Work Text:
TO HONOR AND CHERISH
By TR
Plot: Starsky and Hutch battle a different kind of enemy. (Trigger warnings apply here).
XXXXXXXXXXXX
I knew Hutch was sick, and he did too. We thought it was some kind of nasty virus-(no, don't say that word plague)-(don't think it)-but it didn't seem to get any better.
He looked peaked and tired.
"All-nighter with Maureen, huh?" I kidded him one day in the squad room.
He just smiled from his desk and shook his head.
I poured him a cup of coffee. "Takin' your vitamins?"
"Every day."
"Iron?"
"Every day."
"Health drinks?"
He gave a lame shrug. "When I'm hungry."
"I noticed that you don't even eat half your sandwiches."
"That's because you eat the other half."
"Hey, come on. Don't avoid the subject. Gonna see the doctor?"
"Nah. It'll pass."
Big boy. Stoic.
As he sat there passing a hand down his pale face.
Things changed. He got paler and weaker.
Dobey asked him at least every other day if he felt all right, and of course Hutch told him he did.
I took over the driving every day, with picking him up for work, and, for a change, HE was the one who was sleeping late. Usually I'd tease him about somethin' like that, but this time I couldn't. Something just didn't seem right. Some mornings I'd have to pull him out of bed and wash his face off with a cold, wet cloth just to get him out the door.
I'd steady him at the door-"Hutch, you okay?"
"Fine."
-steady him at the car-"Hutch, what's the matter?"
"Just a bug, Starsk."
-steady him at Huggy's-cover for him on the street, doing most of the talking, interviewing, arresting.
I covered for him at the station too. Typed all the reports, took and made all the phone calls, took all the complaints. Not that I minded it. Of course I didn't. It just told me how sick he really was, because there was no way he'd let me carry all the load otherwise.
One day I saw him sleeping at the squad room desk. Gently I shook his shoulder. "Hutch, why are you here?"
He raised his head and blinked at me. "Huh?"
"You should be home in bed. Or better, at the doctor. Come on. I'll go with you."
"Starsk, don't start that with me. I'm just tired."
He put his head back down.
I fought the urge to give him a shake. He looked like he'd fall to pieces if I did. Hutch didn't even bother to raise his head when Dobey stepped out of his office. "Starsky," he asked as he waggled a pencil in his hand. "Come with me." I followed him out into the hall.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Well, you damn well better be finding out. He looks like something the cat dragged in."
"Cap, I tried. He won't-"
"Just do it. He's no good to you on the street in his condition."
Cap was right. As tough as Hutch was, me working with a sick partner was dangerous. For him.
Me. Both of us.
When I turned to go back into the squad room, he took my arm. "And report back to me. Got it?" I looked at him.
(That in the rule book, Cap? Thought you weren't supposed to get personal with your underlings?)
"Okay," I smiled. "I'll report back."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
"Hutch," I said when I went back in and sat down in my chair across from him at our desk, "Cap says get your tail to a doctor."
Hutch didn't answer. He just got up and made his wobbly way out the door.
Slam.
I'd bugged him about a doctor one too many times.
I waited a few minutes, knowing he couldn't have gone far on foot, and wasn't up to driving, but he didn't come back.
So I went looking for him, and found him standing in the men's room, just leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.
"Hutch?" I asked quietly as I approached him.
God, he was asleep on his feet. Didn't even hear my question. He just slid down the wall.
"Hutch!"
I caught him under the arms and eased him to a sitting position against the wall, then crouched to talk to him. "Hutch, I'm callin' an ambulance. I don't care what you say."
He moved his head no.
"You can't go on like this. Somethin's bad wrong. I don't know what it is, but you have to-"
"Cancer," he whispered with his head down.
The silence in the men's room weighed a ton. I was so stunned I couldn't say anything.
"I didn't," he whispered again. Talking was such an effort for him. Even a few words. "I didn't want you to know."
My face flushed hot and deep, my guts fell to my feet. I jumped up and kicked the stall doors, making a lot of racket.
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?"
He put his hand to his eyes.
Oh God. I had to pull it back in. I couldn't do this to him. He couldn't even sit up. He was sinking onto his side and closing his eyes, his hand inching toward me on the floor.
Of course I knew why he didn't tell me. He didn't want me to worry. He didn't want it to change things-with the job, me, him, anything. He wanted, dear God, to protect me from it. He wanted to keep things the way they were, for as long as he could.
I dove to sit him up.
"Hutch?"
A tentative question. Afraid to ask. Afraid to know.
"Hutch, I'm sorry. Forget what I said. I know why you didn't tell me. You weren't ready. You wanted to keep me from hurting. But buddy, you can't hide it anymore. Look at you. It's okay. You can let go. Give it to me, okay? Okay? Let me have some of it."
And he started bawlin' right there, defenses down, too weak to stop or care. Cryin', in my opinion, more from relief than from pain.
A couple of uniforms came in.
"OUT!" I yelled over my shoulder, and they went out.
XXXXXXXXXXX
I had to call an ambulance for him.
His doctor, Ronald Reed, a guy who looked too old to be a doctor but seemed to know what he was doing, the one who had diagnosed him weeks before and was treating him, met with me in the hall outside Hutch's hospital room.
"I don't know what keeps the man on his feet," he said with a sad smile. He looked like Cary Grant in his old years, with the white hair and sturdy black glasses.
"Hutch is the strongest person I know," I told him, and I didn't tone down the pride in my voice. "He's got a lot of vitamins and health food and meditation and positive energy to see him through this."
Dr. Reed shook his head. "I'm sorry, Detective Starsky. But it's going to take a little more than that. And there are no guarantees."
I got quiet. In my head, I knew he was being honest. But in my heart, I wanted him to be wrong.
"We never rule out miracles," Reed said.
"Right," I told him. "They have new treatments now. Chemotherapy. Drugs. Patients can even go into remission. You'll see. You'll see the Hutch I'm talkin' about."
I wanted to feel hope, not desperation. I wanted a happy ending, not a bad one.
"His chemotherapy will start tomorrow," he told me.
"See? You wait, Doc. He's pulled through a lot of bad stuff."
I could tick them off to him on my fingers if I'd wanted to-the addiction Forest forced on him, trapped under a car in the canyon, the plague, a bullet near the heart from a teenage girl-Hutch had pulled through it all-but it was none of the doc's business.
If he didn't have faith in his own patient, how could he expect Hutch to have any?
"Maybe we need a second opinion," I said.
Reed patted my arm, his demeanor always gentle but firm.
"Tomorrow morning," he said again.
XXXXXXXXXXX
I stepped into Hutch's hospital room and slammed the door.
He was sitting up in the bed, as pale as his white hospital gown.
"All right," I said pulling his clothes from the closet and tossing them onto his lap. "Come on. We're gettin out of here."
He stared at me like I was nuts. "Starsky, I just can't leave the hospital. I'm scheduled for chemotherapy in the-"
"DON'T SAY THAT WORD!"
"Starsk-"
I went to the bed and lowered the handrail. "Come on. These quacks don't know what they're talkin' about. They got all kinds of alternative treatments comin' out. Herbs. Health food. Home remedies. Crystals. Potions. Charms. Hell. Even voodoo or that bloodless surgery might work, huh? All kinds of newfangled-"
He snatched my wrist with a moment of the Hutchlike strength I was used to and admired.
"Starsk," he said trying to pin me with his eyes. "Look at me."
I didn't. He had my wrist and I was trying to pry out of his grip.
"Starsky!"
I looked at him, and saw the weight he was carrying in his eyes, and in his whisper: "All we can do is chemotherapy."
I finally jerked my wrist free, sick at his too-weak grip. "So what," I said with a swallow as I lowered my voice to match his. "We just quit? This is it?"
"I'm not quitting," he said. "I'm going to take my treatments. But we have to face the possibility-"
"No way," I said walking toward the door. "You face it."
Too heavy. Too much.
I shouldn't have said it. I know.
I know I should have stayed with him. I know.
But I couldn't.
His voice behind me, weak: "Starsk, I think I need you here in the morning . . . "
But I went on out.
I had to go.
I could feel his eyes on me, even when I walked outside the hospital and down the street.
I didn't have to look to know he was watching me out the window, to see if I was okay.
But my feet couldn't just walk.
Nor my mind.
I had to run.
Fast and hard.
And as far away from the hospital, and Reed, and cancer, and Hutch's eyes, as I could.
But I couldn't run away from myself.
Cancer. Chemotherapy. Terminal.
Those words and Hutch did not compute.
This was Hutch we were talkin' about. A hundred pushups a day. A runner. Health conscious. Lover of life. A giver. Strong. Compassionate. Talented.
Why?
Why be on this earth if somethin' like cancer is just gonna rob it all?
Why get close to someone if all they're gonna do is die on you before their time?
XXXXXXXXXXXX
A drink.
A nice long one.
A nice strong one.
Well, actually, a bottle.
Diane gave it to me at Huggy's. She didn't want to. I insisted. And loudly too. And with Huggy not around to protest, there was nothin' she could do about it except give it to me.
"Starsk," she said laying a tender hand on my forearm, "Hug told me about Hutch. I'm sorry. But don't you think you need-"
"Shut up. You don't know what I need, so just back off."
She did, retreating behind the bar to cry over a menu like I couldn't see her.
Cad. I didn't console her. I drank some more. And then some more.
Until my mind was a blur. Until I was falling off the stool and busting my eye open on the way down to the floor.
"Hey, man!" Huggy growled as he jerked me to my feet. "What gives with you, huh? You come here and get smashed so I can talk some sense into that crazy head of yours?"
"Man with the plan," I muttered as I tried to stumble away.
Huggy dragged me through the bar, with everyone looking, and into the back alley by the trashcans.
"What you pullin', dude? Look at you. Hutch is gonna start treatments tomorrow. He needs you. And look at you. Some chump friend you are. He'd be there with you."
"Oh yeah!" I cried into his face. "Lay it on me, Huggy! Let me have it!"
And he did.
I didn't see his punch comin', but I did see an explosion of white color in my head, and I figured it was him.
XXXXXXXXXXX
The hospital staff gave me the eye when I trudged in the next morning in the same clothes I'd had on the day before. Except today my shirt sported the smell of liquor and some bloodstains where I'd fallen off the barstool like a common wino and Huggy had to punch my lights out.
Battle scars.
David Starsky at war with cancer.
At war with the death of his best friend.
And with himself.
I didn't feel like I could win the first two, but I could the last one, and I was here to prove it.
Hutch was waiting for me in his wheelchair in the hallway outside of the chemotherapy room. He'd told them not to start the treatments without me.
"See?" he said as he looked up smugly at Reed. "Told you he'd come."
He knew I'd be there, even when I didn't know myself.
"You okay, Starsk?"
"Had a disagreement with a bar. And then a bartender."
He raised an arm to me from the wheelchair and pulled me down, liquor smell, bloodstained shirt, war wounds and all.
"Glad you're here," he said into my shirt collar. "God, I'm scared."
I blinked back scalding tears.
I almost blew it.
If there were ever a time Hutch needed me . . . and what did I do? I wimped out and walked off.
I took his head in my hands and looked into his scared eyes.
"Never again, Hutch. I'll never leave you again."
I looked over my shoulder to see Cap and Huggy coming down the hall.
"We'll be here when you come out," Cap said shaking his hand.
"Yeah," Huggy added, "keep your chin up."
And he did. Literally.
Cancer was a thief and a killer, but Hutch wasn't going to surrender without a fight.
No white flag.
"We can beat this, Hutch," I whispered into his ear. "We can. You gotta believe that."
He nodded, and the nurse wheeled him down the hall, me walking beside them with my hand on the back of Hutch's neck.
"Trying to kill the growth of the cancer cells," Dr. Reed explained in the cold white room. Hutch was chilling. I moved next to him to give him some body heat. "Keep them from multiplying and spreading."
Spreading.
I hated that word too.
Spreading like wildfire.
Spreading like rumors.
Spreading like germs.
Spreading like a plague.
Like . . .
Into his bones.
His muscles.
His tissues.
Invasion.
Killing him, cell by cell, minute by minute.
Unless the chemotherapy could stop it. Stall it. Stunt it. Retard it.
He was already weak, and the radiation treatments only seemed to make him weaker and sicker.
I didn't understand it, but they assured me it was the right thing to do.
They sent him home after each trip, like he asked.
Even though the doctors explained how chemotherapy worked, it didn't make it any easier when I had to hold his head while he heaved his guts into the commode.
He made jokes about it, laughing and crying at the same time while he spit into the toilet.
"This is supposed to help, right, Starsk?"
Or:
"I bet it was that taco you made me try."
I'd laugh just to keep from cryin' myself, and sling his arm around my neck to walk him back to bed.
"God, this sucks, Starsk," he'd say listlessly as his head bobbed against my shoulder on our way to the bed.
I helped him into bed and covered him.
That was the routine after the chemotherapy. Until it took more and more from him. Until he couldn't stand up anymore after throwing up. So limp afterward I had to push him back to the bed in his wheelchair.
I got him into the bed, realizing with each trip that he was getting lighter and lighter. He'd be so cold, and tired, and weak. His color was gone. Washed out. His lips pale.
He was looking less and less like the Hutch I knew. My mind tried hard to adjust, but sometimes he didn't look like Hutch at all. More like some kind of scarecrow. The bones of his face too well-defined. Clothes not fitting him. Lethargic. His hair . . .
There came a day when strands of his hair ended up in my hand when I stroked his head.
More came out with each treatment.
Huggy must've thought I'd lost it, callin' him like a thief in the night.
"What's up, man?" came his sleep-slurry voice. "Hutch okay?"
I didn't know if I could get the words out. I was standing there by the bed with the receiver in one hand, Hutch's downy hair in my other one. "Huh . . . Hug? Could you bring your hair clippers over tomorrow?"
He didn't ask what for. Guess he knew.
"Gonna do your do up right," Huggy said brightly as he helped Hutch into the wheelchair. "Not much we can do with it, so I figure we just get rid of all of it. Go for the Kojak look, huh?"
And Hutch didn't seem to care. He just sat there in his white pajamas. Too sick to care.
But I did.
Seeing Hutch's hair all over the floor made me cry.
It was more than yellow hair.
It was his signature. What the ladies liked. What people noticed first about him. What people commented most about when they first met him. They mentioned his hair before they even mentioned his eyes or his smile. He, naturally, never gave it another thought, unless someone brought it up.
Huggy tied a big bandana around his head, pirate style, and then swept the hair up into a dustpan.
Huggy didn't say anything, but I think he was feelin' what I was about the hair, because he wouldn't look at me while the blond swirls slid from the dustpan and into the trashcan.
XXXXXXXXXXX
"I'm putting him on extended sick leave," Cap told me quietly one day as he stood next to Hutch's bed and watched him sleep. "You too. I don't know what else to do."
I nodded.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
I stayed at Hutch's more than I stayed at my place.
I went out less and less. Mostly to the pharmacy, or to the store, or to take Hutch to the hospital for radiation.
I didn't want to leave him alone. I wanted to spend every minute I could with him.
"Sorry I can't drive," he said on our way back from one of his treatments.
"Don't worry, Hutch. Won't be long till you're able to drive again. Once those bad cells get zapped- "
He put his hand palm-up in the seat between us, without looking at me, and I grasped his invitation and squeezed it.
"It's not getting better, Starsk. It's getting worse. It's in my bones. All through my body. A human can only take so much radiation . . . "
I kept driving. Sometimes, these days, it was easier to talk when we were riding.
"That what they told you today?" I asked him.
He didn't nod or anything.
"They said no more treatments," he said. "They've done all they can do."
"No way. You believe that? They just start it up again, right? Isn't that what they do? Start another round?"
He shook his head no.
Not knowing what to do or say, I parked the Torino in front of his place.
"Godforsaken bone cancer," I mumbled under my breath.
Hutch didn't hear me.
"Huh?"
I said it louder.
"Godforsaken bone cancer!"
And louder.
"GODFORSAKEN NO GOOD-I HATE IT!"
I tore out of the car and grabbed what was handy-some baseball bat a kid'd left on the sidewalk along with a skateboard.
I picked up the bat and swung it against the car, over and over, denting it and cracking windows, until I was crying, until Hutch tumbled out and grabbed me in both scarecrow arms.
He wasn't strong anymore, though I guess he didn't know that.
I stopped my tirade because I didn't want to hurt Hutch.
Even as sick as he was, he was still trying to help me.
We just held onto each other as tight as we could. We were in our terrified state together. All we had was each other.
I felt his legs buckling as he struggled to stand on his feet.
"Let's go in, huh, Starsk?"
I pulled myself together for the hundredth time and helped him toward the door to Venice Place, neither of us realizing it was to be the last time he'd walk up those stairs.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The pain steadily grew worse.
He didn't tell me about it at first. He'd just take his pills with some water and go to sleep.
But one night I got up from the couch to use the john, and I heard some faint sounds from his bedroom.
Figured he was having a dream, so I went in to see what I could do, and I saw that it wasn't a dream at all. He was just lyin' there huggin' his pillow and cryin' into it.
"Hey," I whispered as I knelt by the bed.
My hand moved to his head, like always, but found the soft white knitted cap Edith had made for him.
"Starsk, I'm hurtin'."
"I know, buddy. What can I do? You want a hospital?"
He moved his head no, his sick eyes pleading with me, his face damp with sweat.
"Starsk, I don't want . . . I don't want to die in a hospital."
"Hutch, stop talkin' like that. You're not gonna . . . " I reached for the bedside phone. "I'm callin' Reed. He said to call him if the pain gets bad. He said he'd bring somethin' stronger."
His clammy hand settled on my arm. "Don't."
I kept dialing. "We talked about this, Hutch. It's the best way. It's the only way."
"But I don't want that stuff. Ever again."
I gripped his hand and held it to my chest, right over my heart. "Hutch, this time it's our choice. We regulate it. Only what you need. No more, no less. And nobody's gonna force you. And nobody's gonna keep it from you when you need it. There will never, ever, I promise you, never, be withdrawal."
His poor eyes. Hot. Sparkling. Scared.
"Promise, Starsk?"
"Promise. It'll help you, not hurt you."
"I'm not-" -twining out, kicking his foot in the bed. "I'm not a junkie."
"No, Hutch, you're not. You're in pain, and it'll help you. I know how long you've been puttin' it off, and I know why, but now's the time, buddy. Trust me. I'll get him over here. And I'll sit right here with you when he gives it to you. I won't let anything happen. I'll sit here the whole night. And then the nurses can start comin' over to check it every day. And then . . . are you sure you don't want to go to a hospital?"
He knew what I was asking.
Where to die, Hutch?
Here or a hospital?
(God, please no)
He held my hand tighter, moved closer to me, to the edge of the bed. "I want to stay here," he said, his upper lip a sheen of sweat.
I nodded.
He had never looked so vulnerable or boyish.
Depending on me for everything.
For water.
For the bathroom.
For coolness.
Warmth.
Comfort.
Company.
Survival.
Even death.
I felt the tables turning. Physically. My turn to be helper, giver, friend.
He helped me after Gunther.
I owed him my life.
(I won't, Hutch)
(I won't ever make light of it)
(I won't ever take it lightly)
(Or take you for granted)
(Your life is in my hands)
(It's always been in my hands)
(I honor it and cherish it)
"Then you'll stay here," I whispered as I squeezed a sponge-full of water into a pan and patted down his forehead, cheeks, and neck.
I heard the doctor pick up on the other end.
"Hey, Doc? It's me. Dave Starsky? You said to call you when the . . . " My throat was jamming up. Hutch squeezed my hand. "When the pain got really bad. So I think you need to bring something."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Hutch didn't try to get up and say hello to Dr. Reed when he arrived. He was beyond that now. All he was able to do was move his eyes in the doctor's direction, in so much pain he was trembling.
(God, Hutch, how long have you been hurting like this?)
(You should have told me hours ago)
"Morphine," the old man said softly.
Hutch looked at me.
I knelt one knee in the bed and pulled Hutch onto my lap, an odd deja-vu feeling of that night so long ago when I'd held him through the worst of his heroin withdrawal.
I kept my hand on his white cap while Reed put a tourniquet around his arm.
Hutch stiffened against me, and I held him closer.
"It's okay," I murmured softly. "Remember all the things I told you."
I held him through the first injection.
His muscles were tense at first, and then, as the morphine spread through his veins and the pain was snuffed out, he closed his eyes and let go of a low, soft moan. Not of resignation, or acceptance, but of realization that this would mark the turning point.
As far as I was concerned, the morphine entering his body was the beginning of the end, and that was when my mourning actually began.
That he had to have it just to exist . . .
That's when I really started losing him.
Because in the few short days and weeks that followed, he was in a twilight state most of the time, and seemed to shrink smaller day by day in the bed, losing so much weight all I could do was cry about it.
I placed soft pillows between his knees. Kept ice chips by his bed. Huggy brought health shakes by, but he was too weak to drink them through a straw.
I sat by his bed and strummed his guitar for him, humming a song now and then.
And the nurses came every day. They told me to go out for a walk, get some fresh air, but I didn't. Every minute was precious. They didn't understand that I couldn't leave his side. And I didn't. I was
in their way, I told them how to do their job, I took my anger at death out on them like they were the ones to blame because they couldn't stop it, but I didn't care.
I'd lean over the bed to dab his brow with a cool sponge, and he was oblivious to the nurses as they tended to him. Oblivious to every voice but mine.
When he heard me, he would move his hand-without even looking-knowing mine would be close by.
The days melted into one long span of time.
Hutch couldn't even answer me now. He couldn't even look at me. Too far gone. He stared in a morphine daze. I could only hope and believe that he could hear me. The nurses said that hearing was the last sense to leave a dying person. So I talked to him. Just like old times. About girls, cars, our old cases. Never knowing for sure if he could hear me or not. But acting like he could.
When Dr. Reed increased the morphine, Hutch would talk out of his head in his sleep, and mumble stuff like "Hey, you run that guy through the computer?" or "Starsk, hand me that walkie-talkie, will you?"- just like we were still working.
He wouldn't know what he was saying. I just sat with him and rubbed his arm.
Sometimes he'd reach for me in the middle of the night and lay his cool hand on my arm, and I'd always be there, always take it. I don't think he even realized when he was doing it. Just some kind of residual habit, instinct, from when he was okay. He spoke less and less each day, moved less and less. His breathing slowed down until it looked like he wasn't breathing at all. His color turned gray.
My mind played on the 'Do Not Resuscitate' papers he'd signed at the hospital. The ones in his desk drawer.
(Do not resuscitate? Do not try to save his life? Do not try to put air and life into his lungs? Do not do chest compressions to keep his heart beating?)
"No artificial means, Starsk."
That's what he'd said.
I had to respect his wishes. I had to keep my eyes off the telephone. My mind off an ambulance.
And that wasn't easy to do. Because everything in me wanted to save his life. Wanted him to live.
And then the night came when his energy seemed to pick up just a bit. He even looked at me, and tried to smile.
I crouched by the bed and took his hand.
"Hi, buddy."
"I see you," came his old-man whisper.
"I know," I smiled back. "I see you too."
"Still here."
"Yeah, I'm still here."
His eyes closed again. "Think I could go out to the greenhouse? Fresh air?"
"Whatever you want, Hutch."
This small burst of energy wasn't good. I'd read about it in the hospice book I got from the library.
This boost was only meant to carry him over the last hurdle.
I slipped my arms under him, and found he was so light I could carry him. For the first time in my life, I was able to carry him when he needed it.
So, fighting the hot tears down, trying to stay focused on him instead of myself, I carefully took him out to the greenhouse where I settled him in front of me on the chaise lounge. He rested back against me and looked at his greenery. The night breeze was cool and clear, the wind chimes were tinkling softly, and there was something special about all of it. Special in the way that I knew it meant something to him, being his final time and all.
"Starsk . . . " His hand groped for mine.
There was such a long time between each breath. His body was cold against me. I hugged him close to try to warm him. I took his hand and held it, my other arm wrapped around him and held him against me. His capped head rested against my shoulder.
Instead of thinking about all the other times I'd been there for Hutch, I thought about all the times he'd been there for me: In the restaurant-("If he needs me, you call me")- The poison-("I'm here, buddy. I'm here.")- Marcus. Rosie. Terry. Gunther.
"My heart's goin' with you, Hutch. It's okay. You can let go. This is a good place. It's just us. I'm here with you, and we'll do this together. I'll be okay. It won't be easy, but I'll be okay. I'll see you again someday. Just wait for me. I'll find you."
And that was it.
He wanted to hear it from me before he let go. He had to hear I'd be okay.
Well, not okay. But as okay as you can be with half a heart.
With a long sigh, his last breath, and my goodbye kiss pressed to the top of his cap, he was gone.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Dobey and Huggy found us in the greenhouse a couple of hours later.
I didn't say anything to them.
Dobey had to take Hutch from my arms.
"Let me have him, Dave."
I didn't want to let him go. But I had to. And Huggy was there to hold me while I cried so hard I thought my chest was going to cave in.
"He's not hurtin' anymore," Huggy said over and over to me as he rubbed my hair. "He's not hurtin' anymore."
End