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Wild Fires

by

Lutra Cana

Night flight—how he hated night flights. Hutch had always found it impossible to sleep on a plane and flying at night only made it worse somehow. Everyone else around him quiet with only the occasional murmur of voices when a passenger would get up to use the lavatory or the flight attendants spoke together back in the galley.

Hutch moved uncomfortably, trying to find room for his long legs in the cramped space between the seats without disturbing his companion sound asleep beside him. Leaning his head against the bulkhead, Hutch stared out the tiny window into the dark watching the stars overhead, trying to ignore the vast blackness below. He tried not to think about the box—an obligation—resting somewhere in the dark, cold hold of this plane either.

Closing his eyes, Hutch thought back to the events of the past week...the past year...hell...the years that stretched all the way back to the Academy if he wanted to be perfectly honest about it. Each moment of all those years he had lived thinking one way only to discover somewhere along the line that he had been totally wrong. Finding out that each of those moments were so entwined in the life of another that Hutch could no longer see where he ended and his other half started.

Starsky—even just thinking the name brought an affectionate smile to Hutch's face. Silly, serious, caring, loyal, loving Starsky. The man whom Hutch had come to love more than he ever thought he was capable. After Van left him, after their presumably perfect marriage fell apart, Hutch had believed he would never love again. Something he had not realized at the time was that while one love was dying a bitter, ugly death another love was being born. Hutch had woken one morning and knew that he not only cared for Starsky as a friend and a partner but that he had fallen in love with Starsky as well. It seemed to Hutch that he had been like a blind man who suddenly had been given back his sight.

At first, they danced around the subject of consummating their newfound relationship. Theirs had always been a close, physical friendship, full of casual touches, hugs when needed, and loving words cloaked beneath teasing ones. The touches had grown to caresses, the hugs to embraces, and the teasing words to ones that expressed more than simple friendship. The first time they had shared one with the other they had known that there was no going back. Oh, there had been times when they pulled away, suddenly fearful of what they had together. Times when they sought out the supposedly normal life, looking for what they had been brought up believing they should want, but they always came back to each other, a little wiser and more in love than before.

Hutch opened his eyes and stared out into the dark once more. He did not see the stars now, only the reflection of the face of his one true and last love. Images of the past flickered across his mind's eye—images of him and Starsky and the life they led together.

Three years ago Hutch had stood and watched his friend's life's blood spill onto the cold asphalt of their own precinct's parking lot. Later, he had sat on one side of an expanse of glass and waited for Starsky's spirit to cease its fight on the other side of that glass and leave Hutch to go on without his dark-haired love. Hutch remembered the joy he had felt when he turned around one day and saw Starsky's eyes looking at him, smiling that sweet, quizzical smile that always made Hutch's knees a little weak.

A year later, they came to the conclusion that it was foolish to have two households when they always occupied only one at a time. Hutch still remembered the look on Starsky's face the day they walked into the house they bought together. Starsky had grinned as if he had just received every Christmas wish he had ever wished as he unlocked the front door of their white with blue-trim bungalow and swung it open to usher Hutch inside.

Two years they lived in that little house, made love in every room at least once, and planted a garden out back. Hutch had held on to the old dream of a house of his own for years, a family to come home to, and someone to love him forever. He had thought that it had finally come true. But then, two out of three weren't bad.

Hutch had been afraid that what he and Starsky had together would ostracize them from their friends, from the people they worked with, and from their families. Most never batted an eye. Some had walked away, turned stiff backs and unrelenting morals on the two men. Some said harsh, cruel words; some never spoke to them again. But the rest either did not care, or asked why it had taken them so long. Starsky's extended family became Hutch's and Hutch's much smaller family became Starsky's. They were still invited to Thanksgiving dinners, birthday parties, and the other occasional family gathering just like before, only now no one told them they should bring a date.

They lived together like an old married couple, familiar, comfortable with one another. Each day was like a new adventure; each night a place of solace waited them in the other's arms. Life had finally been perfect. Hutch should have known better. Nothing in his life had ever been perfect. Nothing.

Hutch shifted again, bumping Starsky's knee. Murmuring a soothing word, Hutch waited to make sure he had not wakened his partner. Satisfied that his seatmate would continue his slumber, Hutch returned to his musing over the events and the one last promise that caused them to be on a night flight traveling so far from home.

Home. The place that never would be again.

The day had started like any other day in Southern California in the late summer. Hot, dry, and not a cloud in sight. It was a workday for the partners, both now lieutenants, which was more a measure of respect for their record with the force than one of responsibility. They no longer patrolled a district as in the old days, but they still were partners and that was all either of them cared about. They investigated the big cases, the ones that might have far reaching consequences because everyone knew that Starsky and Hutch could not be bought at any price. They certainly had proved that a hundred—a thousand—times over the years.

This day they had been investigating the death of a minor bureaucrat in the federal government, a case that might be more important than it appeared on the surface, or might not. The winds had been blowing hot and dry for days and the whole city sweltered in their grasp as the partners went about their job. Hutch and Starsky were just leaving the office of yet another minor bureaucrat when the call came through.

Dobey's voice sounded weary, but then he often sounded weary. "Hutch, you'd better get home. There's a fire burning up the canyon from your house and they're going to start evacuating the area in an hour if the winds don't shift."

A cold shiver of fear inched down Hutch's back as he and Starsky exchanged glances. Starsky barely looked over his shoulder before he pulled into traffic and pushed the car a little faster than the law allowed towards the hills north and west of town. As they drove up the road towards their street, the rolls of brown smoke grew thicker over the next ridge and the fear in Hutch's heart grew darker. It took them only a few minutes to clear the roadblock the police had set up at the foot of the street that the partners' little house resided on. But each minute seemed like an eternity to the two frightened homeowners. Finally they convinced the guard to let them pass and Starsky raced the car the last few yards to screech to a halt in front of their home.

Splitting up to gather their most prized possessions—pictures, Hutch's guitar, the little box of mementos that Starsky kept in the bottom drawer of his dresser—they packed each of their cars as full as they could. Starsky no longer drove the old red and white Torino—it now lived in Merle's garage until the day they could restore it—and his new Mustang did not hold much. Hutch's newest old heap had a huge trunk and they crammed it full of everything they could not bear to lose. In half an hour, they were as ready as they ever were going to be.

They stood side by side looking at their house. Hutch glanced towards the smoke-covered ridge at the top of the road and swallowed hard. A black-and-white appeared out of the smoke, another right behind it. A pair of uniformed officers walked from one house to another down the hill, knocking on doors and talking to the residents who were frantically packing their own vehicles. Hutch moved closer to his partner and slung an arm over Starsky's tense shoulders.

"Guess we'd better go, buddy." Hutch's throat hurt from more than the smoke that wafted down the street.

"Yeah. Meet you at Huggy's?" Starsky's eyes were suspiciously bright and Hutch hugged him a little tighter.

"Yeah. It may take me a little longer, the car's going to be heavy."

"I'll drive slow. Gotta keep an eye on ya, make sure you don't stop and pick up any cute hitchhikers." Starsky tried to joke, but his voice cracked on the last word.

They separated again, each going to his own car. Hutch slammed the door shut, cranked over the engine, and put it into gear. The sudden appearance of Starsky at his window startled Hutch. "What?"

"Where's Skipper? I thought you had him." Starsky bent over, looking into the crowded back seat searching for the little terrier that shared the house with them.

"He was in the mudroom last time I saw him. I thought you brought him out." Hutch started to turn off the car when Starsky stopped him.

"No, you go on. You're right when you said that this old heap will be slower than my car. I'll get Skip and I'll be right behind you. I'll see you at Huggy's." Starsky leaned in and gave Hutch a quick kiss and one of his blinding smiles. "Love ya."

Hutch watched as Starsky bounded off towards the house. "Love you too, babe," he whispered. Glancing over his shoulder looking for cars, Hutch felt saddened to see the smoke was heavier above and was now lower on the hill. "Don't goof around, Starsk." Hutch pulled out of the driveway, waved at the approaching cop, and started on his journey of exodus toward the city below.

Over three hours later, Hutch paced the floor at Huggy's bar. Starsky still had not shown up and Hutch was past worried into frantic. He had put a call into the precinct on the hope that Starsky had called in to say what his delay was. The dispatcher had tried to raise the errant officer with no results. She did tell Hutch that the last report from up there was that the fire had spread faster than expected and that there were casualties. She went on to tell Hutch to sit tight and she would find out what she could and get back to him. So far, she had not called and Hutch feared the worst.

The phone ringing barely registered with the pacing man as Huggy's phone rang almost constantly. It was not until Huggy came and tapped him on the shoulder that Hutch looked up from his inspection of a worn spot in the tile in front of the bar.

"Phone's for you, Hutch. Sounds like Dobey." Huggy's brown eyes were large and worried as he relayed the message. These two detectives were his best friends, and Hutch knew that Huggy worried about them constantly.

"Hutch?" Dobey's voice was now beyond weary and into dismal. "You'd better get over to Mercy Hospital. Starsky's there and...."

Hutch did not wait for more. The receiver was left hanging by its cord as Hutch raced out of the bar and into the night.

He must have broken every traffic law in the book speeding toward the hospital. "Be alive, Starsky. Be okay, buddy. God, please, please...." A litany of barely spoken words, promises, and pleas accompanied Hutch across town, into the parking lot, through the emergency doors, and to the reception desk where a startled clerk stared up at the wild-eyed man in front of her.

"Starsky...Dave...David Starsky. Where is he?" Hutch held himself against the desk, afraid that he would fall if he did not take advantage of its support. The clerk looked down at her chart, then back up at Hutch.

"I'm sorry, sir, there's no one by that name on my list. Check with the admitting clerk, maybe she has a record of him."

"No, he has to be here. He was in the fire up canyon. I was told he's here. Check your chart. Let me look...." Hutch made a grab for the papers, but the clerk batted his hand away.

"Sir. I told you I don't have his name on my list. There were only two patients brought in from the fire. One of them is a policeman named Evans who has a broken leg and the other man was taken directly to the morgue as a DOA." Her voice softened on the last word, realizing that the man in front of her had gone dead white. "Sir, should I call you a doctor?"

Hutch pushed himself away from the desk, dizzy with reaction, not wanting to believe the words the clerk had said. DOA. Dead on arrival. No...no...not his partner. Not his life. No. He felt the room tilt and there was a commotion at his side. A strong arm grasped him around the waist and another took hold of his arm.

Then, miracle of miracles, a voice he knew even in his sleep spoke in his ear. "Hutch, I'm right here, buddy. I'm right here."

He turned to look into a sooty face. Bright, dark blue eyes gazed at him and a crooked smile gleamed whitely across the darkened countenance. A riot of dark brown curls, slightly singed, floated like a halo around the much-loved face and Hutch felt his heart start again. "Starsky."

"Yeah, Hutch. I'm here."

Starsky had to help Hutch sit down and one of the nurses brought him a drink of water. It took a while to get the whole story straight as Hutch kept wanting to touch Starsky to make sure he really was there and safe. Hutch moaned a bit at the crispy bits that came off whenever he stroked Starsky's hair, but other than that, his partner was almost unscathed. For which Hutch silently sent up a word or two of thanks.

Hutch was not sure whether he wanted to hug Starsky or strangle him as he related the events of the last few hours. Hutch settled for holding Starsky's hand in both of his and looking into the blue eyes that loved him.

~*~*~*~

Going back into the house to look for one small black dog was not as easy as it had appeared. Skipper seemed to think that this was all a game invented by his friend who always had so many interesting games to play. Hide and seek was new and the rules yet unlearned, but Skipper played it well. Flushed from his hiding spot under the partners' bed, the terrier had raced away and gone to ground in a closet left open in the spare bedroom. It had taken Starsky a good ten minutes to find the dog the second go 'round, but the detective had been prepared that time. Leash in hand, Starsky cornered the mutt and attached the leash to the collar encircling the furry little neck.

By the time the pair made it back to the street, the smoke was hovering over the houses like a malevolent cloud. The air was thick and the street almost deserted. One lone police car sat at the foot of the block as the patrolman canvassed for one last time. Pushing Skipper into the front seat of the Mustang, Starsky climbed in after him and prepared to leave their home for what might be the last time. He was staring at the garage that he and Hutch had just painted that spring when a shout caught his attention.

It took him a minute to locate the shouter, but Starsky finally spotted the uniformed officer waving at him from the backdoor of the house across the street. Damn—DC's house. Starsky had noticed a car in front of the neat cottage when he and Hutch first pulled up, but in the rush to gather their things, he had lost track of what was happening elsewhere in the neighborhood. The car was gone now, and Starsky realized that it had not been the old Buick that the elderly gentleman had driven off the showroom floor in the early nineteen-fifties. Instead, it had been a snazzy newish car that Starsky remembered belonged to the man's nephew.

Douglas Carpenter was a retired businessman, who, neighborhood rumor had it, had earned a small fortune on the stock market investing in computer technology during its infancy. DC—as he insisted everyone call him—had taken a liking to the two detectives living across the way from him. Many a lazy Sunday afternoon was spent in DC's backyard, sipping tall cool drinks and talking about life in general and not much in particular. Starsky had a theory about their rather solitary neighbor. DC had never married, had no children and only one sibling—a sister who had provided DC with one niece and one nephew. The theory, put together from observations, Starsky's unerring ability to read people, and the discovery of a very interesting photo, was that DC was gay. The photo that Starsky had seen on DC's bedside table one late afternoon when Starsky had needed to use a bathroom and the only one available was the master bedroom's ensuite, was of two young men. One of the young men was obviously a much younger DC standing with his arm slung around the shoulder of the other young man. The look the two of them were giving each other was very reminiscent of ones that Starsky and Hutch had shared many times.

The photo almost mirrored one of Hutch and Starsky that the two kept on their own nightstand. A photo taken by a long-forgotten girlfriend one summer day before the partners had put a name on their relationship. One taken before they realized what the meaning of the feelings they held for each other really meant and before their life flipped and changed to include a snug little house in the hills above LA. The photo showed Hutch with both arms around Starsky's shoulders and Starsky's arms in turn around Hutch's waist. The girl had captured Hutch smiling down into Starsky's sparkling blue eyes and Starsky grinning that special lop-sided grin up into Hutch's.

Starsky's hypothesis went on to include a lost love, a decision never to love again, and a very well closeted neighbor. Hutch could not disprove any of Starsky's reasoning and the more they got to know DC the more the whole thing seemed to be pretty close to the mark. It had made both of them sad to think that such a kind, gentle man was destined to live alone and lonely. It also made both of the partners hold on just a little tighter to each other some nights after spending a quiet Sunday afternoon with the man across the way.

Over the two years of knowing one another, DC had told them little about his life—mostly about his business, his sister's kids, and how DC had come to live in this particular neighborhood. One day—about a month previous to this late summer's one—DC had surprised Starsky and Hutch with the request that they do him the great honor of being the executors of his will. Both the partners had protested loudly, but DC was insistent, telling them that they were the only people he knew that were trustworthy enough to take care of his estate. Reluctantly, they had finally agreed, then forgotten about it. After all, DC was not that old, being somewhere in his mid-sixties, and disgustingly healthy to boot.

Now, as Starsky locked Skipper in the car and dashed across the street to the waiting cop, visions of DC having suffered a heart attack from the stress of evacuation or a stroke from fear of the encroaching fire flitted across Starsky's mind. The smoky air rasped in Starsky's lungs as he slid to a stop beside the uniformed officer. Starsky knew the cop: both he and Hutch had made sure they knew the men, and women, who patrolled the neighborhood just in case the partners' work should ever follow them home and they needed someone to call on.

"Evans, what's up?" Starsky tried not to cough against the burning in his throat. "Where's DC...I mean, Mr. Carpenter?"

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but he's in there," Evans pointed through the open doorway, "dead."

"Damn." Starsky did not know if the tears in his eyes were from the smoke or the words that he did not want to believe. "His heart?" Starsky turned to look into the house when Evans' next statement brought the detective up short.

"Not unless the man usually had a six-inch blade in the middle of his chest." Evans coughed, covering his mouth with one hand and looking up the hill at the smoke cloud.

Starsky also looked up the hill and felt a tremor of fear as he noticed that the brown smoke now had a faint reddish quality about it. "Great, just great. The damn fire's going to be down here any time now and we've got a crime scene to preserve." Starsky paused just a minute to think. Turning his eyes away from the dragon up the road, Starsky looked back at Evans. "Go call this in. See if there's an ambulance or at least a van of some sort with the fire crew that can take DC's body out of here. I've got a camera in my car. I'll get that and try to get as many pictures I can. You got a crime scene kit in your squad?"

As quickly as possible, Starsky and Evans worked to do what they could to gather evidence before the fire swept down the hill and forever hid the crime that had occurred here. There was an ambulance and a pair of paramedics with the fire crew and they waited nervously while Starsky took pictures of the body and its position on the living room floor. The paramedics fidgeted while Evans gathered up whatever Starsky told him to into little bags and stashed it in the kit. Swearing lightly at the single-mindedness of the police, the paramedics carefully lifted DC onto a gurney for his final journey down the hill.

Losing track of all else, Starsky focused on gathering enough evidence to hang DC's nephew, for that was who the detective was certain had killed his friend. Evans' sudden exclamation brought Starsky's attention back to their own danger and he turned to see the house next to DC's catch fire when a floating ember landed on the roof. Chasing Evans before him, Starsky hustled the two of them out the door and closed it behind him. Carrying the crime kit in his arms with the camera swinging from its strap around his neck, Starsky raced for the Mustang parked in front of his house.

Poor Skipper was frantic with fear as Starsky unlocked the car's door and stuffed the kit in the already overflowing backseat. Manhandling the little dog back onto the passenger seat, Starsky climbed in the car and prepared to escape the fire that even now was lapping at the tree that shaded the back yard of his and Hutch's home. The street was full of fire equipment as the firefighters tried to stop the fire's hungry advance and it took Starsky a minute or two to get around a large pumper that had parked a little too close to the Mustang. Starsky was almost to the barricade when he looked in his rear-view mirror and saw Evans slip and fall in a puddle formed by a leaking firehose.

Slamming on the brakes, Starsky climbed once more out of the car, leaving the ignition on, and the door closed tight against any planned escape by Skipper. Hurrying back to the now moaning Evans, Starsky realized that the uniformed officer had done himself an injury and was not going anywhere on his own. With a word of encouragement, Starsky raced up the hill to the fire crew and tried to get someone's attention.

The heat on the hill was getting past the point of bearable as Starsky finally cornered someone who looked to be in charge and explained this new crisis. The fireman—a captain—sent a couple of men back down with Starsky to the moaning and terrified Evans. Starsky's car was closest, but there was no way that they were going to get Evans inside, so they carried him down to his police cruiser. Putting Evans in the backseat was the best they could do for him. The trio—Starsky and the two firemen—stood staring at each other as they thought about how to get the injured man out of the fire's range. Finally, they decided that the best thing was for Starsky to drive the police car while one of the firefighters drove the Mustang. The other man would rejoin his crew.

A couple minutes were spent as Starsky tried to convince Skipper to let the fireman into the Mustang. Finally, with the fire literally breathing down their necks, Starsky scooped the little dog out of the car and carried him to the black-and-white. Stuffing the distressed animal down onto the floor of the car, Starsky slapped at the embers that tried to set Skipper's fur alight. Feeling a sting, Starsky realized that his own hair was in danger and frantically patted at the dark curls. Slamming the door of the cruiser, Starsky gunned the motor and took off down the hill, following the taillights of his own car as the Mustang preceded him through the thick, dark smoke to safety.

~*~*~*~

Hutch stared at his partner as Starsky's story came to an end. He could not believe—did not want to believe—what Starsky had just told him. Their friend dead, their house probably a smoking ruin, and his partner sitting there with scorched hair, a burn mark across one cheek, and a persistent cough interrupting him as he related the afternoon's events.

Starsky's sad grin and watering eyes finally broke Hutch's shock. With a shuddering sigh, and a little word of thanks, Hutch gathered Starsky into his arms. The two clung to each other as the busy ER went about its business saving the ones they could and helping the ones they could not, leave with a little dignity.

~*~*~*~

Hutch rolled his head to look at his seatmate and smiled softly. Sleeping with his mouth a little open, sat Hutch's partner and love. Starsky had survived the fire with nothing more than a slowly fading burn and close-cropped hair. The hair would grow back, the burn might scar a little, but it would fade. Once again, the partners had been lucky. Both had survived intact. Unfortunately not the same could be said for their house—their home. The fire had swept down the hill, taking everything in its path. Their white and blue house with its garden in the back, big old sycamore shading the living room, and all its memories was gone. They had saved important things—books, pictures, guitars, one little dog, amongst other things too precious to bear losing. Even Starsky's old bamboo chair had made it, strapped to the top of Hutch's car. But gone was Hutch's piano, most of his plants, the furniture they had picked out together, the big brass bed, and far too many other things that Hutch hated to think about.

Gone too, was DC and his home with its lazy Sunday afternoons. DC's nephew had indeed killed his uncle, hoping that the fire would hide the murder. Greed, as usual, was the motive and a wild fire the opportunity to take a sweet man's life. The evidence that Starsky and Evans gathered in the face of their own danger served to convince the young man to confess. The courts would not look leniently upon him and the nephew was facing twenty to life in prison.

And here sat Hutch and his sleeping partner, on a night flight to fulfill a promise made. One of the items in DC's will was the express wish to be taken home to be buried in a little cemetery in Boston. To rest for eternity beside someone named Joseph who had waited for his own partner for over twenty years. Hutch could not help but feel the cold finger of fate denied tease down his back and he sent up a little prayer to the stars shining up there above the plane's wings.

Starsky moved uneasily in his sleep and the curl-topped head came to rest against Hutch's shoulder. Hutch looked down at the two hands clasped tight together in his lap. One fair and large-boned, the other dark and fine. Starsky's left—his dominant hand—strong and knowledgeable, bore on one finger a symbol of love echoed by another symbol on Hutch's left hand.

Hutch sighed, resting his cheek on the soft pillow of curls on his shoulder. He knew that regardless of what they had lost in the flames that late summer's afternoon, they were blessed. They had each other and one day, God willing, they would lie together, side-by-side, in a little cemetery somewhere in California. They would go together, or at least not far apart, and spend eternity somewhere out there—beyond the stars—together, as it was always meant to be.