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A Mission and a Badge

by Callisto

SPECIAL DEDICATION: This is for Venia Fides who won 3 Missing Scenes from me by so graciously bidding for them at Tonya's recent auction. She was very kind and patient when my muse went off in its own direction on this first one, and it has been a pleasure sharing this with her.

Keeping Hutch awake and upright was proving to be the problem. Starsky was tempted to just reach across and buckle his partner in. But that would belittle the Herculean efforts Hutch had been making on their behalf since going awol to meet Mickey. It would also give the man in the back seat an opportunity to gloat, and if there was one thing Starsky was not going to accept it was that. He reckoned if he got so much as a glimmer of that, he'd stop the car, haul himself into the back and pummel his way out of a badge and a pension. So he wrapped his hands around the steering-wheel, kept his eyes forward and trusted that thread of pride to keep Hutch's back straight and his eyes open.

He glanced into the rearview mirror. Forest was sitting back, hands cuffed behind him, legs splayed. He was mercifully quiet, but there was an arrogance to his silence which was setting Starsky's teeth on edge. Confident a high-priced suit is going to waltz him out of the spotlight, no doubt. Starsky allowed himself a moment of grim pride. Not on my watch. A grunt took his glance right. Hutch's efforts to keep upright were costing him. His head had just done a marionette-style snap, jerking his eyes wide and clicking his jaw shut, probably onto his tongue.

"Bet I could straighten up that back of yours, Hutchinson." Forest leaned forward. "No more freebies, though."

Starsky's right arm shot out, palm turned back, and he hit the brakes hard. Both passengers obeyed the laws of physics and shot forward. Hutch into the safety of an arm across his chest, Forest into the sharp back-corner of Hutch's seat. Cursing 'police brutality' and 'lawyer', amongst others, Forest lifted his head back up, glared and spat once -- blood or a tooth, Starsky neither knew nor cared. Whole damn car needs fumigating anyway. Starsky kept the car parked where it was and met Forest's eyes in the mirror, glare for glare. The anger trembled through him. Not enough. Not nearly enough. He wanted that white silk suit turned the color of sweat, tears and bodily fluids. His left fingers curled tightly into his palm, even as his ears pounded with a rise in his blood--

"You haven't heard the last of this, cop." A thin line of blood drooled down Forest's chin as he shuffled up off the floor. "My lawyer and I will go through--"

"The windshield's the only thing you're goin' through if you open your trap again."

The threat begged for disobedience, and the venom Starsky sent via the mirror must have convinced his passenger of something. Forest chose to sit back, ignoring them both.

Still glaring, it took an awkward pressure to alert Starsky to the fact that his right arm was still across his partner. Hutch, oblivious to the tension surrounding him, had actually begun to lean into the splayed fingers for support. After all they had been through, all the pain, all the vomiting, all the abuse, all the guarding; that simple child-like action almost undid Starsky there and then. The fingers of his left hand relaxed. This man to whom revenge had already done so much was his priority, not the pathetic braggart in the back.

He picked up the mike and in a minute it was done. As he clicked it back on its hook he turned to Hutch, changing an awkward grip on him for a more natural one with his left hand. Hutch barely registered the change, and his chin almost came down far enough to rest on Starsky's left thumb.

"Hutch," he kept his voice low and leaned in to his partner's ear, determined to keep it private. "Hutch, I need you to hang in with me here. Just a little longer, buddy."

No answer, though some kind of internal struggle to respond seemed to be taking place as Hutch swallowed and nodded.

"Gotta black and white coming to take him, so--"

"...'yam,"

Starsky paused, uncertain.

Hutch licked his lips, brought his head up and tried again.

"I... am." A ghost of a smile breathed through, "with you, that is."

It was little more than a whisper, but as bruised eyes found and held Starsky’s it seemed that they were nearly home -- in all that that meant.

"Hey."

The black and white had just arrived, taking Starsky's attention. He swung back to Hutch at the soft call.

"Get him outta here." Still low, but said with a steel that let Starsky nod and drop his hand from his partner's ribs.

"Love to." He lifted his eyes to the mirror once again and raised his voice. "Hey Tinkerbell! Time to change pumpkins."

With a minimum of fuss and disturbance -- the seat-to-the-jaw and the windshield threat had worked wonders -- Starsky tipped his own seat forward and hauled their unsavory cargo out. Forest seemed to regain a touch of bravado once upright and outside, and as the two faced off next to the passenger door of the patrol car, he couldn't resist a parting shot.

"You haven't got what you think you've got, cop. This is nowhere I haven't been before." He smiled. "I won't do much time."

"You don't get it, do you?" Starsky moved forward, forcing the cuffed man back against the car. "Forget the crimes, Forest. And just so we're clear, right off the bat we got you on prostitution, extortion and kidnapping." He dropped his tone. "What you don't seem to know yet, is that when you snatched him," Starsky gestured with his thumb only. His eyes never left Forest, "you made it personal. You got yourself a 24 hour, 7 days a week man on your tail. One with a mission and a badge."

Starsky smiled. "So yeah, I got what I think I got, and as for time..." His grin took on a wolfish tint, "...your parole officer ain't even born yet."

Forest's shoulders slumped as his head turned away. It was a victory, and over a crime-boss no less, but it was one Starsky could have done without in a thousand lifetimes as a detective. With a shake of his head he stepped back and watched as Forest was herded in and driven off. He knew he should drop Hutch off and follow them in. The true nature of the kidnapping had to be kept out of everything official. Then there was Bernie to smooth over, Forest to intimidate and Dobey to trust with it all.

One look through his windshield as he headed back to the car, though, and he knew none of that was going to happen anytime soon, consequences be damned. If Starsky was honest, it wasn't even a case of Hutch needing him anymore. Hutch's depleted body would sleep, probably for hours, the second it became horizontal and it pretty much didn't need Starsky to do that. No, this was much more a case of what Starsky needed. Hutch could sleep, dance the tango, lecture his plants... didn't matter. Starsky just had to be there for a while when he did it. He had to have Hutch's breathing confirmed with his own eyes by every clean pulse of blood that beat through him.

"What're...? ...we home?"

Starsky had walked first to the passenger side, opened the door and reached in to help Hutch out. "No, but how about we stretch you out in the back till we get there?"

Hutch tugged himself free of the fingers on his upper arm and mumbled something.

"Hutch, you need to help me out here. Gotta get you and those long legs up and out before I can get you back and in. Just--"

"I said 'no'!"

The sudden blaze and strength as Hutch jerked away clearly meant business. Starsky backed off instantly, hands in the air. He stood a moment, tucked his thumbs into his jeans and let out a breath. He looked down at the stubborn six foot two-year old in his front seat.

"Gonna shut the door now, move back a little." Quiet, business-like.

A couple of minutes passed in silence once they were moving again. Starsky still hadn't buckled Hutch in or suggested it, not wanting to trigger another flash of temper.

"I'm sorry, back there..."

"'S okay," Starsky took his eyes off the road to smile and pat the nearest knee. He had been mad at a lot of things the past two days, but never at Hutch. "You wanna sit up here and bob around like a dingle-dolly with me, you go right ahead, pal."

"No, it's just..." Hutch cleared his throat, willing energy up from somewhere to explain. "They... uh... had me lying in the back while they were deciding where to dump me." He looked off. "Man, I was so strung out, Starsk." His voice husked and he caught his partner's gaze. "Still," he grimaced, "I didn't want to be shark-bait."

Starsky couldn't quite trust himself to respond. He squeezed down hard, just above his partner's knee and felt his mission against Forest sharpen to a single focus. That man was going to do time in the bowels of a prison if it was the last accomplishment of his professional life.

"Starsk..."

Starsky braked a little late as they hit a small line of traffic and his arm went out again to keep Hutch in place.

"Sorry." He winked an apology. "Guess I'm tired too."

Hutch knew it to be true. He had walked through a hell which he knew he would remember when he was rested with a force to make him weep. If he had survived, as he was daring to believe he had, it was only because his partner had held his hand and walked it with him. He looked down at the palm still lightly pressing against his ribcage and felt the over-tired sting of tears. "Would you... uh... like me to buckle up here, partner?" He cleared his throat, "or are you just going to do the soccer-mom save all the way home?"

"The what?"

Hutch took in a breath, so grateful for a shot at normal conversation it hurt. "You know, the soccer-mom save?"

Starsky just looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"Mothers do that thing when their kid is in the front seat and they're taking them somewhere?" He coughed, the effort to talk not a small one. "Even if they're strapped in, that arm still goes out."

"The soccer-mom save?"

"Soccer-mom save, Starsk. You're a natural." His voice had become a whisper, but Starsky caught the smile, gave it back, and as they sat there each man felt something unlock as their lives took a turn back toward how they knew they should be.

"Blondie, you just called me 'Mom'."

Hutch's eyes were closing and this time he didn't fight it.

"Deal with it," he whispered. And he leant into that palm.

The End

HUGE thank-yous to my two betas on this, Izzie and Kaye. Izzie answered all my nit-picky questions and helped me clarify some points with some insightful ones of her own. And Kaye cast her expert American-writer's eye over the whole thing. They are consequently stuck with me for life. Any remaining problems are due to my stubbornness to kill my darlings.

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