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Our hobby room looked like an eclectic mix of junk and refined junk. My easels were stuck in the corner, waiting for my next burst of inspiration. Board games and puzzles were stuck in the closet, most picked up for Starsky to pass his time while he was in the hospital. Starsky's model ships were housed on shelves around the room. His current work in progress was sitting on the table, where he sat concentrating. I was supposed to hold the string for him, that being my only job at the present.
"When is this thing gonna be finished?" I asked. "You've been working on it for a week now."
"Shh." He squinted over the project. "It takes time to do this. This is a delicate operation here."
"If you say so," I said, not convinced.
"And you never did tell me what kept you late at work."
"Same thing as always," I sighed. "Paperwork that never ends."
"You getting any closer?" he asked, still concentrating on his task.
"I keep thinking I'm almost to the end and then I find a new connection and have to go chasing after it. And then I've got the captain looking over my shoulder, making sure I'm not over-stepping on anything that'd blow one of the cases."
"Not likely."
"That's what I said. These guys are all gonna have an air-tight case, open and shut. And Dobey keeps harassing me to take the Lieutenant's exam. Pretty soon he's gonna wear me down," I laughed.
A look of utter disappointment crossed his face, ever so quickly, before he covered it up with a fake smile. "It's a step up. Maybe it's time to start thinking about it."
"What? What are you talking about, Starsky?"
"I mean, you gotta plan ahead. Maybe you should consider taking the exam." He took the string away from me, looking like he had finished as much as he wanted to tonight.
"Starsk, I've already told you that I'm not gonna stay on the force forever. Why would I wanna go and take a promotion when I'm not gonna be sticking around?"
"It's just something to think about."
"I thought about it the first time he asked me and I thought about it every other time he's brought it up. I came to the same conclusion every time. I'm not staying, so I don't wanna tie myself to a promotion."
"Whatever you think is best." He switched the conversation quickly, turning himself around. "We gonna watch the game or what?"
"We've got time," I said, glancing at my watch. "You go get the snacks. I'm gonna go shower and change." The day's heat had gotten to me.
"I'll meet you out there," he said, pushing himself out of the room.
I watched him leave, wondering what I had said to make him change his mood so quickly. Whatever it was, I hoped he would tell me. I headed to our master bathroom, turning on the shower and getting it to the right temperature. I quickly stripped and washed the day's grime off my body. The water relaxed my muscles, taking my mind off all the burdens that had begun to gather there. The job, it wasn't really my life anymore. I was working for one final goal and then I could walk away and never look back.
I put on my pajamas and headed out to the living room after my shower. Starsky had already set up everything and was cheering on the first inning by the time I got there. I sat down with him, happy to watch our team having taken on a one run lead early on.
The television announcer was calling the last hit. "Runner on third is....out!"
"He's not out!" Starsky yelled back at the television.
"I don't think he heard you," I teased, reaching for the bowl of popcorn.
"Blind men should not be given jobs as umpires," he groused, grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl now sitting on my lap.
"Man's gotta work somewhere."
"Not if he's gonna ruin my game he doesn't!" he complained.
"....strike one," the announcer put in.
"This is getting sad," I told him. "What happened to these guys since last week? Weren't they good before?"
"They were working fine before you got here." He looked over at me. "Maybe you're bad luck or something."
"If I'm bad luck it would've rubbed off on you by now," I joked, throwing some popcorn at him.
"Hey, don't waste that! I spent a lot of time popping it!"
"Ten minutes on the stove is not hard work."
"Just for that..." He reached for the popcorn bowl and hoarded it for himself. "You don't get any."
"Aww, come on." I moved closer to him. "You're supposed to love me unconditionally."
"Not when you make fun of my cooking I don't," he frowned, joking me.
"Please?"
"No!"
I kept working on him. Finally, by the fifth inning, he was not only letting me share the popcorn, he was feeding it to me. He said at least that way he could make sure I didn't eat it all. We cleaned out the bowl pretty soon afterwards and Starsky took it as an opportunity to go get a bath and change. He took the bowl with him on his way.
The score was tied by the time he got back. He said it was because he wasn't there for good luck. Apparently his presence did help because by the end of the game, our team won by three.
Starsky yawned and switched back over to his chair. "You coming to bed?"
"You go on in. I'll be there in a minute," I told him.
Starsky left to go back to the bedroom while I cleared away the living room. I gathered up our trash and went to throw it away in the kitchen. I found some papers in the trash on my way through to the bedroom. I wouldn't have even noticed them, but one of the pages hadn't made it to the trash can yet, so I picked it up and fully intended to just chuck it and go to bed. Except, the page caught my attention.
In Starsky's scrawling handwriting was a list of college courses, among them some Psychology and a few Criminology classes. I thought, maybe he was going to take some classes for fun. Give him something to do with his days. Then I found the other pages. Two columns on one page that had classes listed under his name and then a few repeated under mine. Another page had a running timeline plan, set to start during the fall of the year and running through the next. My name was dotted throughout, beside his. I was thoroughly confused. What was he planning for the two of us? And why had he trashed the pages? There was only one way to find out.
Entering the bedroom, I noticed he was still in the bathroom. I sat down on the bed and waited for him to return. The minutes ticked by and my mind started making up reasons for the find. Maybe he was just brainstorming. He did that a lot, so I shouldn't be surprised now. Maybe he was just jotting down notes about something that had nothing to do with me. Or maybe it did.
"We have got to get that faucet fixed in there," he said, pointing to the bathroom as he emerged. "One of these times it isn't gonna turn off and the house'll be flooded."
I looked up at him, trying to smile. It was the same old argument. That faucet had leaked ever since we moved in, but Starsky kept joking me about it. He kept telling me that if he drowned in his sleep, he would haunt me about the faucet for all eternity.
"It isn't broken," I offered. "You just yank it too hard."
"I do not!" He was smiling, so the words held no power. "Whatcha got there?" He rolled over and saw what I was holding, his expression dropping all hints of happiness. "I threw these away."
"Why?"
"Whaddya mean why?" He backed away, circling around to the other side of the bed.
I turned around so I could keep talking. "Why'd you throw these away? And what do they mean anyway?"
"It was just something stupid I was working on. Nothing important." He pushed himself forward in the chair, quickly pulling his body onto the mattress and then his legs.
"My name's on it," I said.
"So's mine. It's not a big deal, Hutch."
He started pulling on the covers, picking up his lifeless legs to place them underneath. I pulled the covers up on my side, too. As he started to reach for his book off the bedside table, I stopped him.
"Well, you were thinking about something, so spill."
"It was just a crazy idea. You know how I get these crazy ideas in my head. That's all it was." He tried to smile and pretend the matter was dropped, but I wouldn't let it be.
"Are you gonna make me play twenty questions all night or are you gonna tell me?"
He sighed. "I was just playing what-if, seeing if I could do something."
"Do what?"
He started to say something, but then quickly closed his mouth. He looked at me, sadness in his eyes, as if thinking how to approach the subject. "Whaddya wanna do in the future, Hutch? I mean, where do you wanna be?"
"You mean as a career?" He nodded. "Well, I don't know. I'm gonna get off the force, but I don't know where I wanna go. Maybe teach at the Academy or something if a position opens up. Why?"
"I just...I was thinking about what you could do, what we both could do, but it was a dumb idea."
"I bet it's not dumb, so tell me."
He reached for the papers, looking through them. "You always said you'd never take another partner and I don't have any idea what I wanna do, but every time I think about it I keep going back to police work."
"Starsky..."
"So I got this crazy idea that I was gonna find something I could do, something we could do together, and still be involved in the field."
"And you came up with?"
"Profiling." He laughed. "Sounds so stupid when I say it out loud doesn't it?"
I stared at him, wrapping my mind around what he had said. "No, it doesn't sound stupid at all."
"I even talked to Patty." He shook his head. "She was all excited that I was even considering it. Said you and me always were the best pair of cops she ever worked with and between the two of us we'd be a great team again."
"And that's why the lists?"
"Yeah. She was telling me which classes were required and what kind of experience they look for. Our records would go a long way and she could put in a good word for us after we got the classes done." He snorted, laying the papers down between us, but leaving his hand covering them. "I told you it was a stupid idea."
I reached for his hand, covering it with my own. "It's not a stupid idea. It's a damn fine idea."
"No, Hutch. It'd take us a while to get the classes and then it's no guarantee that we'd even get hired for anything, especially together. Dobey's already offered you the exam and if you turn it down again he might not ask the next time."
"Starsky, I don't want to take the exam. I don't wanna stay on the force alone, either. I'd much rather work beside you again, you know that."
"I was just thinking, Hutch. Don't make a big deal out of it."
"I want to try this, with you."
"You'd have to take night classes and it'd be rough going and...."
"And we could have classes together and learn together and do something together, Starsk. We could work like we used to."
He looked into my eyes, emotions shining through. "You really think we could do this?"
"I think we'd be sorry if we didn't try. We were a fine team, you and me, and we still are. I think we could do this just like we did everything else."
"Really?"
"Really," I said, smiling at him. "Now, tell me what we need to do."
He leaned over and kissed me, whispering, "Thank you." Why he had to thank me, I didn't know. He was offering us a chance to be together again. For that, I should be thanking him over and over. I wanted to do this, with him. I wanted to feel like I made a difference again, like what I did mattered. If I could work with Starsky again, I would matter.