Archive of Our Own

His butt parked on a battered wooden bench, Starsky watched the unsteady meanderings of a pretty young girl with the practiced eye of a beat cop. He'd grab her if she went much further, but for now, he just observed. He was too sleepy with the early afternoon sun warming his weary bones.

The girl paused, looking over at a group of kids near the water fountain and wavered, obviously caught between walking away and making friends. She took a wobbly step and went down face first into the sand, wailing loudly.

"Is her mother black?" asked one of the women supervising the kids splashing in the fountain.

Intent on his princess, Starsky didn't hear the question over the loud screaming coming from the far side of the sand area. "Venus!" he yelled. Her pink and white striped Oshkosh overalls were covered in sand, but there was no blood. "Just brush it off! You're okay."

This distraction didn't sway the angry eighteen-month old; she regarded him with a mixture of astonished distain and outright misery, and bellowed louder, waving her arms around as if making sand angels. The other three toddlers abandoned the splashy fun of the water fountain and scurried back to their sand toys, eyes wide.

"Ever the drama queen," Starsky sighed. One more minute and he'd go pick her up. She was not hurt in the least. After this long, he knew her indignant cry from her pain cry. And the fact that she could talk--a little bit--made it easier to distinguish her hunger cry from her tired cry. She couldn't possibly be hungry now, could she? They'd had lunch half an hour earlier. "Venus, I've got peanut butter crackers!" he cajoled.

"She is yours then," the woman persisted, a pique of doubt in her voice. "Is she adopted?"

The peanut butter cracker bribe had worked. Venus abruptly stopped crying and climbed to her feet, crossing the sand with a speed known only to whippets on the race track and small children.

That crisis averted, Starsky turned his attention to the woman standing next to the park bench. "Yeah, she's my kid. Yeah, she's adopted," he answered lazily, anticipating the next questions from long practice. He could almost recite them by now. He realized belatedly that the woman had already asked him the most common query. "Sorry, I didn't hear you before."

"Where's her mother?" she asked more pointedly. Probably a very nice woman under other circumstances: her eyes were narrowed in a suspicious way, and she moved directly in front of him as if to bar him from the other children in the play area. Another mother, with a chest like the prow of a warship and the protruding belly announcing imminent birth, joined her in solidarity against child molesters and other unaccompanied men in the park on a Wednesday afternoon.

"Dada!" Venus announced, cementing his claim as her parent. She grabbed the cracker sandwich he held out and dashed back into the sand, heading straight for the round-a-bout. She was definitely his own kid--he always liked going around and around at high speed until just about ready to puke, too.

"Where her mama be?" the pregnant woman reiterated, crossing her arms over her impressive display of blossoming fecundity.

"Not here," Starsky answered, wishing he'd stuck to their normal routine and taken Venus to the park at eight thirty a.m. At least the morning crowd knew him. These after lunch moms were an unknown breed, as distrustful as seasoned cops and just as practiced at forced interrogations. But he'd had business to take care of in the morning hours and some paper work that was only a little bit stained with mysterious green-most-probably-strained-peas-goo to file. Taking a rambunctious toddler to the park shouldn't have been second priority. Giving into the guilt, he'd brought her over before he took her to daycare. "I'm Dave Starsky. Venus missed playing with Ashley Shafer this morning, so we came after lunch."

"Oh, you know the Shafers. Connie and Ashley aren't here," the first woman said, relaxing marginally. She waved a hand at two boys now approaching the round-a-bout. "Margie Cummings. Those are my twins Jason and Joshua." The toddlers were big bruisers, with identical blue eyes and flaxen hair, wearing glaringly white Izod shirts paired with tiny pressed cargo shorts.

"Very cute," Starsky complimented, knowing it was expected. Privately, he was amazed at how she could keep two boys looking so neat and clean. Venus couldn't have pulled off that Parenting-magazine-cover-model styling for five minutes.

"Jason! Joshua!" Margie cautioned. "No roundies, you have new clothes on. Play quietly on the swings.".

That was how.

When both boys complied meekly with their mother's commands, Starsky barely managed to keep from gawking.

Margie tromped over the sand to supervise their play, her own pink and green striped golf shirt and cream skirt apparently rebuffing sand, dirt and any other unsavory stains the way Wonder Woman's cuffs repelled bullets

Venus was unperturbed by Jason and Joshua's departure and hummed to herself, munching on the cracker while pushing the round-a-bout along with her feet. She already had peanut butter all over her milk-chocolate cheeks and specks of sand glinted in the puffy topknot of dark brown hair on the top of her head. Two stubby braids poked out from behind her ears like licorice candy antennae.

"Your wife do her hair?" the pregnant woman asked, settling her bulk on the bench next to Starsky .

"Uh, no, I do," Starsky answered, having learned to neatly sidestep any questions about the absence of wives and women in his life.

"You do!" She chuckled, deep and mellow. "I never saw no man braid a little mama's hair before."

"It's not that hard." Starsky laughed, neglecting to mention that plaiting little braids was far easier than constructing a miniature ship in a bottle, and far, far less stressful than assembling an M-5 semi-automatic while blindfolded as he'd done in his Army days. "I sat her in my lap from the time she was ten months 'cause she had lots of hair. Her Godmother taught me." And he gave thanks for Edith Dobey every day of his life for all her parenting lessons.

"She eating sand," the woman observed.

Starsky barely raised an eyebrow, used to the criticisms of his fathering abilities. Maybe he was a bit more lackadaisical than some, but Venus was thriving. She was rarely ill and had grown like a weed since she being abandoned inside a car wash when she was less than twenty-four hours old.

He looked over at the lone child still playing industriously with the sand toys. She was a stunner, probably two-years old, with skin the color of imported coffee and wisps of corkscrew black curls covering her head. She'd made numerous mud pies with a mixture of sand and water from the fountain, and now was sampling her wares. "Unless I miss my guess, so's yours," Starsky said with a grin.

"Contessa!" her mother called sharply. "Get that out your mouth, you hear me?"

Contessa grinned impishly back, spitting out sand with obvious glee.

"Girls! Mo'trouble than they're worth," she said with a good-natured roll of her eyes. She lumbered to her feet and grabbed the little girl by the arm to wipe out her mouth with an old cloth diaper. "I had me four boys before her. I expected this of boys. Thought girls were ladylike an' sweet, playing in a corner with their doll-babies. Not my Contessa."

"Venus tucks the dolls into the back of her trucks and takes them off-roading through the mud," Starsky agreed. He should probably wipe the sand out of his own daughter's mouth, too, but he hadn't brought anything other than the packet of peanut butter crackers. He'd originally planned on eating those himself since lunch was a hurried affair of chicken and stars soup, his least favorite which naturally made it Venus' one and only. Venus had slurped soup while he was compiling the last of his grant paperwork to fund after school programs.

"Dada!" Venus scampered over and wiped her face, open mouthed, on his last pair of clean blue jeans.

"Venus!" he groaned.

"More! More!" she insisted, holding out one tiny starfish hand. "Cak-er, cak-er."

"So much for me gettin' anything to eat before the meeting," Starsky muttered. He was such a pushover for a pretty face. He handed over another peanut butter and orange-colored cracker sandwich, ignoring his rumbling stomach.

Contessa, seeing another little girl getting a treat when she was empty handed, roared. She was evidently a huge fan of the Simba, The White Lion cartoon. Venus stuffed the rest of her cracker in her mouth as if intent on hoarding every crumb.

"Does she want some?" Starsky asked, offering one to Contessa.

"Say thank you to the nice man," her mother reminded when Contessa accepted her prize and munched contentedly.

"Fank yew," Contessa parroted, following Venus over to the sand toys for more earthy baking fun.

"I fo'got to introduce myself. I'm Aurie-mae Delwerks. You live near here, Dave Starsky? You look right familiar." She sat back down on the bench with a lusty exhale, fanning herself. The baby in her belly must have kicked because she chuckled again, one hand rubbing soothing circles over her brightly flowered Hawaiian muumuu.

"Live about six blocks down." Starsky pointed to the left. "I used to be a cop until . . ." he nodded toward Venus, leaving out that the circumstances around his resignation had had more to do with not passing the lieutenant's exam twice and the increasing pain from old injuries.

"Now I know! You work at the Marshal Center!" Aurie-mae nodded, her smile like a hug that encompassed everyone. "You been teaching basket ball and P.E., stuff like that. My nephew Lavirle goes there."

"I know Lavirle. He's got a powerful throw for a kid who can't walk. I've been trying to get a grant for more programs for the disabled kids. We want to start up a wheelchair basketball league. There's already a team in Anaheim that we could play!" Starsky was about to launch into his current favorite subject when he remembered the time. "And if I don't get to the meeting in half an hour, there won't be a dime in funding. Gotta run."

"For that kind of dedication, boy, you can run all you want!" Aurie-mae agreed heartily. "I'll tell Lavirle's mama I met you. She thinks the world of that school."

"So do I," Starsky said, remembering long ago basketball games with the special ed kids and their very special teacher, Terry. That was all water under the bridge. He had a new life with Hutch and Venus, and if he hurried, he could very soon have a paying job.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lieutenant Ken Hutchinson climbed out of his department issue car with his usual curse about too small vehicles for men with long legs. In a cost saving move, BCPD was switching over to Hondas for officers who didn't drive police cruisers. So he was stuck with a pint-sized kiddie car instead of his beloved, if elderly Ford Lincoln.

Thinking of budget cuts, he realized he should have called Starsky before leaving his office. Starsky's grant meeting had probably already started. With any luck, he'd be far more successful in getting funding than Hutch had been in convincing the brass that driving his old car, gas guzzler that it may be, was better than having to submit insurance claims for the chiropractor who was adjusting his back.

He surveyed the area around the house where the murder had occurred with a practiced eye, checking that all required personnel were in place and that the neighborhood lookie-loos were being kept back. More changes in the last year had put increasing emphasis on preserving the crime scene until lab crews inspected every inch of the perimeter. That meant for long hours and disgruntled officers who were used to handing dead bodies and other unsavory things off to the detectives before going on their merry ways. A drastic manpower shortage was making things even more difficult until the municipal budget was amended. However long that would take.

Hutch had never expected that becoming a lieutenant would involve so much politics and so little of what he considered police work. He missed working with Starsky day to day as street cop more than he could say. Although, the rest of his life--at home with Starsky and their daughter, was bliss.

"Loo, we have a dicey situation inside." Detective Sergeant first class Kath Crenshaw met him at the curb. She pointed back at the rundown, dingy white house behind them.

"Neighbors got concerned when they hadn't seen Niccie Baker or her kids in a couple of days. Someone made an anonymous report to social services, who came yesterday but left when no one answered the door. Finally, the lady who lives on the left, Guadalupe Gonzales, who speaks no English, called her son who does. He called the police because of the smell."

"Yeah, can't mistake that." Hutch wrinkled his nose as they approached the front door. The place looked like no one cared--debris littered the front yard and the grass hadn't been watered and mowed in a months, creating a knee-high plot of brittle, brown straw. But by far the most noticeable sign that something was seriously wrong was the strong smell of death wafting from the dwelling.

"The first officers on the scene entered the house and found a kid and a dead woman in the back bedroom." Kath pinched the end of her nose as she crossed the threshold. "We're assuming she is Niccie Baker but we can't get close to the body. The little boy is guarding her, with a gun."

"You can't take a gun off a little boy?" Hutch questioned with disbelief, following Crenshaw into the house. The place was in shambles, dirty laundry tossed haphazardly in corners and an old damaged sofa the only furniture that he could see. There was drug paraphernalia strewn everywhere; needles, plastic baggies, scorched spoons and a crumbling, half-rolled doobie still pinched in a roach clip. Hell of a place to raise a child.

"He's already pulled off two shots at my partner." She grimaced at him and pointed down the hallway. "We think there may be more bodies behind the woman, there's blood and a small limb visible on the bed, but . . ."

"Damn." Hutch hugged the wall, inching down the hall until he could see the top of a brown curly head just around the edge of the bedroom doorframe. Crenshaw's partner was crouched a few feet from the door, frustration written all over his dark face.

"David," Detective Marcus Deavers called out. It was obvious from his tone that this was not the first time he'd tried to get the boy's attention. "We want to help your mother. We can take her to the —uh-- hospital . . ."

"No! She's sleepin'!" a very young voice protested, sounding ragged with exhaustion.

"Just put the gun down and the doctor can take a look at her," Marcus coaxed softly.

"Marcus," Kath said sotto-voce, kneeling just behind Hutch. "According to the neighbors, Niccie had three sons."

Hutch sized up the situation carefully, estimating the odds of he and Marcus going at the boy from two directions to confuse him, and then grabbing the gun. He couldn't see David very well, but he sounded about five or six years old, at the most.

"Go away!" David insisted and pulled the trigger. In the small house, the boom of the gun was like a bomb going off. It crashed into the woodwork only inches from Marcus' head.

Hutch winced, his ears ringing from the noise. No way were they going to be able to rush the kid. He was a better shot than half the BCPD.

"David!" Marcus said urgently. "You don't have to do this! Your mom needs help, doesn't she? She's bleeding. And what about your brothers? Where are they?"

"Onna bed," David conceded, terror underscoring everything he said. "I hafta protect them. My dad . . ."

"What about your dad?" Marcus encouraged.

"He came in . . ." he hiccupped, barely suppressing a sob.

"David." Hutch crawled closer, knowing the answer before David said a thing. It was as old as a Greek tragedy and as recent as yesterday's headlines spelled out in the ugly language of drugs, guns and poverty. "David, my name is Hutch. I just want to help you take care of your family." Now he could see the child. He was small with a narrow, peaked face as if he hadn't eaten in days. If what the neighbors said was true, then he probably hadn't. He was splattered with blood, a yellowing bruise encircling one dark blue eye. Hutch felt a tight fist just under his heart, a sudden image of Starsky nearly blindsiding him.

Starsky curled in the wheel well of the Torino, covered in blood. Starsky smiling from his hospital bed, blue eyes sparkling in a wan face. Starsky holding a six-month-old Venus over his head and making airplane noises to the baby's delight.

"Why?" David blurted out, sucking on his lower lip. He held a small gun, a Saturday night special from the look of it, with the grip of someone who had held a pistol before.

Hutch suddenly had the urge to throttle the boy's father for anything and everything he had ever done.

"Because I think you're tired and hungry, and you really need a hug," Hutch said honestly. He'd certainly be feeling better if he could hold his daughter in his arms right now. "Did your dad hurt your mom?"

"How'd you . . .?" David started, then hefted the gun up higher with a confused frown. "I don't need any help! I'm the man in the family now."

"I can see you are," Hutch agreed, glancing at Marcus who was hovering to one side. "How about your brothers? Are they hungry?"

"Snot is."

"Snot?" Marcus echoed with half a smile. Kath made a tiny sound as if she couldn't hold in her sadness much longer.

"My baby brother. He was crying and crying, but he ain't now." David looked over his shoulder at the bed, and in that instant, Hutch and Marcus moved forward.

It wasn't quite as coordinated as he and Starsky would have done. Hutch had moved on instinct, trusting that Marcus would follow his lead, and it worked. Hutch scooped David up in his arms, flipping the child's arm down just enough that he dropped the gun in surprise. Marcus caught it neatly in one hand, stowing it in his pocket.

David wailed angrily, hitting at Hutch with both small fists. He managed a long, surprisingly painful scratch down the side of Hutch's neck before Hutch set him down on the floor past Niccie's body.

"Mommy!" David shouted, reaching out for her in desperation.

It was plain to see that she was dead, and had been for some time. Long, tangled dark curls, so similar to David's, had been pushed back from her slack face. David must have guarded her for days, watching for any sign that the mother he loved would wake up and provide for him and the two little ones on the bed. The gaping hole in her belly indicated that she must not have lived long after the shooting, and the only way she might have survived would have been immediate medical attention.

"David, your mom is . . . in h-heaven," Hutch said softly, bowing his head over the grieving child's. David bucked once and then wilted against Hutch, all fight gone out of him.

"Loo," Kath whispered, her fingers pressed into the neck of a tiny boy curled against the headboard of the bloody bed. "He's alive." She looked up hopefully at her partner who was examining a slightly older boy.

Marcus shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. "I'll . . .get the paramedics for the k-kids and the —uh . . ." He glanced at the boy hugged against Hutch and gestured out the door, as if not willing to say the word medical examiner or morgue in front of him.

"David." Hutch hunched down to his level. The eerie resemblance to Starsky was all the more striking up close. "In Snot your baby brother's name?"

David nodded, not a hint of tears in his eyes. He looked resolute and tough, a weird expression for so young a child.

"Kath has Snot." Hutch had to physically turn David away from Niccie to see the baby in her arms. "He's hurt, but he'll be okay." If I have to fly in some fucking specialist from the finest children's hospital in the country, Hutch vowed. "You're the man in the family, right?"

Those dark blue eyes regarded him warily. Hutch didn't blame him. David must have lived six years of hell and seen more horrors than most people see in a lifetime. There was no reason that he would trust the police.

"You come outside with Snot and you can both ride in the ambulance. How about that?"

If looks could bore through granite, Hutch would have been carved like Mt. Rushmore. David didn't move, his jaw tight, but Hutch could feel fine tremors down the boy's skinny frame. "I'll bet the hospital would even give you some lunch."

That did it. Dealing with Venus, as young as she was, had made Hutch wise in the ways of small children.

"French fries?" David asked flatly, but there was a flame of hope in his eyes.

"Fries, ice cream, burritos, whatever you want. This was a really bad scene, David, I'm not going to lie to you. But things are going to get better, I promise you." Hutch rocked back on his heels, letting the boy stand on his own for the first time.

David glanced back at Niccie. The lab crews and medical examiner had come in silently and already draped a sheet over her body. One pimple-faced young rookie tech was holding a corner of the sheet up for the doctor to get a better look, but from David's vantage point, he wouldn't be able to see his mother anymore.

"Does everybody go t'heaven?" David asked carefully.

Hutch gently moved him aside when the paramedics hustled in with their medical kits and oxygen tanks. Kath cradled Snot while they examined him, speaking in low tones.

"Unless they did something really, really awful," Hutch hedged, not sure where David's logic was headed. He'd had years of practice negotiating nonlinear conversations with Starsky. A six-year old couldn't be much worse.

"Is killing really, really bad?" David looked down at his toes.

For a moment Hutch couldn't speak, an icy dread centering in his belly. Surely David hadn't done this? "Who killed someone, David?"

"I'm not supposed t'tell!" David insisted, his shocky gray coloring going even paler. "I wasn't s'pposed to be here! I went to Mikey's but we hadda fight and . . ." he trailed off, then whispered. "I came home and Daddy was here, so I hid . . ." He shook his head, clamping his lips shut. "I can't."

"That's all right," Hutch said, standing up. He was shaken to his core. "Let's get you checked out. I know the hospital always has ice cream. You can have two scoops, how about that?"

"And fries?" David tipped his head back, and Hutch could see that his two top teeth had just grown in, crooked and stained from lack of brushing. The boy was probably a psychological, emotional wreck with traumatic baggage going back for years, but Hutch had strong shoulders. He wouldn't have stepped away from David for all the money on earth.

"Of course!" Hutch took his hand when the paramedics had loaded Snot onto a gurney, and they both walked out past Niccie's covered body without a glance back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Starsky!" Maryanne Ladbrooke, the secretary for Marshal Center, called out from her office just as he emerged from the meeting room. "You have a phone call!"

Still on a jubilant high, Starsky didn't even hear her. "Maryanne! We did it! I got the entire grant! The Blakemore-Dowling Foundation is going to fund the wheelchair basketball practices for two years, pay me a salary and gave us enough over that to continue the after school program, too." He jumped up, smacking the doorframe as if making an overhand dunk into a basket. "It was terrific, I tell ya. I was sure they'd take one look at a scarred up old cop and say "sorry Charlie," but they scored big points."

"That's fantastic, Starsky," Maryanne said, catching his enthusiasm. "Are you going to be able to finish getting your Associates degree, too?"

"That's the plan. Then the school can hire me as a real P.E. instructor instead of just a part time coach." Starsky danced around in a circle, punching the air. "Gotta tell Hutch."

"Good timing because he's on the phone!" She pointed to the blinking red hold light.

"Oh, hey!" Starsky grabbed up the receiver, nearly babbling with happiness. He wanted to celebrate--maybe steak for dinner. "Hutch!" he greeted. "You'll never guess! The foundation gave us . . ."

"You got the grant?" Hutch interrupted. "Congratulations, Coach. Listen, could you come down and meet me? I need to talk to you about something."

"Sure, sure." Starsky wrapped the phone cord around his fingers, still vibrating with excitement. He could see his whole year set out in front of him as if it were a huge calendar. He was already attending night and weekend classes to get his basic college requirements out of the way as well as earning on the job credit toward his Physical Education major. With a two year degree under his belt by spring of '83, he'd be pulling in a much better pay check. Which would be just about the time Venus started preschool, which would allow him to work full time. First order of business was the wheelchair basketball team to organize. "Gotta pick up Venus from daycare and then I'll swing by Metro. You want to eat out? To celebrate, I mean."

"I'm at the hospital . . ." Hutch started.

"What happened? Are you hurt? Were you shot?" Starsky gasped, completely rattled. Maryanne's eyes widened in surprise. He grouped around for a chair to sit down in, his knees suddenly wobbly. What kind of heel was he chattering on about mundane things when Hutch was probably bleeding and injured?

"No, no, would you listen to me for one minute?" Hutch sounded irritated and not the least in pain.

"Okay, if you're not hurt then why are you at the hospital? You're a lieutenant, for God's sake, you're not supposed to be out in the field, anyway." Without me, went unsaid.

"A case. We brought in some kids from a crime scene." Hutch blew out a noisy breath and Starsky could just picture him slumped in one of those plastic chairs in Memorial's waiting room, one hand rubbing his chest with fatigue. "Looks like their dad killed their mom and one of the children. The baby was shot, but he's going to live, and the oldest witnessed the whole thing."

"Damn." Starsky took a deep breath of his own, feeling the familiar tug of the scar tissue on his chest. "You get the bastard who did this?"

"Not so far, but there's an APB out on him. I just . . .want you to meet a little boy."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Where papa?" Venus said, her head swiveling around like a miniature satellite so that the soft cloud of hair on the top of her head brushed against Starsky's cheek. "Where papa?"

"Venus, you have to be a good girl," Starsky warned, settling her more firmly on his hip. "Kids are sick here."

"No sick," she protested, poking a finger into her mouth.

"You're not sick, but some of the kids are," Starsky explained again, glancing up and down the hall just outside of the pediatrics department. Children under twelve weren't supposed to come up to the fourth floor, but he didn't have anyone to leave Venus with. Luckily because of his many on-the-job injuries, he knew half the staff in the hospital. The admitting nurse, Tracy, was an old friend, and had waved him upstairs with a smile and a couple of stickers for Venus. She'd stuck them to her pink and white striped overalls on the ride up in the elevator.

"Dave!" Diane Perkowitz from social services pushed through the doors painted with red, blue and green hot air balloons and beckoned him in. "Hutch is waiting for you."

"What about the Little Planet?"

"Papa, papa!" Venus chanted, pointing through the door Perkowitz held open.

"I'll take her while you go talk to him," Perky said.

"She's not gonna go for that now that she's seen him." Starsky rolled his eyes, barely hanging onto the child bouncing against his hip. Her shoes might be minuscule, but when she drummed her heels against him as if his hipbone were her own private dance floor, it hurt. "What can you tell me about this kid Hutch found?"

"I'll let him," she smiled gently, her compassionate eyes sad. "He's a real heartbreaker. I've known the family for a couple years, but things spiraled out of control recently."

All three looked up expectantly when Hutch came through the double doors.

"From the look of that house, things have been shitty for a long, long time," Hutch snapped with barely concealed rage. "If you had a file on them, why were those boys still . . ."

"Papa!" Venus crowed, launching herself at him.

"Princess," Hutch said softly, taking her in his arms and burying his face in her tangle of black curls. Just holding her drained some of the obvious tension from his shoulders and Starsky was glad he'd decided to bring her up with him. "I missed you," Hutch whispered.

"Hutch, I . . ." Perky started when Starsky waved her to silence.

He could tell just by the way Hutch clung to Venus that this case had affected him deeply. This kid was someone special, and might be coming into their home. Eighteen months ago, Starsky had claimed Venus as his child. Now, Hutch had possibly found a son. Would he be coming into their lives? And would he fit into their family?

"Papa!" Venus complained, squirming in his tight hold. "Down!"

"Hey, Venus," Perky said quickly, giving one of her short braids a little tug. "Let's go have some girl time and get some ice cream. The cafeteria has chocolate and vanilla."

"Sta'berry," Venus insisted when Hutch put her down.

"Won't eat anything else but strawberry ice cream," Starsky confirmed, watching Hutch. He looked like he'd been battered down to his core and barely emerged alive.

"We'll have to check on that flavor." Perky grabbed the little girl's hand, directing her toward the elevators. Venus trotted along on her short legs, her puffy topknot just about level with Perkowitz' thigh.

"That's how I got David to come to the hospital," Hutch said in a dead voice. "Promised him ice cream."

"What happened to you?" Starsky asked, really seeing the raw scratch that ran from Hutch's jaw to his collarbone for the first time. He reached out but Hutch moved abruptly as if Starsky's concern was too painful.

"Don't. The kid scratched me." Hutch went back through the double doors, forcing Starsky to follow him or be left behind.

The pediatrics corridor was brightly decorated with more hot air balloons floating along in a sky filled with cheery rainbows, teddy bears towed along by billowing kites, and Snoopy on his Sopwith Camel. Patient rooms opened off along both sides with a nursing station about midway down the hall.

Hutch turned toward the wall and for one moment, Starsky was sure he was going to slug Snoopy right in the schnoz. He'd had his share of punching-the-wall cases, but this was the first time he'd ever seen Hutch about to do the same thing.

"Okay, so tell me what went down before you scare some poor nurse with this attitude of yours." Starsky crossed his arms to keep himself from pulling Hutch roughly into his arms. This was neither the time nor the place. And he doubted if Hutch would tolerate the physical contact right now.

"The APB paid off. Just before you got here, cops patrolling Pacific Coast Highway called to say that they found the suspect's car." Hutch slumped against the wall. "Car had gone over a cliff. Baker was found dead behind the wheel, cause of death unknown, so far."

"Don't spout off like a police report," Starsky scolded. "What made you fall for this kid?"

Hutch dug his palms into his eyes, pressing up against his forehead the way he did when he had a massive headache. "Those kids never had a chance. What the hell was Social Services thinking? They'd gone out but never investigated! Never removed the kids from that hellhole!" His hands dropped down to his sides. All that rubbing had made the whites of his eyes red, but he hadn't been crying: he was obviously pissed as hell. "Preliminary reports ID'd a used container of cocaine and PCP . . ."

"Fuck," Starsky said softly. A deadly combination if there ever was one.

"Dwayne Baker must have taken a gun to his wife, and then sh-shot the two little boys." He stopped, the muscles in his jaw spasming. Taking a steadying breath, Hutch glanced down the hallway just as a nurse emerged from one of the rooms and headed toward them. "Denise Baker and her middle son Edward were pronounced dead at the scene. Steven Baker, the same exact age as Venus, took a bullet in the right leg. David . . . came home in the middle of it. He must have seen the whole thing, and somehow survived."

Hutch shook his head. "Kid had a Saturday night Special and was keeping Deavers at bay, guarding his mother. Stayed by her side for three days, Starsk. Three days."

"Hutch." Starsky ran his thumb down the line of Hutch's jaw, lingering there for half a second longer than allowable in public.

"Lieutenant Hutchinson?" A middle aged nurse with flaming red hair and crimson lipstick stopped a few feet away. "The doctor is finished with David, and David has been asking for you."

Hutch separated himself from the wall and rotated his neck, the vertebrae crackling like branches snapping violently in a hurricane. "Did you get him some ice cream?"

"And chicken nuggets, french fries and strawberries," she confirmed with a grin. "Just like you wanted."

"Just like he wanted," Hutch clarified, brushing past her to get into room number 509.

"Dave Starsky." Starsky stuck out his hand, reading the badge pinned to her white uniform. "Gretta, don't mind him. He gets like this when he hasn't had his chicken nuggets."

"He's been standing guard over that little boy like a pit bull." She looked Starsky up and down with a troubled gaze, "Are you related to . . .?"

"Starsk?" Hutch called from inside the room.

Looking past the nurse, Starsky saw Hutch sitting on a hospital bed. A crib to his left contained a sleeping baby hooked up to a blood transfusion. He had his thumb in his mouth. Hutch's main focus of attention was a small boy shoveling chicken nuggets into his mouth with single-minded determination.

"Wha' d'you know," Starsky whispered to himself, the reason why Hutch had glommed onto the boy so quickly stunningly evident. The resemblance was a little eerie. Almost like seeing a doppelganger of himself as a child, had his life gone a little differently. He'd been raised in a loving, if impoverished, home where meat wasn't plentiful and his socks often had holes. But his father had managed to keep a roof over their heads, and food on their plates. After Jacob Starsky was gunned down in the streets, his oldest son could have so easily turned to the gangs and violence right outside his front stoop if his mother hadn't shipped him west to his uncle and aunt. Starsky had resented the pre-emptive strike then, but had come to believe that she probably saved his life.

David Baker deserved the same chance.

"Who's he?" David grunted, practically inhaling the french fries.

"David," Hutch said. "This is my partner, Dave Starsky. He plays a mean game of basketball."

Starsky chuckled. Hutch probably meant that to be an ice breaker, but it didn't work. David flicked a dismissive glance at Starsky and went back to his fries, picking up every last crumb by sucking on his forefinger and pressing it into the plate.

"I cheat," Starsky said jovially. "So he won't win all the time. Tickling him in the ribs may be a foul, but he always drops the ball."

Hutch tossed him an irritated frown but Starsky just grinned at him, studying David out of the corner of his eye. David was thin to the point of emaciation, his elbows and knees like knobby protrusions instead of softly rounded joints. He was covered in bruises, and although his still damp hair proved he'd had obviously had a bath, it hadn't gotten rid of all the ground-in grime.

It was the silent, impotent fury that radiated off the boy that scared Starsky the most. He knew without being told that Hutch wanted to foster David. They'd recently discussed going to Social Services to find some children who needed a steady, dependable family, but what would they be getting themselves into if they took this damaged child into their home? He was small for six, but knew how to use a gun. Who the hell taught a six year old how to use a gun?

How long would it take to bring the child back out of David Baker? He wasn't an abandoned baby, unsullied by life's horrors; this was an abused child with emotional tripwires that Starsky didn't have the faintest notion how to defuse. Did Hutch?

He could see his internal calendar shrinking and rescheduling; night classes were out unless Hutch could be home with Venus�maybe Edith or Rosey Dobey, too. Starsky envisioned lots of hard, physical play on the basketball court with David to tire him out, burn the rage out of his bones.

Hikes on the beach, with Venus in a backpack and David in view so that he didn't do something crazy-assed daring. Like swim way too far from shore just for the heck of it, the way Starsky had when he was a scrawny, undersized thirteen-year old.

"I win because I have superior ball skills," Hutch retorted, and Starsky was slammed back into the present with a jerk.

"Can't sink a basket to save his life," Starsky said with just a hint of sarcasm to tease Hutch. He was still too pale, too focused on the shit from the afternoon. And if he didn't get past what he'd seen, how could David? "You play, David?"

The boy shoveled in the last of his ice cream and burped loudly, but gave no indication that he'd heard the question. "Is Snot okay?" he asked Hutch.

"Who's Snot?" Starsky echoed.

"Starsk." Hutch pointed to the baby in the crib, looking just a little guilty. "Remember I told you about Steven?"

"There's a baby, too?" Starsky groaned. The implications hadn't sunk in earlier when he'd heard about the baby being shot. There went any free time at all, flying right out the window. "Got any more surprises for me, Hutch?"

"I ain't a baby," David snarled, tossing his spoon down. He still had chocolate around his mouth, lending the hard line of his lips a little vulnerability. "I'm almost seven."

"Perfect age for baseball," Starsky amended, determined to put a positive spin on this. "And you're a leftie!"

"He would be," Hutch sighed, and finally smiled, very faintly. David regarded them with a hostile expression that said very clearly he thought they were both lunatics.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Starsk?" Hutch called out, walking into his partner's office at Marshal Center.

"In here!" a familiar voice responded, sounding slightly muffled. "Come and help me!"

Tracking Starsky wasn't all that difficult. There was a trail of sports equipment between his closet sized office and the slightly larger room that contained all the balls, bats and nets needed for any kind of game. Starsky was stuffing balls into a net bag but the balls must have attempted escape like fleeing felons and had rolled out into the gym.

"You sure you're cut out for this kind of work?" Hutch asked mildly, cocking a hip against the doorframe and cradling a file against his chest. He made no attempt to pick up any balls, but gave the football near his foot a decent kick. It landed in the ball bin with a crash.

"They all fell out when the building shook. You feel the earthquake half an hour ago?" Starsky asked irritably, shoving a handful of baseballs down into the sack and tossing it into a bin.

"Nope."

"Were you driving?" Starsky straightened, pushing sweaty curls off his forehead.

"Yep." Hutch grinned in spite of his exhaustion. Starsky was flushed from the exertion and his blue t-shirt clung damply to his long slender frame. In any other situation, that would have been enough for Hutch to pull his lover into a clench, right there in the gym. Most of the staff knew they were a couple--they didn't have to hide their relationship here. But he had to be circumspect everywhere. With the plans to foster David and Steven already in the works, the last thing he wanted to do was jeopardize their future by outing himself to the world.

"Hard to feel a quake when you're moving in a car," Starsky said, blowing out a long breath. "Never knew why."

"Physics," Hutch said without explaining what he meant. "Do you have time?"

"For you, babe, all the time in the world." Starsky gathered up a few stragglers that had rolled as far as center court in the gym and herded them back to the supply room. Not bothering to bag them up, he shut the door on the entire mess. "I've even got sandwiches. What'd you have?"

"County records for David and Steven, and their mom, and the dad's rap sheet," Hutch said soberly.

"Tut-tut, Lieutenant Hutchinson," Starsky said over his shoulder, heading back into his office. "Are you supposed to take those kinda records out of Metro and show them to a civilian?"

Hutch glowered at him. He could tell that Starsky was just trying to cheer him up but the overwhelming crush of responsibility for the boys was already beginning to wear on him, and they weren't even home yet. David hadn't been injured in the shooting, but the bruises and scars covering his body provided amble evidence of past abuse. He even had a partially healed rib fracture that the pediatrician estimated was less than a month old. Baby Steven had been barely alive when he was found. The gunshot wound in his right thigh was badly infected which had required IV antibiotics and his drug toxicity screen had been positive for amphetamines. Both boys were malnourished, dehydrated and undersized. What the hell was he getting himself into? The idea of helping the children get over their horrible past was daunting. Yet, under no circumstances would he abandon these children to the vagaries of just any foster care home. David and Steven Baker were already in his life, they would be in his family come hell or high water.

"You're not just any civilian, Starsky."

"I'm not a cop anymore, either," Starsky countered, plucking the files out of his arms.

Hutch could hear the lingering sadness in the comment, but he let it ride. Starsky wouldn't expect him to make a big deal of the sentiment. It was just there, baggage to carry around that neither one of them could do anything about. Hutch missed working with Starsky, Starsky missed working with him--that was the bottom line. At least, at home, they could be together.

He let loosened a little of his own pain, tossing it into his recitation of the dreary facts. "Denise Kaczynski was fifteen-and-a-half when she had David, so Children's protective services had a file on her. I don't think Baker was really his dad, because there's no father's name on the birth certificate." He cleared his throat. "Social workers visited the house on ten different occasions, for different reasons and never once--not one fucking time, removed those kids from that shitty environment."

"It's fucked up, but it ain't new, babe," Starsky said cautiously. "Why this kid, this time?"

"You have to ask?" Hutch felt like he was sinking and only one person had the ability to help him keep his head above water. Starsky had always been his lifeline.

Starsky shook his head and unwrapped a pastrami on rye with extra mustard and pickles. He held out half, his expression soft and compassionate. Hutch took the sandwich even though it was Starsky's favorite, and was as likely as not to give him a stomach ache. Just eating with Starsky harked back to the days when they'd be holed up in the Torino on a stake out and forced to eat whatever the other had brought. The memory was an oddly pleasant one.

"She was only twenty-one when she died, murdered while protecting her kids. Three bullets right through her abdomen. The middle boy, Edward was shot twice, once in the head, once through the heart. Steven got a slug in his thigh. Dwayne Baker, a known addict, already had a rap sheet half a yard long when they got married in 1979." He bit savagely into the sandwich. "I . . . don't know . . . I just need to give David something back. Prove to this kid that the world isn't a hellhole to be survived."

"That's your nature, Blintz." Starsky reached out a foot, giving Hutch's a gentle nudge.

"You been big brothering the lost kids ever since I met you. Kiko's in college 'cause you kept after him to do his homework all those years.

"This isn't even in the same league," Hutch said, his voice cracking with the strain. "I don't know--am I doing the right thing? You haven't even said one thing to dissuade me."

"I don't think I'd have a leg to stand on here." Starsky slurped a coke and burped. "Not like I really gave you any choice with Venus. It's your turn."

Hutch nodded, falling in love Starsky just a little bit more right then. Maybe even a lot more. Burps and all. This wasn't the life they'd envisioned when they became cops. Not even the life they'd planned on after Starsky came back triumphantly after his near death. But it was often a greatly satisfying life.

"Give me some of that." He grabbed the red can out of Starsky's hand and took a long swallow, the bubbly soda washing away the sharp flavor of the pastrami. "Perky said our paperwork is in order, since we already had a foster care license, and she'll hustle a home walk-through that'll be more of a formality than anything else. Nothing to prevent the boys from coming home in a few days except Steven's pneumonia."

"And David won't leave the hospital without the baby," Starsky finished for him, taking back the coke. "He's a lot like you. Devoted."

"And he looks so much like you," Hutch said and kissed him. The smear of mustard on Starsky's top lip added a dash of spice to the sweetness of the kiss. The mingling scents of sweat and essence of Starsky were like a balm on Hutch's soul, giving him strength. He hadn't slept well what with staying with the boys late into the night and attempting to divide his time between home and the hospital. That didn't even take into account all his duties at Metro.

"Hutch," Starsky said seriously. "Just don't let this drag you under until you can't see the . . . the rest of us standing beside you."

"Never, partner," Hutch promised. "Who else have I got at my back?"

"Right now?" Starsky glanced over his shoulder with a smirk. "That old fraying guitar embroidered on your shirt."

"You think you're funny?" Hutch asked, sarcastically.

"Most of the time," Starsky grinned at him, flipping open David Baker's file. "Let's find out what makes this kid tick."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Welcome home, David." Hutch held open the car door and stepped aside to let the boy out. "How do you like the place?"

"'S big," he grunted, standing stiffly by the side of the Honda to look up at the rambling house.

"Gotta be, to have enough rooms for everybody," Starsky said, getting up from the front step where he'd been watching his daughter play, and trying to cram for an English exam at the same time. The English book was getting short shrift. "C'mon in. You want your own room, don't you?"

David's flat blue eyes challenged him for half a beat before he swiveled his head around to view the toy-strewn lawn shaded by an enormous eucalyptus tree. Venus and her new best bud Contessa were currently squabbling over a one-armed doll with absolutely no hair on her head.

"I sleep with Snot," David said.

"We can roll his crib into your room," Starsky agreed. He'd been expecting this. David had proved an even harder nut to crack than he'd thought. In the week and a half since BCPD had found the boy guarding the dead body of his mother, David had formed a begrudging attachment to Hutch, but it was hard to see much past the hard armor of his overwhelming anger. David didn't talk to the hospital appointed psychiatrist, or anyone else, about his childhood, his dead brother and parents or anything that had led up to the horrible crimes perpetrated in his home. The only soft edge visible was his love for Snot, and that showed itself in an obsessive need to be near the baby.

Hutch unstrapped the abnormally placid eighteen-month old from his car seat and carried Snot over to the stairs. He sat down next to Starsky and placed Snot on the grass at his feet. "No more antibiotics for Steven, but he's gonna need physical therapy for his leg," Hutch said softly. Steven drooled, his blue eyes vacant.

"Papa!" Venus greeted, lobbing the hairless doll at him.

Hutch caught it with a slight grin that did nothing to smooth out the crevasse between his eyes. Starsky bumped his knee to Hutch's and confiscated the doll. It was an ugly one anyway. Contessa had moved on to undressing an equally ugly blond-haired doll.

David never moved from his spot by the car as if unwilling to join the group, but his eyes tracked his brother unceasingly.

"We're all going to live here together, David," Hutch said in a falsely buoyant voice. "You, Steven, Venus, Starsky and me. Remember, we talked about this?"

"You ain't my parents," David stated bluntly. He dropped the small bag of belongings he'd brought from the hospital and walked closer to them, centering in on Snot like a hunting dog on point.

Would he take the chance to run off in the night with the baby? Starsky resolved to keep his eyes and ears open. He wasn't going to fight David, but he wasn't going to make it easy for him to slip away, either. He was too important to Hutch. And Hutch was too important to Starsky.

"We're your foster dads," Starsky said, handing Snot one of the peanut butter crackers he'd been munching on while waiting for them to come. Venus came over for her share and squatted down to look at her new foster brother. "You hungry for lunch?" Starsky asked David. "I got burgers to barbecue on the grill."

To say that David looked dumbstruck by this was an understatement. He looked completely confused by the concept and covered by kicking the blond-haired doll clear across the lawn. Contessa burst into tears.

"Hey! Was that nice?" Hutch protested, the need to reprimand obviously warring with his concern for David's emotional stability. Contessa wailed unabashedly until Hutch handed her a peanut butter cracker, too. "I know you're angry about the situation, David, but we can't have . . ."

"David, we got rules here," Starsky interrupted. Hutch would just talk himself into a circle if let loose. He needed to establish some ground rules quickly before anarchy broke out. "Rule number one, we treat each other with respect, which translates that you don't kick Venus or her toys, capiche?"

"Starsky, shouldn't we . . ." Hutch started just as his beeper went off. He clicked the button and stared at the little device with a grimace. "Damn."

David snickered at the swear word, lurking on the edge of the lawn just far enough from the girls without letting his baby brother out of his sight.

"You want one to tide you over?" Starsky offered him a cracker, watching Hutch go over to the Honda to talk privately on the police band. The squawk of the dispatcher's report was still loud enough for Starsky to hear the words crime scene and needed asap.

No fucking way was Hutch leaving him with four children on David's first day. No way in hell.

"David, watch your brother and don't let any of 'em go over there where the grill is heating up," Starsky said, fervently sending up a pray of hope to whatever deities intervened in the ways of scarred old cops and broken children that his trust in David was not misplaced. The kid had managed to hold off the BCPD with a .22, he should be able to keep three toddlers--one of whom didn't walk--away from burning coals. Starsky stepped over Venus who was giving Snot a baby covered in weird magic marker graffiti, and crossed the drive way in two strides.

"Where do you think you are going?" he demanded.

"Starsk, it's my drug taskforce. They've located the main supplier we've been investigating for months. This shouldn't take long at all," Hutch said, but he was looking over Starsky's head at the children. Contessa was stuffing a naked doll into a pink nightie meant for a much small dolly and David was watching the others with the detached expression of an archeologist observing a native tribe performing rituals he couldn't comprehend. "Timothy already got a warrant, it'll be just bag the bastard and go. Babe, you . . ."

"You're the one who can get through to that kid. Do not abandon him now!" Starsky hissed, leaned down into the open door of the car, barring Hutch's escape.

"How am I abandoning him? You're here. Venus, Steven and Contessa are here, plus half the neighborhood who come through our house daily. You've charmed the entire street, Starsk." Hutch rose halfway, using the car seat as a screen, and gave Starsky a quick, fervent kiss. "You won me over, do it to him. I still have a job, here."

"Like I don't have a job?" Starsky wasn't about to be bribed with a kiss. "Hutch, the kid hates me!"

"Starsky."

This time, Starsky saw the naked fear in Hutch's eyes; that he'd bitten off more than he could chew. That David scared Hutch as much as he scared Starsky. If they couldn't get through to a six-year old, what chance did he have in life? Prison by the age of fifteen?

"He's scared," Hutch said, pitching his voice so it didn't carry across to where the children were. "But if I don't do this, now, what kind of example am I setting? That I just bail on those who depend on me?"

Starsky flicked a glance at the kids before looking back at Hutch. He understood better than Hutch would ever know. Two worlds, intersecting right in the middle, but giving Hutch something else to think about just for a moment. Hutch took on the cares of the world and refused to let anyone see him sag under the weight except Starsky. Where he had once hated the constant drain on his psyche, Hutch had turned over a more positive leaf as a lieutenant. He'd used his new status to start programs targeting impoverished areas with the goal of making the streets safer. It used to be that Starsky could stand next to him, fighting the good fight, but that wasn't possible any longer. Maybe giving a couple of homeless, abused children was simply a different way of changing the world.

"You stayed at the hospital all night." Starsky brushed a hand over Hutch's crown where the blond hair was the thinnest. "You get any sleep at all?"

"He screams in the dark," Hutch answered wearily. "I wouldn't have heard if it I'd been asleep. He muffles it in his pillow, like he's afraid to be heard."

"You heard him," Starsky reminded.

"That kid never had anyone to trust, ever."

"Except Snot. And now you."

"Us," Hutch corrected. "We gotta call the baby Steven. What kinda name is Snot?"

"A nickname, Blintz." Starsky quirked a smile, receiving the shadow of one from Hutch in return. One of Hutch's eyebrows slanted up and he raised a finger as if to make a pithy comment about the worthiness of certain nicknames. Starsky remembered the days when Hutch used to call him Gordo and Mushbrain. He still did, but it was usually when they'd had some particularly raunchy sex and were basking in the afterglow.

The police radio squawked again, various officers calling out their ETA to the site of the drug raid. "Shit, I have to go, Starsk. These are my men. It's the culmination of weeks of work--" He looked beseechingly up at Starsky, his blue eyes brimming with too many emotions. Starsky nodded and stepped back, holding his hands palm up and away from his body to signal his capitulation.

"Save me a burger." Hutch turned the key in the ignition, the car vibrating to life. Hutch's hand trembled, and it had nothing to do with the movement of the car. "I'll be back. I promise."

"Damn you," Starsky swore, but there was no longer any heat in his ire. He understood when it was easier to step back and take a breather before the next hurdle. Hutch had been with the Baker boys for the last week, spending all his free time to give David a familiar face in the midst of the ever changing hospital personnel. The same thing he'd done for Starsky after the Gunther shooting, when Starsky was often drugged, in pain, and too weak to fight without Hutch by his side.

"Dada!" Venus said emphatically. "Eat! Eat!"

Watching his partner's white Honda turn left at the corner, Starsky was the one who felt abandoned, and he didn't like it in the least. He resented the fact that Hutch was still in the thick of things. Starsky missed the adrenaline pumping action of police work or just those late night stake-outs that used to turn into all-night bull sessions.

There were days when Starsky felt like his only contribution to society was the ability to sink a basket with one hand and wipe a runny nose with the other. At least the basketball skills always impressed the kids at the Marshal Center. But now much did what he do really matter in the scheme of things? He wasn't fighting crime.

Aurie-mae drove up in her rattletrap VW bus and emerged with her brand-new infant tucked under one arm and what appeared to be five gallons of potato salad in the other. Her four stair-step sons tumbled out of the Volkswagen's side door, racing across the lawn to greet Contessa and Venus. The noise in the yard went from minimum playground level to airport runway decibels in a matter of seconds. Faced with a herd of stampeding boys, David stood his ground, guarding Snot with his blue eyes narrowed to slits.

Starsky dashed over to relieve Aurie-mae of one of her burdens and ended up with a smelly, wailing newborn in his arms.

"Amir needs his Pamper changed," she said, lugging the potato salad onto the picnic table set up under the shade tree. "You hang onto him while I set this up."

"Yes, ma'am," Starsky would have saluted except that he would have dropped the baby. Aurie-mae had a brusque, friendly command style not unlike Harold Dobey's.

"Marquis!" She yelled at her nearest son who had been trying to shimmy over the fence into the back yard. "Go get your brother's bag out of the trunk. And all them sodas we brought, too." The other boys were already huddled into a group, planning some sort of game and ignored her. Just as Marquis dashed across the grass, the remaining brothers exploded into a frenzy of action.

"Dada!" Venus bellowed above the rampaging hordes playing a mishmash version of rugby and lacrosse with a headless doll and two plastic golf clubs.

"What, Planet?" Starsky handed Amir back to his mother and was astonished to see that David had been absorbed into the game. He ran with an uncoordinated stride, but for a moment, he'd lost the spooked, dreadful anger on his face, and looked like a little boy. Not happy. Not yet, but playing.

"Dave!" Aurie-mae called over the cheerful din, her baby naked on the grass in front of her as she rummaged through his bag for a diaper. "These coals're ready. Where are the burgers?"

Starsky laughed, heading to the kitchen for their lunch. To tell the truth, sometimes, home life wasn't all that different than the frenetic days he'd had as a cop. There was chaos, nudity in surprising places, the occasional endearing moment, and a whole lot of noise. He wouldn't have it any other way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The yard was full of shadows when Starsky tossed the last of the toys into the toy bin--one handed, of course, and made his way into the house. The TV was on, a rerun with Samantha from Bewitched twitching her nose to tidy her pretty house, but no one was watching the program.

"Venus? David?" Starsky frowned, his heart rate speeding up. There was no way David could have left in the short time that Starsky'd been outside, but the silence in the back of the house was profound. He forced himself to take measured strides. Nothing was wrong, his imagination was just working overtime, conjuring up the worst case scenarios. Too much cop left in him.

Venus' room was a pink princess' dream, designed entirely by Rosie Dobey who doted on her Godsister, as she called her. It was also a mess after a long day of play. Teddy bears, Jack-in-the-boxes and plastic food were scattered across the pink and purple rug. Venus and Snot lay right in the center of the maelstrom, like an offering to the toy gods, both of them sound asleep. David sat on his heels, tucking a doll bed-sized quilt over the two of them with the gentlest expression Starsky had ever seen on his face.

Not wanting to intrude, Starsky took a step back. But David must have heard him. In the blink of an eye, his mask slid back into place, a brittle mantle of distrust. Savage blue eyes glared, and Starsky could easily imagine the child firing a gun at him.

"Hey, looks like you're doin' a good job there," Starsky said softly. "Thanks."

David didn't move, one hand resting on Snot's bandaged leg. He took a tight breath, watching Starsky intently. Although nothing changed on his face, Starsky sensed something loosening, like a cool breeze blowing through after a stifling day.

"Must be hard, coming to a new house. There were so many people here today." Starsky slid slowly down the wall until he was sitting on the floor just outside Venus' room. "It's not usually like that. Mostly, it's quiet around here. Hutch goes to work, I coach sports, Venus goes to day care. Snot could go, too--I mean Steven. You'll probably go to school--were you in first grade?"

David still hadn't moved a muscle from what looked to Starsky like a fairly uncomfortable position. But then again, he wasn't a limber six-year old.

"Hutch didn't want to leave on your first day, but he had work. You know he's a cop." Starsky mentally smacked himself for such a stupid remark. Of course David knew Hutch was a cop.

Not wanting to overwhelm the kid, Starsky pretended to find the knotted shoelace of his right sneaker suddenly fascinating and slid a fingernail into the knot. "Hutch'll be back to help you get ready for bed, like he was doing at the hospital."

David shifted very slightly and flicked a glance at his sleeping brother. Starsky didn't know which Baker he worried about most. David with his unfocused pain and rage, or Snot--make that Steven--who was more like a six-month old than an eighteen-month old. He couldn't walk, talk or feed himself. In fact, the hospital had already made a staggeringly long list of referrals to therapists for the baby alone. Physical, occupational and developmental. The next few weeks were going to be a barrage of office visits. David had play therapy three times a week and Steven had something going on almost every day. Even with Edith Dobey's reliable help, Starsky wasn't sure he was going to emerge from the ordeal sane himself. He could already see that any homework from his college classes was going to be done on the fly in doctor waiting rooms and at basketball practice.

"Did you like the burgers? Can't beat burgers on the grill. Hutch always adds onions right into the ground beef. And Aurie-mae makes terrific potato salad." It was like talking to himself. He got more response from one of Venus' dolls.

"Those boys were something else, huh? You ever had so many boys to run around with? I just had one brother . . ." He should never have mentioned brothers. God knows what David thought about his dead sibling, Edward. The nurses at Memorial had reported that David went into hysterical tantrums when they'd even broached the subject. Starsky stopped, his whole body tense as if he had actually stepped down on a landmine the way one of his buddies did in the 'Nam.

"He smiled."

David's voice was so soft that for a moment Starsky wasn't sure he'd heard anything at all.

"Who?" Starsky asked letting out a pent-up breath. He concentrated on slipping both shoes off his feet and focused on the hole in the toe of his right sock, watching David out of the corner of his eye.

"Snot smiled." David gestured at his baby brother with a flip of his small, square hand. "I never . . . he just usta cry. Alla time. He smiled at her."

"Venus?"

David bobbed his head, his actions jerky like a mis-strung marionette. He stared at Starsky for a long time, his lower lip caught between uneven teeth.

"Venus has that affect on most people. I adopted her, didja know that? She was abandoned by her mother--I don't know why," Starsky paused, not sure what was going on or why he was telling David this. "Sometimes, we can't know why other people do things. Especially things that make us sad--or mad." Hutch flashed in his mind, and a rush of love so powerful that Starsky was blindsided.

"Why you look like her?" David asked, his voice as high and taut as a high wire.

"Like who?"

"Mommy," he blurted out as if it was painful.

"Sweetheart, I never knew your mom," Starsky said gently. "But I've seen her picture." Except she'd barely been his mother then--the picture accompanying Niccie's file showed a pregnant 15 year old with haunting blue eyes. Such a weird twist of fate that Hutch had found his heart's child with Starsky's face. "I bet you miss her."

"She died." David turned away, grabbing up a wooden block and hurling it at the wall with astonishing strength. "Everybody goes away!"

"Rule number one, David." Starsky scrambled to his feet with as much control as he could muster. Amazingly, the babies slept undisturbed. David didn't repeat his act of temper, just stood with his hands down and eyes defiant. "Do you remember it?"

"I ain't an idiot."

"I can see you aren't." Privately, he was beginning to suspect that David was a great deal smarter than anyone would give him credit for. How else had he survived? "You got your own room. Don't destroy Venus'. You want to trash your own stuff, be my guest, but do it in the confines of your own room."

David regarded Starsky with the wariness of a feral cat ready to flee. "I don't got no stuff."

"Your room is across from Hutch's." Starsky pointed to the left, without acknowledging David's flat statement. He had more stuff than he could possibly imagine. Hutch had bought enough clothes to last the boy until he went away to college. Plus sports equipment, a jumbo Lego set and a scale model of the Millennium Falcon that Starsky lusted after. "Did you even check it out yet?"

"Snot's asleep."

"So, I'll carry him." Starsky scooped the baby off the carpet, marveling at the slight weight. He had to be half the size of pudgy-thighed Venus. "Onward, David."

"You ain't . . ." David stood firm, but when Starsky crossed into the hall with Steven in his arms, David followed with a snarl.

"Your dad? No, I'm not. But for now, I'm your foster dad, and what Hutch and me say goes. You got that?" Starsky got the feeling that Snot was going to be David's bargaining chip, but the last thing he wanted to do was use the baby as a bribe. He had to establish some kind of trust with David before it was too late for the both of them. It was kind like the tricky connections he used to forge with criminals when undercover. Hutch called it tap dancing on top of a grave. Find the right hook that reeled in the mark and kept him coming back for more, or die trying. That the mark was a little boy, and his future was at stake made the performance that much more important.

Starsky was more than relieved when he heard the front door open, and moments later, Samantha Stevens' cheerful patter switch off in mid sentence. Hutch's promised 'not long' had been three and a half hours.

"I don't want a dad," David declared, going into the boy's room. He stood next to the twin bed covered by a blue bedspread decorated with baseballs and footballs as if he wasn't sure what to do next.

"I can believe that," Starsky said to himself, tucking Snot into the blue and white crib beside David's bed. "What do you want?"

That one second of naked desire on David's face was Starsky's reward. As with the idea of cooking burgers on a grill, David had no experience in the normal aspects of childhood. Play, fun, even having a say in his own behalf were all brand new.

"To go home."

"This is your home," Starsky said, feeling more than actually hearing Hutch come down the hall toward them. Something inside him settled more comfortably, knowing Hutch was back and safe.

"Why?" David asked. "Why'd you do this?"

"Because," Hutch said from the door of the room. "I wanted to. I wanted you."

David shuddered, looking at Hutch over his shoulder. His wavery reflection in the darkened window made him look like a ghost child. "Why?"

"Because you fought back, David." Hutch brushed past Starsky, leaving a Hutch-sized warm spot against his whole right side, and sat down on David's bed. "You were the bravest, toughest kid I have ever met, and that's saying something. You guarded your family with everything you had and you never backed down. Not once." He laid his longer fingered hand on David's shoulder.

Even across the room, Starsky could see that David was trembling, but the boy didn't shrug away from the physical contact as he'd expected.

"You made me proud," Hutch said.

David shook his head. "I didn't do it right. She died. He killed her, an' she just died!" The sharp lance of his voice was a spear through Starsky's gut.

"She left you, but you never left her," Hutch continued exuding quiet confidence. "You are a warrior, David. A warrior. And I'll let you in on a secret. I know your mom was proud of you, too."

His body swaying like a sapling in the rain, David pulled away from Hutch and kicked the pile of balls stacked on the floor between the beds.

"Knew you had a good left foot," Starsky muttered, earning a glare from David. Hutch gave him the patented Hutchinson arched eyebrow of ironic amusement. From the crib, Snot--Steven murmured and cooed in his sleep.

"She's dead. If she's in heaven, how can she know anything?" David retorted.

"Because she's still in your heart," Hutch spread the flat of his hand against David's chest.

"I will tell you this every night, David, for the rest of your life."

"I wanna . . . feel her," he said miserably.

"For now, can you take it on faith?" Hutch asked.

David frowned, the concept too much for an overloaded, terrified child. As far as Starsky knew, David had never cried in the last six days. Had never broken down. Any faith David had ever had must have dried up years ago. He was as inflexible as steel and just as primed to shatter if exposed to the wrong stimuli. Good thing Hutch would be there to catch the boy when he fell apart.

"What if I see her?" David asked. He looked at his baby brother sucking his thumb and then turned those poignant blue eyes to Starsky. "Does that count?"

"You know it does, Tiger." Hutch ruffled David's shaggy curls with a sad smile. "You look ready for bed. You remember the routine?"

"Pajamas, brush teeth and pee," he recited, sounding like a dutiful child. Starsky was almost struck dumb. Hutch had done wonders in ten days. Those sleepless nights had paid off. There was hope for David after all. If he could just get past the anger.

"Your pajamas are in the drawer. Brand new ones with Indiana Jones on them, and a toothbrush in the bathroom there," Hutch directed. David shuffled over to the chest of drawers to investigate his new 'stuff'. "Call me when you're ready to be tucked in, David. I'll be in Starsky's room."

"You'll come back?" David asked, bravado warring with uncertainty.

"Promise. I always do, don't I?" Hutch said solemnly.

David pulled the Indiana Jones jammies out, touching the cloth hesitantly. "Will you?" he asked, looking over at Starsky again.

"Cross my heart and hope to die," Starsky vowed. "Stick a needle in my eye."

"Why?" David repeated. "Why would you?"

"Why stick a needle in my eye?" Starsky made what he hoped was a goofy face. This particular one always had the kids at Marshal Center giggling helplessly on the floor. David regarded him with the caution of an explorer discovering a whole new species of animal. "Kinda gruesome, isn't it?"

"Come on, Cyclops, let's let David get ready for bed in peace," Hutch suggested, shoving Starsky out.

"Sorry I took so long," he said when they walked down to the room they shared. It was supposed to be Starsky's; his miniature ships in bottles and Huichol Indian masks decorated the shelves lining one wall, but it was a rare night when the two of them were home that they didn't end up curled up together in the king sized bed. Hutch's room, which housed his artwork and what Starsky termed 'the jungle', the majority of his houseplants, had somehow fallen out of use, for reasons neither of them could remember.

"You get the supplier?" Starsky wanted to complain, to point out precisely how long he'd been gone, but that would have been petty, as well as pointless.

"Yeah." Hutch collapsed on the bed, pulling Starsky into the circle of his arms. "And half a dozen others. It was an incredibly successful raid, and the whole thing felt hollow, like I was missing my center." He rested his head on Starsky's belly, breathing deep and still. Hutch's breath warmed more than just the small space over Starsky's abdomen; it filled his soul. "I kept thinking about what you were doing here with the kids."

"We ate, we schmoozed, we had some fun. Venus did her Betty Boop impression. Snot smiled at Venus. David spoke whole sentences to me." Starsky braced his arms on Hutch's shoulders. This position often initiated a little action, maybe culminating in a blow job for one of them, if not a reciprocal one for the original blower, if they were lucky. He sincerely doubted that would happen tonight. They were both too tired.

"Steven," Hutch corrected, his voice rumbling Starsky's insides. "Starsk, am I crazy to bring those two kids into this house? David's as unstable as nitro and could be dangerous."

"We've always kept our guns locked up and he's half the size of me, one third the size of you. We can take him on," Starsky said, blithely ignoring his own concerns about dealing with David's many problems.

"He's strong--he could hurt Venus easily if he was provoked," Hutch said, his doubt unnerving after the quiet certainty he'd had with David.

"You know, I don't think he'd hurt either one of the kids. Especially not Sn--Steven. You said it, he's a warrior and he's defending his kingdom against intruders. We all just got conscripted into his clan." He pictured David covering the babies on the floor and smiled against the soft hairs on top of Hutch's head. "Just when I was thinking I'd seen the last of police work, I find a kid who's ready to take on all bad guys. You took him off the street, Hutch, and we'll keep him off."

"It's not going to be easy." Hutch tilted his head back to look up at Starsky, and Starsky could see himself reflected in the clear, light blue depths. "Did I tell you I loved you yet?"

"Today? Nah, don't think so." Starsky kissed his forehead and was heading for the sweet curve of his mouth when a familiar interruption pattered in.

"Dada!" Venus crowed. "Papa home!" She pointed to Hutch triumphantly, laughing madly. "He home. No burger. All gone." She lifted up her hands as if just discovering that they were empty.

"No burger?" Hutch made a strangled sound, probably more from coitus interruptus than indignation over his missed dinner. "No burger?"

"Aurie-mae's eldest Princeton ate it." Starsky spread his hands wide, mimicking Venus. "All gone, Little Planet."

"You didn't save me any dinner?" Hutch complained, smacking Starsky's butt. "What kind of wife are you?"

"No kind at all." Starsky swung Venus up on his hip. "You snooze, you lose, Blintz."

"Hutch!" David called from the boys' room. "Pajamas, tooth brush an' peed."

"You get the feeling we're never gonna have any time alone ever again?" Starsky asked rhetorically.

"Ten hours cooped up in the Torino on a rainy night with one cold bleu cheese hamburger between us and an old coke bottle to piss in is looking better all the time." Hutch bussed Venus on the cheek and started out the door. "Coming, David!" He paused, one hand on the jamb. "You ever regret any of it, Starsk?"

"Not a day since meeting you." Starsky hefted the sleepy girl on his right hip and swung just enough to bop Hutch with his left. "Been bumps along the way--too many of 'em, but the ride is worth the ruts in the road."

"We haven't reached finish line yet."

"But we already got the prize," Starsky said, knowing the truth of it so surely it was like a prayer. So what if he was a scarred old cop with no college degree and a mortgage that could sink a battleship. He had life. He had Hutch. "House, yard, two point five kids . . . "

"No dog," Hutch pointed out.

"You gotta have the last word?"

"I'm just stating a fact."

"You're ruining the moment!"

"What are you, suddenly some kind of romantic?"

"You kidding? There's just a principle involved . . . "

"Hutch!" David called again.

"Dada!" Venus kicked her heels against Starsky's hipbone, and he gave thanks that she was barefoot.

"No picket fence, either," Hutch said straight-faced just before he vanished out the bedroom door.

"I heard that!" Starsky grinned at his baby girl and she grinned back. It was good to have the whole family in one house.

No, it was terrific.

FIN