and hamburger stands."

"Eh-eh. Too late."

The captain was waving them over. Hutch straightened his beige windbreaker, made sure his plaid shirt was neatly tucked into his dark jeans. Starsky didn't bother with last-second spit and polish. His clean button-up shirt would pass Ryan's inspection, but his old jeans, bomber jacket, and shoes didn't stand a chance. Who cared?! Nothing good could come of this gathering, and he and Hutch weren't officially punching the city's clock yet.

Dobey motioned at Starsky. "Go on in. The chief's waiting. I want a word with Hutch."

Starsky feigned sniffing under his arms. "What am I, smelly chopped liver?"

"I want to ask Hutch how he's doing, and if your two ears aren't around, I might get an answer that doesn't come verbatim out of the tough-guy-partnership dictionary."

Hutch gave Starsky a nod, a quick on-duty smile. No arguing with that. On his way into the office, Starsky reminded himself that Chief of Detectives Ryan wasn't just a gray-headed, balding member of the Establishment with bad glasses, bad acne scars, and a taste for drab suits. He was the man who had signed off on immunity for Callendar.

That bought him a sincere smile from Starsky. "Chief."

Very official in one of his dark suits, Ryan sat with rigid posture in the chair behind his desk, and didn't smile. "Starsky."

Starsky put on his business-before-pleasure face and nodded his respect at the picture of John F. Kennedy on the wall just inside the office. The door behind him opened, Dobey entering first and taking up a post in front of the wall map adjacent to Ryan's desk. Hutch came in next, discreetly squeezing Starsky right below the neck. Starsky tried to hide his surprise at Hutch touching him like that in the chief's office. Ryan either didn't notice or didn't think anything of it. That wasn't surprising to Starsky. Everyone in Metro Division had seen him and Hutch exchange touches at one time or another. Dobey just folded his arms under his gut and stared straight ahead.

"Good to see you're out of the hospital and doing better, Hutchinson."

"Thank you, sir."

"Harold told me you men are taking the lady from Disease Control to the airport this morning. We'll keep this meeting brief. Hutchinson, what are you looking at in terms of medical clearance for duty?"

"I'm cleared for half days admin starting Monday, then full admin the next week. Doc thinks I'll get clearance for full street duty by sometime in January, February."

"I'm putting you and Starsky on departmental restructuring leave until January. You won't have to get street duty clearance, Hutchinson, just investigative officer clearance."

"What?!" Starsky blared, wondering why Hutch wasn't yelling with him. "Why?!"

Dobey's face tensed, but Ryan didn't bat an eye at Starsky's yell. "Lieutenant Wilfram retired last month. He was in charge of cold case homicides. Instead of offering the position to another mustang lieutenant, I want the two of you taking it over as a team."

Starsky flinched as if Ryan had come out from behind his desk and landed a one-two punch right in the spot where a hard hit could make a guy puke. He couldn't look at Hutch and see quiet acceptance or resignation. All he'd asked of whatever power spun the Fates was for his punishment to be his alone. Shit! He turned his back to everyone in the room and peered through the slits between blinds on the window much as he had at Lincoln Hospital in that doctor's office he never wanted to see again.

"That's it? I get demoted, but that's not enough for the big guns downtown. Hutch gets sent to the dungeon with me? What'd he do, huh? What false moves did he make? He didn't open his big trap to Allan Kelsey. He didn't net a pile of bullshit complaints from crybabies who didn't get what a state of emergency that plague was… or who don't care."

"Starsky!" Dobey snapped.

"It's all right, Harold. Sergeant, I don't know where you get a demotion out of being offered your own subdivision of Homicide to run with your partner. Would you prefer Hutchinson go back on the streets without you?"

"No, he damn well wouldn't, and neither would I, and you know it!"

Relieved by the heat in Hutch's moderated shout, Starsky didn't have to echo it. He stared at the dust on the blinds. "Come on, Chief. Working cold cases is for guys wanting to coast the last year of their twenty with the department. Wilfram shuffled the files, dusted them occasionally. Did he make a single arrest on an unsolved homicide? Nope. He didn't care. Arrest record meant nothing to him anymore. You can call it what you want, but you're shoving a desk at us."

~*~

Hutch wanted to throttle someone, but no one in the chief's office had invited violence. Smacking the commissioner of police and half the members of the supervisory board might make him feel better for a few minutes, but it wouldn't do Starsky any good.

In the hall outside Ryan's office, Dobey hadn't wanted an update. He'd issued a warning.

"It didn't blow over, Hutch. What the chief's about to offer you and Starsky is the only way to keep your partnership, and he had to stick his neck out to get this approved. You take the chief up on this deal, or you're looking at a transfer, and Starsky has to go before a disciplinary board. The climate's bad, Hutch. The suits downtown want to make an example of Starsky to look good to Washington and Interpol. It's not just Starsky. The chief's had a formal reprimand put in his record, and I… well, let's get in there. You'll hear it from the chief."

Personally Hutch thought it was par for the course for the top brass at the BCPD. Starsky had risked his life trying to avoid shooting that kid Lonnie Craig, and the department thanked him by televising the coroner's inquest. Internal Affairs had tried to make ground hamburger out of Hutch after he'd killed Corman in self defense during the Stryker case. Every time he and Starsky had busted a dirty cop they'd had to watch each other's backs even more closely… and not just because of retaliation from fellow officers with blind loyalty to the Blue Wall. The highest leadership in the BCPD didn't like egg on the face.

Hutch glanced at Starsky's back, the tense set to his shoulders, a soldier in military stance, or defiantly facing a firing squad. That sight sliced Hutch open, a pain he felt far deeper than the surface pain of losing his zebra-unit career.

Starsky had saved his life. By God, Hutch would save Starsky's self respect. To do so, he had to think faster and better than he ever had in his life except for that night in Dobey's office trying to puzzle through Marcus's sadistic riddles.

That was it!

Hutch snapped his fingers. "Finally came to your senses, Chief?" He gave the captain a significant look. Dobey's lips twitched, but his bark of "Hutchinson!" sounded real. "No, Captain. Before Starsky and I agree to this career opportunity, we deserve to hear the real reason it's being offered to us."

"What are you talkin' about?" Starsky gave him an are-you-nuts glance over his shoulder.

"This is our own fault, Starsky."

"My fault Hutch, not yours."

"No. This isn't connected to the Callendar investigation. We brought this on ourselves, buddy. We were so good at our jobs we got noticed. Nobody ever connects Stryker, how many times did we hear that? We got him. Nobody had a prayer of making a bust stick on Delano. We did it. Amboy? Invincible… until we went to work on him. Who blew the lid off that brainwashing organization that took out Durniak? You and me. Nobody wanted to try putting a case together against Simon Marcus. We thumbed our noses at the two-bit perverted freak-show. When the Justice Department couldn't get anywhere with the Thorne investigation on Playboy Island, who got called in? We did."

Starsky had turned back to the window, but his shoulders relaxed. With Starsky's back to him, Dobey wasn't trying to hide a smile. Ryan kept a straight face.

"Chief Ryan wants to clean up the huge backlog of cold cases," Hutch continued. "Who does he call on? Us. You're right, Starsky. Some aging lieutenant who'd rather be deep sea fishing won't give those old case files the kind of attention it takes to find a fresh clue in the middle of stale evidence, old forensic reports, and freeze-dried witness statements. But the chief knows if you and I tear into them, in no time we'll be pulling murderers off the street who've gotten complacent, who think they got away with it."

Starsky turned slowly, giving him a probing, skeptical look, reminding Hutch — as if he needed the reminder — that this wasn't a man likely to shell out money for a bridge any time soon. Starsky turned that look on Ryan. "Is he right? Is that what this is about?"

Hutch gave Ryan a different look, silently pleading with him. Back me up, for God's sake, and I'll cut my hair and wear a suit to work and name my next plant after you.

Grimacing, Ryan adjusted his glasses, striking just the right note of discomfort. "I'd say Hutchinson accurately stated this office's position on the matter. Two go-getter detective sergeants stand a better chance of cracking frozen homicides than a tired lieutenant nearing retirement. Understand something. This is a permanent reassignment. I won't risk losing good case closers to hazardous street duty. If you come across a case requiring undercover investigation, you'll have the authority to choose which team from Captain Dobey's roster you want going under, and oversee the operation itself."

Starsky widened his eyes at Hutch, then at the chief. "We're on Cap'n Dobey's roster."

"Not anymore. With the restructuring, I'm no longer your direct superior. You'll be answering directly to Chief Ryan." Dobey's short, gruff laugh warned them a bad joke was coming. "That means while you're playing Holmes and Watson, I won't have to guzzle down as much milk of magnesium or take as many aspirin."

"I'll need your answer by Monday," Ryan said. "Take the weekend, think about it, talk about it, and give me a call."

They didn't speak on the way out of the office — not a time for words; both Dobey and Ryan would understand that. Hutch didn't say a word to Starsky on the way to the elevator. Starsky kept his own counsel. They rode down to the ground floor in tension-free silence, and Hutch had the sense they were soaking up strength from each other.

Starsky's stride down the main floor corridor didn't have the almost "sightless" pushiness of his angriest storming down that hall, but Hutch matched his pace to Starsky's and threw warning looks at anyone approaching. Hassle my partner right now about anything, you'll get one angry cop in your face, and I don't mean Starsky.

Hutch took a deeper breath in relief when they made it safely down Metro's front steps to where Starsky usually parallel parked for in-and-out meetings and debriefings. The silence hadn't broken and didn't show the first sign of cracking. Starsky walked around to the driver's side, opened the door, gave traffic a cursory glance, and shut the door again.

"Starsk?"

Starsky clenched his jaw, closed his eyes. Not a good idea on the side of the car nearest the street. With a tight headshake and roll of his shoulders, he opened his eyes and stretched halfway over the Torino's roof, reaching out. Hutch didn't question it when he saw that Starsky was passing over his car keys. He took the keychain, making sure he touched Starsky's hand in the process, and after a moment of eye contact, they crossed paths around the car, trading places.

Behind the wheel, Hutch watched his sprawled passenger.

Starsky sat with loose-goose posture, but the tension in his jaw said everything he was trying to bottle up inside. "Take me somewhere with people, background noise, where I can think. We got time before we're due at Judith's."

Hutch drove.

Minutes later, thanks to light traffic, he parked in the empty spot nearest the neon Mar-Lin-Do sign, and wanted to smack himself for letting his subconscious chart his course. Fugitives from the BCPD and federal authorities, he and Starsky had holed up in the twenty-four-hour bowling alley with Terry Nash, trying to piece together the Durniak murder puzzle. Betrayed again. How many times do we let them do this to us?

Starsky didn't say a word while Hutch secured a lane for them and rented their shoes. Somehow going through the expected motions felt right, if not practical. Hutch doubted they would bowl any frames. He knew he wouldn't. He had no intention of bowling one strike only to get that overcooked noodle lethargy. He burned with fury as it was. No use pouring the gasoline of fury at his own temporary frailty onto the fire.

Hutch sat in one of the plastic scoop-seat chairs at the scoring table and played spectator to his lover's angry bowling prowess. Starsky's delivery lost a little grace to his cold, quiet rage, but his accuracy didn't suffer. One strike, two, three, Starsky bowled unerring cannon balls at those pins, reloading and firing the instant the pins refreshed.

Less than ten minutes of bowling therapy satisfied Starsky. Shrugging, flapping the plackets of his leather jacket to cool himself, he joined Hutch at the scoring table, claiming the scoop seat next to him. Hutch didn't know what to say. Since leaving Metro he'd had a nasty gut instinct that he hadn't succeeded in hiding the department's treachery from Starsky, but he didn't want to prove himself wrong by giving the game away. He couldn't think of a single joke that wouldn't cut with cruelty.

Starsky sat with that same deceptive loose sprawl, bracing the sole of his right bowling shoe on the edge of the table, and hooked his thumbs in his denim waistband. Hutch assessed their privacy. No bowlers occupied the lanes beside theirs. If they talked at slightly lower than normal volume, they had no worries of being overheard.

Without looking at him, Starsky broke the silence. "I love you. Like crazy. What you did for me in Ryan's office… man. As Georgie Girl would say, you're top drawer."

The affectionate words thrilled Hutch. The implication that Starsky knew he'd been served up on a platter, freshly roasted scapegoat with au jus on the side, made Hutch queasy. "I love you, too, and you're in that top drawer with me, but I didn't do any—"

"Come off it, Hutch. If there's one thing you got no talent for, it's playing dumb. I know we're looking at a this-or-else scenario here. Dobey's never had a problem asking you how you're doing in front'a me, and that neck squeeze you gave me was a dead giveaway you thought I needed comforting for something. Dobey gave you a heads-up?"

"Yes."

"Tell me what he toldya, Hutch. Did me a world of good playing along in front of the chief, but I need to hear the hard truth from you now."

Hutch told him what the captain had said in the hallway.

Starsky's responsive laughter was dark. "I don't give a shit about Cicchino's girl and her woe-is-me routine. She's a bigoted opportunist who thinks if she yells loud enough, long enough, she'll get some sleazy lawyer to file a lawsuit against the city. And those County Yellow yokels? They're the kind who'd complain if Ma Kettle had come in there asking questions. The Allan Kelsey thing doesn't bother me either. If Interpol and the Feds don't have more important things to worry about, they oughta be grateful."

"Starsky, I had to play fast and loose with regulations when time started running out after you were poisoned, or when I was racing the clock trying to find where Marcus's cult disciples had you stashed. I just didn't have national and international attention to contend with later, the way you did after the Callendar thing."

Starsky stared down the lane at the fresh set of pins. "Funny, huh? The times I know I racked up some legitimate bad karma, the people involved aren't complaining at all."

"What are you talking about?"

"Huggy. Came unglued on him for a few seconds out there. I wasn't what you'd call a soft touch with Helen Yeager, and putting her on TV with her in that state over her kid—" Starsky made a face. "And Judith. I put her on the floor." He twirled his fingers in a gesture of someone pirouetting to the floor in a faint.

"You what?"

"You know she's a diabetic. Not just any kind. Something called brittle. I pulled a little bad-cop on her trying to convince her and Meredith to go for the TV appeal. She got antagonized, and when brittle diabetics get antagonized on top of missing a meal or something, they tend to—" Starsky scratched his sideburn, thumbed the tip of his nose. "Uh. Swan dive. She was okay, though, after Meredith got some OJ in her and a sugar tablet. Went on TV and everything."

"Starsk. Ah, buddy."

Starsky looked over at him in wide-eyed surprise. "Hey, I'm not the one who fainted."

"No, and I hate that happened to Judith, but this whole thing, it's been rough on you in ways people don't realize. Usually you and I can divide the antagonizing that has to be done along the way. Halve the conscience burden, you know?"

"My conscience can take a bruisin' now and again for a good cause. That's my point. The people I think I might've roughed up a little emotionally, they don't hold it against me. They had a lot to lose, same as me. They got what we were all up against. Only thing I'm having a real hard time with right now is that you gotta take this ride with me."

Anger gave Hutch that uncomfortable fever-flush feeling across his face. "You come off it! There isn't one goddamned ride in life's broken-down amusement park I wouldn't strap myself in with you, and if you don't know it, you're not just playing dumb."

Starsky looked at him then, his eyes bright with pain. "Hutch, I gotta know. Look me in the eyes and tell me how you really feel about this reassignment. Honest t'God."

"Honest to God? I'll miss some of the street action. So will you. But maybe it's time for a change. We get to keep our partnership, our badges. We'll have a chance to give the families of murder victims the justice that's been denied them… for years in some cases. It won't be easy living under Ryan's microscope, but it'll be worth it, when we start making arrests. You know the psychology, Starsk. A killer who beats the odds and goes free often finds it real easy to kill again. We could take them out of society before they have a chance to pad the statistics."

"Yeah. I thought of that while I was over there aggravating my trick bowling shoulder. You think we really can break some of those old cases?"

"Starsky, that wasn't all false bravado in Ryan's office. Hell, yes, I believe we can make a difference in those unsolved murders. Together we could rob Fort Knox in one of those plush two-part horse costumes, and have the Feds issuing warrants for Mr. Ed."

Starsky's sneeze sounded suspiciously like a muffled laugh.

"On a more serious note, you're dreaming at night, aren't you? Something about me and the virus." He rubbed Starsky's back from one shoulder to the other, one quick safe touch in public. "I know, Starsk. I did my share of bad dreaming after you were poisoned, after you were abducted. I'm sure you had nightmares about me before this. They go away in time, you know that, but maybe with us off the streets, yours will go away sooner."

Starsky skittered fingertips through Hutch's hair in back. "Wouldn't come off the streets just to shake lousy dreams, but I'll take it as a fringe benefit. Also thought about how the IA spotlight won't be nearly as bright on a couple of cold case detectives."

"Okay then. Do you hear a lot of bad in any of that? I don't."

Starsky's smile showed teeth and crinkled the laughter lines at the corner of his eyes, brighter now with happiness. A real, full face smile. "All right, Watson. Let's do it. We'll teach that Commissioner 'Lestrade' a thing or two."

Hutch gave Starsky's raised knee a little shove. "There you go. Wait. Why am I Watson?"

"You're the one who said you'd always wanted to play doctor."

"Will you ever let me live down that dumb remark?"

Starsky's smile widened. "Nope. Not a chance. Come on. Right now we got to play airport taxi service for a real doc."

~*~

They had come full circle. As he rode the concourse escalator on the stair behind Hutch and Judith, Starsky folded his magazine, tucked it under his arm, and glanced around, hardly able to believe how different his life had become since the day he and Hutch met Jake Donner's flight in from Europe.

The woman in front of him had really dressed up for her flight to Alabama. That blue wool wrap dress still didn't reveal lot of leg, but it was quietly seductive with class. He wondered if she had someone meeting her two time zones away. He hoped she did. He'd claimed his jackpot; he wanted every other lonely, searching soul to find theirs.

God, he was oozing so much lovesick sap from every pore he'd ruin his clothes, and why did he see Judith as some lonely, searching soul? Maybe she bounced from lover to lover.

Yeah, and that constant bouncing could be the loneliest search of all, he knew.

The thought of doing all of his bouncing with Hutch for the rest of their lives didn't make him feel chained down. He breathed deep, really expanding his chest. He felt free.

They found a relatively quiet spot near Judith's gate for saying their goodbyes. Hutch took Judith's hand in a shake and then clasped her small hand in both of his. "Will you get any time off for the holidays?"

"Probably not. Fitz called last night from Pennsylvania. Doesn't sound good. I'll be flying out to meet him on Tuesday, and I have no idea how long we'll have to stay. Monday I have to debrief our boss at DC on this epidemic. I'll have this weekend for myself."

"A weekend?! After all the hours you put in here?" Hutch had that soft-blanket look of concern. "Doesn't your boss have anyone else on the payroll?"

"I'm a working lady."

"You're a masochist and a pushover."

Starsky swallowed a laugh. "That's no thing to say to a lady."

"Who asked you?" To Judith he said, "Thank you, for all the hours in the lab, for trying to make a rough time easier. Thank Doc Meredith again for me next time you see him."

"You're welcome." She smiled at both of them. "If you two are ever in Alabama, look me up. I'll show you the sights in Montgomery, Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and a little town in between called Independence Grove."

"We just might accept that invitation someday," Hutch told her.

Starsky shoved his slipping magazine tighter up under his arm. "I heard of those other places, but what's in Independence Grove?"

"Oh, sticks and coonhounds and rabid Crimson Tide football fans." She flushed prettily. "Home, I think. I hope." She patted Hutch's hand and rose up to kiss his cheek. He let her go, standing aside, and she left a matching kiss on Starsky's cheek, tilting her head at the announcement of her boarding call. "Well, gentlemen, it has been exciting."

With one last brighter smile divided evenly between them, Judith started toward her gate, turning around halfway there to wave goodbye. He and Hutch waved.

"Um-um," said Hutch.

"Um-um-um," Starsky agreed. "You know, I think you had a chance there."

Hutch swung a glare at him. "Starsky, don't bait me somewhere I can't park my tongue down your throat. Anyway, what about you? She planted one on you too."

"She gives a decent hug for a skinny little sawbones, but I'm hung up on a big, blond beauty." Starsky took him by the arm and tugged him in the direction of the escalator. "Come on, I'm gonna take you home and tuck you in. You are ready for the big leagues."

Hutch went along with the tugging for a few feet before he dug in his heels. "Wait a second. Just wait a second. A decent hung for a skinny little sawbones? Yeah, I heard that. When were you hugging Judith, Casanova?"

"Hutch, it was nothing. We'd just got the call from Callendar that he was on his way in. Hell, if Meredith had been standing in front'a me instead, I would've hugged him."

Hutch had lost the battle with a smile. Starsky watched him try to pack some threat into another glare and wanted to laugh. The love in Hutch's eyes ruined the effect.

"Starsky." Hutch lowered his voice, deepened it in a stern whisper. "Your lover is over six feet tall. He's possessive as hell. He can pin you in a wrestling ring and beat you at arm wrestling. And he's licensed to carry a firearm. What's all that tell you?"

They took the same stair on the escalator.

Starsky quirked his lips, trying to hide his own grin. "Tells me next time I got my arms around a beautiful medical professional, it better be one of the nurses at the old folks home when we're a hundred."

"Smart man."

"In the immortal words of my grandmother, we should live so long."

"No-o, no, we're gonna live like those dudes do in Azerbaijan. We're gonna live."

Starsky felt his grin trying to break free. "Yeah, well, if I could pronounce it then I might begin to understand what you're talking about."

Hutch touched his arm. "Starsky, it's that village. That village where people live to 148 and beyond." He flapped his hand at Starsky. "Ah, forget it. You're looking at a man in the prime of his life with a hundred-plus to go. Huh?" He elbowed Starsky in the arm.

Okay, he couldn't play it cool anymore. Hutch sounded happy… the kind of happy that meeting in Ryan's office couldn't touch. That happiness bursting out of Hutch always made Starsky feel lighter than air and superheroic.

Grinning openly, he pretended to flinch to the side at Hutch's playful elbow jab. "Hey, watch it, pal. You're gettin' stronger every day. Okay. Where we go from here? Vegas, Tahoe, San Luis Obispo, wherever, if you can pronounce the place, I'll take you there."

Hutch laughed. "Nah. We can get out of town for the holidays. Why don't we spend this weekend at our other residence, our garden villa?"

"Our what? Hutch, don't tell me that eight-letter word that starts with M and ends in Y has already flipped your lid."

"No, no, moron. Venice Place. The greenhouse? I was trying to color our gray truth. I want to check on my plants, drive my car—"

"Not enough fancy words in the world to color the beige truth you drive around in—"

"—call my parents… what? What'd you say about my car?"

Starsky laughed.

~*~

Judith spotted Mason the instant the crowd of debarking passengers dispersed in front of her. Not too hard to spot Mason Brantley. Six-five, rail thin, a football fanatic born a preemie who had grown into a basketball player's body, he was the South's answer to Ichabod Crane, his shock of light brown hair currently covered with a Santa hat.

Not just any Santa hat.

Judith gasped with laughter. Instead of plush red material in the usual place, Mason's Santa hat sported plush material in outdoorsman camouflage. That was Mason, poking fun at himself and his stereotype. Knowing Mason, he'd already hung the little menorah rearview mirror ornament in his jeep. Judith had never gotten him to tell her where he found a menorah rearview mirror ornament in Alabama. But that was Mason too, showing her he loved her in the tiniest, simplest ways that meant so much.

Mason's thin face lit with a big happy grin. He waved. So happy to see his long right leg free of a cast, so happy to see him, Judith let out a little squeal and rushed over. He swung her up in a hug against his bulky University of Alabama jacket.

Mason had accepted his body shape and the basketball scholarship his natural athleticism had earned him, but football would always be his first love when it came to sports. Judith fully intended to be sweet, funny, easygoing Mason's first love when it came to people.

~*~

Epilogue

February 1978

"Evidence?"

Starsky patted the sealed box on his side of their pushed-together desks. "Check."

Hutch put a check by Evidence on the checklist. "Forensic reports?"

Starsky held up two folders. "Check."

Hutch marked off Forensics. "Witness statements?"

Starsky held up a thinner folder. "Check."

"Original case files?"

A knock on the door interrupted the inventory. "Come in!" Starsky called.

The door opened to reveal one stocky brunet and one beanpole with an auburn mullet. Both men had on the street cop thrift store uniform of scruffy jeans and raggedy jackets over t-shirts. Their clothes made Hutch nostalgic… for about three seconds.

Detectives DeLuca and Avery, who hadn't yet dropped by to crack office-warming jokes, came in and exaggerated their inspection of the new cold case office. DeLuca stopped in front of the potted ficus in the corner and shook the thin trunk as if he could get fruit to drop out of the foliage above.

"Hey!" Hutch faked a snap. "Leave Ryan alone. He's sensitive."

Avery gaped at him. "You got a houseplant in your office named Ryan?"

Starsky stretched over to Hutch's desk and put a checkmark by Original Case Files. "My partner wants to name a plant Ryan, he gets no arguments from me or anybody else. You guys here to rag on us for the new office or what?"

"Stuck in the cold case freezer for, what, five weeks now, and you only made one arrest so far?" DeLuca clucked his tongue. "Don't see why you guys deserve your own office."

Hutch rolled his eyes. "The Peter Devlinson murder went unsolved for over two years. We cracked it in one month with some undivided attention. You turkeys think we have some special homicide ouija board that tells us who the killer is?"

"You look weird enough to own one, yeah. Can't get used to it, Hutch, you in a suit. Man, with that shorter haircut, you look like a three-figure corporate lawyer."

"Don't insult me, Avery."

"Now Starsky hasn't changed at all."

"Thanks a lot." Starsky did a three-quarter turn, modeling his clean jeans, suede blazer, and nice shirt. "I give this office some urban style."

Hutch thought Starsky's new wardrobe was sexier than sin on a stick, but more importantly, the court casual look got past Chief Ryan's stern eyes. "What do you guys want? We're busy lining up the case materials for the Pie Town Pizzeria homicide."

Avery pulled a photo from the inside pocket of his jacket. "We want a favor."

Starsky glanced across the desk at Hutch. "Uh-oh."

"No, guys, listen, you'll be all over this, trust me." DeLuca traced an hourglass in the air and made a lewd gesture to go with it. "Dobey's got us playing nursemaid, and Avery and me don't want trouble with our old ladies. Mrs. Avery and Mrs. DeLuca never handle it real well when we gotta guard the lovelies, you catch my drift?"

Hutch smirked. This was an easy out. "Can't help you. We don't take orders from Dobey."

"That's just it!" Avery wagged the photo up and down. "You're next door to colleagues with him now, get it, and you could beg him real nice and he'd probably let you on the gig off the record, so to speak. What the chief doesn't know won't kill him."

"Come on." Starsky gave the detectives skeptical scrutiny. "You guys never complained before about cushy assignments. What's wrong with this chick?"

"Some dancer from Russia is in town and the State Department wants to play nice without using any of their flunkies, so the BCPD has to offer babysitting services in case someone tries to breathe too American on her or something." Avery handed Starsky the photo. "I spent last night outside her hotel suite. Tonight's Del's turn."

Starsky let out a wolf whistle. "Nothing serious going down? Threats, things like that?"

"Nah, man." DeLuca pretended to twirl around in an obnoxious pirouette. "Just Cold War courtesy. But she's just… damn. She can't even say America without sounding like she wants to hock something up and spit, y'unnerstand?"

Hutch snatched the photo from Starsky. He recognized her from a recent Arts & Culture magazine spread, and understood Starsky's whistle: the fair-haired dancer was a looker. His cock twitched in his under-shorts; his face heated. "Anna Akhanatova, the prima ballerina of the Kirov Ballet."

Avery smiled. "See there? You sound interested, Hutch. Take this attitude problem in toe shoes off our hands, will you? You could finesse her. After the police bodyguard stuff's out of the way, you might land on her dance card, know what I mean?"

"Sorry. No can do."

"Why not?" DeLuca demanded.

"Because I have some hot-and-heavy action of my own, and that action's a sure thing, and here in the good old US of A to stay. Why would I blow that for a potential fling with some visiting dancer who probably has a Politburo homing device in her panties?"

Avery burst out laughing.

DeLuca turned a hopeful smile on Starsky. "Whattaya say, Starsky? You want a chance to heat up the Cold War instead of unthawing cold cases for a while?"

"Man, I'd love to help you guys out, but I'm with Hutch on this one. I got a midnight meet with the most beautiful thing since… since…."

Meditative discipline helped Hutch keep a neutral expression. "Words fail you, Starsk?"

Starsky grinned at him. "Yeah." He shook his head at the dejected babysitters. "Sorry, guys. Don't wanna take a chance mixing domestic affairs with foreign policy."

"Damn it. Should've known not to ask you guys. You're never hard up for action, lucky dogs." DeLuca snapped his fingers at Avery. "Simmons and Babcock! Why didn't we go to them first? I bet you they'd buy us Dodgers season tickets if we could get Dobey to switch the roster around, give them a shot at playing security blanket to a ballerina."

Hutch frowned. "You know, instead of palming her off, you might try understanding where she's coming from. State-sponsored dancers and athletes are sometimes separated from their families to live with coaches, sheltered from normal social interaction. That kind of life can warp anyone, and it's probably made her self absorbed. Let her talk about herself. Show some interest in why she's here. She might warm up to you."

"And if she doesn't," added Starsky, "then just let it pass. It's a job. Work ain't always a barrel of monkeys and a bottle of French champagne. Well, for me and Hutch it is, but we're the lucky dogs, and you're the sad-sack mutts."

Avery groaned. "There's no living with you two since you got your own office. Come on, Del. Let's see if we can track down Simmons and Babcock and get a few minutes with Dobey before you have to be at the theater."

Hutch waved at the departing street cops. He sat down and pulled over the first of the Pie Town homicide files. Starsky eased over to the door, ducked out of the room. Yawning, Hutch opened the file and rubbed his eyes. He heard the door shut and the click of Starsky's boot heels. He winced at the telltale squeak of Starsky's secondhand office chair. Then silence made him look up.

Starsky had plopped down in the chair with one leg draped over the chair arm, leaving his lap and crotch vulnerable to ogling. His smile matched his pose for sensuality. "You know what you earned yourself with that heavy action, sure thing jazz?"

Hutch could only force one word out of his dry mouth. "What?"

"Some quality time with my ass tonight."

"Starsky, we're at work, and we have to get through the first read of these case files and out of here by eleven if you want this beautiful thing pounding your ass at midnight." Hutch heard a rumble, stunned to discover it was his stomach.

"Hungry?" Starsky asked in a wicked tone.

"Yes, for food and what you're implying, Mr. Subtle. What're you in the mood for? Food, Starsk, I mean food."

"What delivers?" Starsky rubbed his belly. "Pizza?"

Hutch pointed at the stack of case files. "We're starting on the Pie Town Pizzeria murder. You really want to gobble down pizza while we read the case files?"

"Uh, no. Good thinking. Okay, pizza's out… I know! Deli. Sully's delivers. We could get sandwiches, some'a those thick-cut potato chips, coffee." Starsky grabbed the phone and sat back in his chair, bringing the phone with him. "Guess what? I'll buy."

Hutch hitched his right hip a little, alleviating some of the pressure on his ass, and flushed at Starsky's knowing smile. "Last night was that good?"

"Take it from a train aficionado, there's nothing like a long, slow ride in your caboose."

"You're a dirty old man, you know that?"

"Yeah, and try telling me you don't get off on it just a little bit."

Hutch gave in and winked at the sexy distraction across from him, the man he loved more than life itself. "I get off on it a lotta bit."

Chuckling, Starsky dialed Sully's with his pinky.

Hutch listened to him place their order, smiling at how Starsky knew his favorites by heart. They divided their nights between two residences in the same county, and they had weekend plans to start work on a money pit with a leaky roof over it that they would likely never live in. Might not be the average love story, but they were together, going strong, living for each other, true to each other, making life together.

Nothing wrong with doing it a different way….

THE END