TOO TIRED TO BE DEAD

by: Jo-Jo

Waking-up was painful enough any day of the week. What with the alarm, the realisation it was some ungodly hour, and the possibility that some warm bed-partner would have to be left behind. Lately, though, waking-up had become more than painful. He had come to dread the ordeal of opening his eyes and finding out he was still here. And then, what was hovering over him. Ma looking puffy-eyed, perhaps. Nicky gazing at him as if surprised he was alive. Nurses preparing to intrude upon him. Or worse, doctors.

Today, deciding not to delay, he opened his eyes quickly on an empty room. The magical world of his hospital life had transported him to a new location without him even realising. You could tell a lot by the color of the blankets in this place, and today's blanket was beige. He didn't like it much, but at least it was different.

Starsky lay breathing in and out experimentally. He didn't dare breathe really deep at first, but then he decided he had to. Like he was on a mountain top, just to see how the air was. It filled his lungs, making him dizzy, and then rushed out because he was too weak to hold it. There was no thirst, no hunger. For a second he thought he must be dead, but then he decided he was too tired to be dead.

This was no life though. Suppose he was to get up? That would be a thing.

Even knowing it was foolhardy he felt a perverse need to do it anyway, to wrest back a sliver of control. He lifted his head up carefully, frustrated that it was so hard to move anything else. Even this made him feel like he was suspended over an abyss. He had just begun to move one knee, his aim being to try and angle it out of the bed, his head was vibrating and his heart had started to wallop painfully, when the door of the room opened.

"And just what are you doing?"

It was one of the nurses. She swept into the room and got across to him before he could move any more.

"Hey, Jane," said Starsky. "I think 'm going to be sick."

"Not on my watch," she said. "What do you think you're up to anyhow? We're a ways from going walkabout, let me tell you. Stay still there. I have stuff to do in here. Still feeling nauseous?"

"Maybe." He eyed the basin in her hand suspiciously, and when she offered it to him he pushed it away.

"OK. Not a problem. Let me tell you what's what. You listening?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"It's Saturday afternoon. You've been back upstairs in a terrible state for three and a half days, but we brought you here last night when the doctors confirmed that your lungs were clear again. The infection seems to be back under control, you slept a proper sleep overnight and we're planning on withdrawing some of your extra drugs. How's that?"

Extra drugs? Which extra dr... oh never mind.

"'d a horse kick me while... I was asleep?"

Never one to overdo the sympathy, Jane just smoothed the sheet. "We do want to get you out of bed," she said crisply, "but it has to be done in stages. First we sit you up a bit, then a bit more, then we hang around on the side of the bed, then we take a step or two. That's going to take up the rest of the afternoon. Sprinting can resume tomorrow maybe."

"Gone off... the idea."

"Sure you have. Now, you want your messages? Your Mom says she'll be here in the morning. Your brother has something to go to tonight -- he didn't say when he'd be back. Hutch is coming by later this afternoon. Of course."

"And when 'm I going... home?"

She stopped and looked at him. "That's a good question, David. Let's say.. well, not this week."

"Remind me again... how long since... they wheeled my sorry ass in here?"

"Four weeks yesterday you were brought into the ER."

"And how'm I doing?"

"Today you're doing lovely. Tomorrow we can't say. Any more questions?"

Starsky shook his head. He felt tied up in knots by the strain of trying to sound sensible. Jane smiled at him. "Good, you lay quiet and if you're no trouble I'll be back in ten minutes or so to sit you up. Do you need anything? Nausea any worse?" He shook his head again and she tutted humorously. "You know, your partner says you normally never shut up."

"Really."

"Really." He watched as she swept out and then he made himself think about four weeks yesterday. A complete memory of it had been a long time coming and even now he was afraid of it. The monster living under his bed.

As he felt again the sensation of the metal inside him a cold little wave broke over his shoulders and seemed to travel all the way down to his feet. It was the realization that his own blood had been pumping out of him with every heartbeat, the realization that a spray of bullets from the yawning window of a police-car were going to kill him. Starsky was convinced they would kill him. He may be breathing again, lying here with a rational head, weeks now since they somehow saved his life, but the imprint of the bullets was still in there, would always be, until such time as they killed him.

After Jane got him sitting up he tried to enjoy the new sensation but the pain was too much. Trapped against the pillows he could not wriggle himself down to what he felt was a safer, more familiar place, so he closed his eyes and tried to enjoy not being delirious instead. When he heard the door of the room opening again he knew it was not Jane. Without opening his eyes he knew it was Hutch and he wondered briefly how he was going to convince him things were improving. He popped his eyes open, drinking in the sight of his friend approaching the bed and coming to sit down within reach. His hand came off the bed like a trapdoor opening and Hutch grasped a handful of fingers and tugged them in greeting.

"Well look at you," he said admiringly. He managed to get it into his voice, but not his eyes. "What they say?"

"Things c'n only get... better."

"Right."

Starsky smiled wanly, wanting to comfort him. "Don't look so... worried... 'snotso bad... I'm due to... walk to the... john any time now." He paused for breath between each group of words, ploughing on as he saw Hutch trying to intervene to stop him speaking too much.

"Really."

"Yup. There's some... sloppy stuff... in a bowl... on the menu." He tried to swallow down the pain but he could see it reflected in Hutch's face. "Tell me what's going on... anything not to do... with this place." He willed Hutch to play along and, as usual, his partner did not let him down.

"Where to start?" wondered Hutch. "Dobey gave up his diet."

"Again?"

"Well I think it was a new one."

"Who... you working with?"

"Somers sometimes. Bavin sometimes."

"Jack Bavin... what a treat... he still hate me?"

"Well he seems to find you a little obnoxious, what can I tell you?"

A frown drifted across Starsky's face. That cold wave broke again. He wasn't at all sure he was completely back in Hutch's world yet. That world of reality outside these blank walls. Hutch couldn't quite find him in here, and he didn't seem to understand it out there. He could joke it out with the nurses. And all the time Ma was with him he did his best to be bright and upbeat. Nick, of course, had never stayed long enough to find out anything.

But sometimes this new set of truths overwhelmed him. They told him he had all but died. His heart had stopped. He gave up breathing. And then -- for whatever reason -- he came back. Back to a titanic struggle which seemed to have nearly drowned Hutch too. They seemed confident now that he had won the war, but he couldn't help wondering how much of him had been left behind, or even if he had truly made it back at all.

"I'm not all here," he said, trying to explain to the only person who had a hope of understanding.

"You never have been," Hutch replied at once.

"No... I mean it... You absolutely sure'm not... dead?" Tears of confusion had sprung up.

Hutch plastered a smile over his sharp intake of breath. He knew that they could still lose him from here. He understood, the way Starsky himself did, that you didn't get that near to being shot to death without the result leaving a hold on you, leaving you on the edge of a cliff over which it could pick you up and drop you, suddenly, at will. "You'll get it all back, Starsk," he said with admirable assurance, even managing to get it into his eyes this time. "It'll just take a while." He kept his natural compassion in check. That instinct to scoop Starsky off the bed and hold him safe. They couldn't do with a soapy scene right now. Starsk wasn't strong enough, and neither was he. "Besides," he said, "You're too ornery to be dead."

Run with it, Starsk, Hutch's face begged. Run with it for now, or we're going to be knee deep in kleenex.

Starsky flicked away the wet with his thumbs. "And you ain't no angel," he snuffled. A huge yawn caught him in the jaw and made his eyes water worse than ever. Tired. Too, too tired.

"Tell you what," Hutch said. "Why don't we do that trick where I talk about something really interesting and you fall asleep?"

Starsky shut his eyes and Hutch's face nearly crumpled as he gazed at the wet lashes on the white cheeks. Starsky gathered his own composure quicker. He gave a little wave of his hand for Hutch to go ahead. When his partner started on about organic phosphorous compounds being sprayed on bananas in the Caribbean he at first wrinkled his brow, and then gave in to a small smile of relief.

No, Hutch wasn't no angel. But he might just be his savior.

ENDS