{"id":246,"date":"2017-06-20T04:11:40","date_gmt":"2017-06-20T04:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/?p=246"},"modified":"2017-06-20T04:11:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T04:11:40","slug":"june-20th-angels-among-us-by-spencer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/?p=246","title":{"rendered":"June 20th- Angels Among Us by Spencer"},"content":{"rendered":"

PART ONE:\u00a0 Somewhere in Qu\u1ea3ng Tr\u1ecb Province, March 1972<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The night surrounded Tommy Collins like a body bag, making it hard to breathe. In his mind, the rustling of the trees sounded eerily like a zipper closing up over his ears. Was it a premonition?\u00a0 The Sergeant said they’d be heading up river in the morning. Straight into enemy territory.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta light?\u201d Tommy asked his buddy lying in the next cot.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat for? You don’t smoke,\u201d Dave Starsky replied.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was true. He promised his ma he wouldn’t. He promised her a lot of things. That he’d work hard in school. That he wouldn’t run off to elope with Jenny and deny her the joy of her son\u2019s wedding. That he’d come back from Vietnam alive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Up until now he\u2019d kept his promises.\u00a0 But that last was one he didn’t know if he\u2019d be able to keep.\u00a0 If he did manage it somehow, he figured his ma would forgive him for the cigarettes. He needed something to relax him, something to focus on other than the heat and the darkness and the fear.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can’t hurt now,\u201d Tommy stated, the huskiness in his voice betraying him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dave shook his head but it was several minutes before he spoke again. \u201cIt’s gonna be okay.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His voice was so quiet it might just have been a thought in Tommy\u2019s head. Except that Tom\u2019s were running in the complete opposite direction. But Dave\u2019s words brought Tom\u2019s racing thoughts to a halt.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI’m scared.\u201d There. He\u2019d said it. He\u2019d pointed out the elephant in the room. Or rather, in the tent. Spray painted its enormous hide with neon fucking orange. A beacon the enemy might spot for miles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tommy\u2019s throat burned. The rations he’d eaten a hour ago threatened to come up.<\/span><\/p>\n

What would Jenny think? \u00a0Or his ma?\u00a0 Maybe it was like they\u2019d said. Tommy Collins was nothing but a coward.\u00a0 The memory of how he\u2019d told everyone his black eye was from falling off his bike and not from Billy Peterson\u2019s fist hounded him.\u00a0 He\u2019d avoided that fist the remainder of seventh grade by handing over his lunch money until the day Billy moved away.\u00a0 The pattern of avoidance that had followed him the rest of his nineteen years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe if his father hadn\u2019t left he could have shown him how to be a man.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not alone, you know,\u201d Dave said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, sure.<\/em> Tom\u2019s rational mind told him everyone was scared to some degree. You had to be looney not to be. But Dave meant something else, too. You’re not alone.\u00a0 <\/em>Somehow that eased the choking in his throat, the pressure in his chest. Because he knew he wasn’t.<\/span><\/p>\n

That no matter what, Dave would be with him every step of the way. The way he\u2019d been ever since boot camp. Helping him study the gibberish code book. Challenging him with just one more push up. Saying something crazy to make him laugh when Tommy felt the sting of tears.\u00a0 He\u2019d helped him be a stronger man, a better person.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be okay.\u00a0 No matter what happens, Tom.\u00a0 It\u2019ll all be okay in the end.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

How Dave could be so certain, he didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 Maybe it was his New York cockiness.\u00a0 His almost childlike optimism.\u00a0 But in that moment Tom believed he, too, could handle whatever came next.\u00a0 Even if he was scared.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s what made a man.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

“Well done, David,” Michael congratulated him.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

High praise, coming from the Archangel himself, but Dave had other things on his mind. “Just as long as Tom gets back to his ma.\u00a0 That he gets to marry Jenny.\u00a0 Have a handful a\u2019 kids who never have to wonder who they are.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“There are no guarantees. You know that.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“Then what am I here for?” The question held an edge of disrespect that Dave only partially regretted.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“You know the answer to that. To be a friend to those who need it most. To lend a helping hand. Or just to give a comforting word or touch on a long, dark night.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

David knew.\u00a0 He knew that sometimes it was strongest of men who had the most fragile souls.\u00a0 But it was that contradictory combination that made them so exceptional.\u00a0 The ones who had the most to offer this crazy world.\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The leaves lifted on the trees like a sigh.<\/span><\/p>\n

“You sound tired,” Michael said.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“You\u2019re damn right. I’m tired of all the loneliness here. The confusion. The good men turned inside out.” <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t blame you.\u00a0 But I have to hand it to you.\u00a0 You\u2019ve never backed down from even the most difficult cases. But you can\u2019t quit now. You\u2019re one of our best.\u00a0 Besides, we have a special assignment for you.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“What\u2019s so special about it?”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“You\u2019ll understand soon enough.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

PART TWO:\u00a0 Bay City, May 1979<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hutch longed to have frozen that moment in time.\u00a0 Stop the momentum of the little plastic ball as it flew back and forth across the table.\u00a0 Defy the laws of physics to suspend the white orb in the air, and have him and Starsky stay in that moment forever.\u00a0 Happy. Carefree.\u00a0 But he didn\u2019t have the power.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just like he lacked the ability to stop the high-powered bullets from entering his partner\u2019s chest, piercing multiple organs, inflicting massive damage . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cStarsky, get down!\u201d\u00a0 The words echoed in his head.\u00a0 Repeating over and over to mock him, to remind him of how useless he was.\u00a0 Just when his life was starting to make sense, had everything they\u2019d been through together been for nothing?<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutch touched his forehead to the glass window that separated him from Starsky.\u00a0 It was cool and hard against his burning skin.\u00a0 A sheet of ice.\u00a0 He willed it to melt so that he might flow into Starsky\u2019s room like a stream.\u00a0 Poor himself into his partner\u2019s body and replenish the blood he had lost.\u00a0 Breathe the breath of life back into his shredded lungs.<\/span><\/p>\n

They say your life passes before your eyes in the moments before death.\u00a0 If Starsky was the one who was dying, then why, Hutch wondered, was he<\/em> the one reliving it all?\u00a0 Had he and Starsky become so enmeshed over the years that the line dividing them had blurred like a sidewalk drawing in the rain?\u00a0 Washing them one into the other so that it was impossible to see where one ended and the other began?<\/span><\/p>\n

Except that Hutch was painfully alive while Starsky balanced on the edge of death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutch had seen Starsky close to death before. On a rainy night in an Italian restaurant, Hutch had awaited the takedown of a mob boss while Starsky bled out in a back room, a bullet in his back. The situation had looked hopeless.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutch figured it would take a miracle to get them out alive. But Starsky had shown him miracles can happen.\u00a0 Hadn\u2019t Starsky saved him from a heroin free fall a few weeks earlier?\u00a0 Now it was Hutch\u2019s turn.\u00a0 He\u2019d be damned if he\u2019d do any less for Starsky.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutch didn’t know where he’d gotten the nerve, but suddenly there it was — shooting like lightning bolts from the finger he\u2019d pointed at the gunmen.\u00a0 He\u2019d stunned them no less than he\u2019d stunned himself.\u00a0 Then, as the minutes to midnight ticked down, Hutch pulled the trigger of an old gun that could just as easily have exploded in his hand as stop the mobsters, a prayer on his lips.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazingly, it all came together.\u00a0 Hutch had saved them all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years they had taken turns saving each other.\u00a0 From women who did them wrong, from thugs who wished them harm, and even from themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was the time Hutch had saved Starsky from a deadly poison with mere minutes to spare.\u00a0 Once, he\u2019d rescued him by deducing that a killer they\u2019d thought was a man was actually a disturbed woman\u2019s alter-ego.\u00a0 He\u2019d even chased down a disfigured actor to find Starsky, bloodied and groggy but still alive, in an alley.\u00a0 When Starsky had been kidnapped by cultists, Hutch had entered into their leader\u2019s darkest dreams to prove himself Starsky\u2019s knight-errant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutch always seemed to be his coolest, his bravest, when Starsky needed him most.\u00a0 Or was it the reverse?<\/span><\/p>\n

He remembered how Starsky had held him for hours while heroin burned through his veins like fire, until Starsky\u2019s touch became more powerful than the drug.\u00a0 How Starsky had found him trapped under a car — cooked by the sun, mocked by the moon, and haunted by the thought that he might die on that hillside alone.\u00a0 But all the while, in the back of his mind he knew Starsky wouldn\u2019t let him.\u00a0 So he\u2019d held on until Starsky came through.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite a smoking gun and a priceless diamond, Starsky had believed in Hutch enough to know that he hadn\u2019t killed his ex-wife. And he\u2019d sacrificed himself to prove it. Then came Starsky\u2019s forgiveness for the ultimate betrayal — sleeping with a woman Starsky thought he loved.\u00a0 It was as if Starsky was able to follow Hutch\u2019s twisted logic, his vicarious way of needing to get even closer than they already were.\u00a0 Flesh to flesh.\u00a0 Soul to soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who was stronger than whom?\u00a0 Who needed the other more?\u00a0 That night, they\u2019d gone home to figure it out together.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutch watched and waited and remembered.\u00a0 And thought of another glass window with something written across it in red.\u00a0 Starsk.\u00a0 Just one word held infinite meanings.\u00a0 In the moment he\u2019d opened his eyes and saw it, he had believed he could overcome anything.<\/span><\/p>\n

When he was able, Hutch approached Starsky\u2019s bed like one would an apparition, fearful and disbelieving.\u00a0 That pale, inert form hooked up to so many tubes and wires scarcely resembled his vibrant partner.\u00a0 Hutch longed to reach out and touch him the way he had a thousand times before. Afraid that if he did, his hand would pass through flesh into nothingness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Life without Starsky was unimaginable. Hutch regarded the medical apparatus that held him earthbound with awe. How long could the machines that flickered and hummed hold him to this world?\u00a0\u00a0 As long as Starsky was still alive, Hutch figured there was one thing left he had to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

He strode away to wash his face and grab his gun.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

“Where\u2019s he going?” David asked.\u00a0 Rather than becoming hardened to his feelings of worry and concern over the years, he now seemed more affected by them.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“He\u2019s going to get justice for you,” the Archangel Michael said.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“He can\u2019t do it alone.\u00a0 He needs me.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“Does he?”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A thousand years ticked by.\u00a0 Or perhaps just a millisecond.\u00a0 The space of time between one heartbeat and then next.<\/span><\/p>\n

“No, he doesn\u2019t,” David realized.\u00a0 “He only thinks he does.\u00a0 You were right.\u00a0 This one is special.\u00a0 He\u2019s been worth. . . everything.”\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“I\u2019m glad you agree.\u00a0 This world is a complicated place.\u00a0 Even we don\u2019t know all its mysteries,\u201d Michael reminded him.\u00a0 \u201cCoal turns into diamonds when pressed down long and hard enough.\u00a0 Atoms collapsing in on themselves become stars<\/em>.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“You got that right.\u00a0 The man practically radiates.”\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“He does, at that.\u201d <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This thing called a human being is so fragile, Starsky mused.\u00a0 Delicate tissues stretched over a framework of bone.\u00a0 A heart that struggles for each beat deep within.\u00a0 No one knows precisely what starts it, or what keeps it going.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“I guess my time is up now,” he said to Michael.\u00a0 “Just tell me, does he do it?\u00a0 Does he find who wants us dead?\u00a0 Does he bring them down?\u00a0 Will he be safe?”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“David . . .”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“I know, I know.\u00a0 There are no guarantees.\u00a0 But I was hoping just this once . . .”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“Humans are marvelous creatures, David, but you\u2019ve seen how frail they can be.\u00a0 Physicians might be able to heal a broken body but something more is needed to heal a broken spirit.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“Tell me something I don\u2019t know.”\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“Over the years, you\u2019ve given so much to so many.”\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“That must be why I feel so empty right now.\u00a0 Those goons shot me up pretty good.\u00a0 Turned my insides into hamburger.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not what hurts the most.\u00a0 It\u2019s something deeper than that.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“You\u2019ve carried the heartache of many humans, but have yet to experience their love.\u00a0 Until now, you\u2019ve only been able to skim its surface.\u00a0 The full measure of it fills a body up to overflowing.\u00a0 It eclipses everything else in life, no matter how painful.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“\u2018S okay.\u00a0 What I had was enough.\u00a0 It was enough with Hutch.\u00a0 If I got anymore of him, I don\u2019t know that my soul could take it.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

PART THREE<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Power comes in many forms. In physical strength, in money, in authority. In love that makes the impossible possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutch tracked down the man who\u2019d ordered the hit on them, only to find that he was one of the most powerful men in the country.\u00a0 James Gunther.\u00a0 Someone who could hold the government in his hands.\u00a0 At one time, Hutch might have been intimidated by that kind of power.\u00a0 But not anymore.\u00a0 He would go after him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then came a phone call from the hospital and the words, \u201cHutch, you better get down here.\u201d\u00a0 Gunther would get his comeuppance, but for now he could wait.\u00a0 Hutch had another more important mission.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

“You wanted to quit once, do you remember?” the Archangel said. “I didn\u2019t blame you, but I told you you had a special assignment.”\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“Yes, I remember.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

“After all you\u2019ve been through, all you\u2019ve given, you deserved something special. A chance to feel what you have only just touched. David, haven\u2019t you guessed yet?\u00a0 You weren\u2019t just sent for Hutch–“<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Steps raced down a hallway.\u00a0 A door pushed open wide.<\/span><\/p>\n

“–Hutch was sent for <\/em>you.”\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A heart brought back to life.<\/span><\/p>\n

FIN<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PART ONE:\u00a0 Somewhere in Qu\u1ea3ng Tr\u1ecb Province, March 1972 The night surrounded Tommy Collins like a body bag, making it hard to breathe. In his mind, the rustling of the trees sounded eerily like a zipper closing up over his … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fic","category-gen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/solstice.starskyhutchcalendar.net\/2017\/calendar\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}