Author's Notes: Just a little bit of astronomical fun and happy thoughts for a change. Hope you enjoy it. Reviews would be much appreciated :)

Beautiful World

“Stop that,” said Hutch.

Starsky spun it round. “Why?”

Hutch didn't exactly know why. It wasn't as if it was annoying him or anything. He just thought Starsky shouldn't do it.

“Because you'll break it,” he replied.

Starsky stuck his forefinger in the globe. He gave it a stronger impulse than before, making Hutch chew his lip. He instantly forgot that detail about not being unnerved. Bad enough they had to wait in a filthy rich man's office, for a filthy rich man. Hutch didn't need Starsky to make the situation even worse.

He gazed around, at the bookshelves, at the artifacts scattered about them, at the ancient looking globe - a small replica of their world, spinning under Starsky's finger. Yup, after all he was upset. More than upset. Hutch was bored.

“Sometimes you're just like my mother,” said Starsky. “You know that?”

He went on, talked about stuff Hutch didn't really care about and didn't listen to. Babbled and babbled freely, seemingly stuck in a world of his own. Until the big word finally came around.

“You're bossy,” he said.

Hutch glanced at him. “Which means what? That I get to spank your bottom once in awhile?”

“What?” snapped Starsky. He turned to face Hutch, jerked his elbow, hit the table and the globe took off like a comet.

Starsky stroked the raspy wall as they passed by. “I don't know, Hutch… I've a bad feeling about this.”

“Nothin' to know, Starsk,” said Hutch. “The man took a swing at me.”

“Well, yeah… But just 'cause you broke his extremely expensive globe.”

“What do you mean with 'you broke his extremely expensive globe'? You're the one who flipped it across the room!”

“Hey!” Starsky gave him a finger. “You made me dirty proposals!”

“No, I didn't. I was just kidding!” replied Hutch.

He opened the door with his back, got out and kicked a waste basket abandoned in the middle of the floor.

Starsky reached for it. “Real funny.” He sent the wastebasket sliding across the hall. “Don't even want to think about what Dobey'll say when he finds out we busted the sponsor of the new line of police uniforms?”

“Eh, why should we care?” said Hutch. “We're plainclothes.”

He grinned, obviously pleased with his own wit. And wandered away to the parking lot, careless and laidback, under Starsky's annoyed gaze.

“Bet you won't say that when he assigns you to the motor pool,” he mumbled, finally following behind.

Dobey regarded them with a suspicious glare. “What I'm still trying to figure out is why didn't you tell me this in the first place?”

He drummed his fingers on a pen. And Hutch, who'd never seen anyone do it before, found it pretty amusing. What if he failed and hit the desktop instead? Would the natural order of things come clashing down? Would the world end? Or would Dobey simply hurt the tip of his fingers?

Beautiful questions, whose answer no one else seemed to seek. At least not Starsky.

Beside Hutch, he stood. “Ask Hutch,” he told Dobey. “He's the plainclothes one.”

And they got out of the office, turning Dobey's suspicious glare into an inquiring frown.

Still, both had already decided they wouldn't talk, wouldn't say a word about the subject. Who would believe that globe wasn't fake, anyway? No one… Not when the sponsor happened to be a con artist wanted all across country for multiple fraud.

Still, he'd been one brave little burglar, thought Starsky, when they got to the streets.

He gazed at sky. An airplane sparkled in that immense blue background, crossed his field of vision and left a trail of white thin clouds behind.

“Aren't you glad when the good guys save the day?” said Starsky. He leaned in the seat and watched as Hutch ate his lunch.

“Hmm, yeah…” Hutch wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Even when they've no idea of how they've done it!”

He chuckled and took another bite. And Starsky… Starsky kept watching him with a strange sense of bliss.

He rested his elbow on the passenger's window, tapped the frame and gazed outside. He blinked because the midday sun was shining, and felt his bare arm warm up with the increasing heat.

Propping his sunglasses on his nose, he started the Torino's engine.

This was one of those days, during which he couldn't help feeling they lived in a beautiful world.

Indeed, they did. They undeniably did.

End