Child's Play 4/6
Sliding out of bed, Starsky crept to the nurse's station. Keeping out of sight, he aged himself to eighty before making his shuffling way to the desk.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" He was startled by his own reedy voice. "I'm lost... I'm looking for my room."
The young nurse smiled kindly at the obviously confused elderly man. "May I have your name, sir?"
"Hutchinson," Starsky replied. "Kenneth Hutchinson."
She checked her records. "You're in luck, sir -- it's just down the hall. Room 612. Would you like me to help you?"
"612? No, i can make it. Thanks, honey." He shuffled into the shadows and aged down to his normal thirty-five.
Starsky then walked down to 612 and pushed the door open. Walking in, he saw the small blond form in the bed.
"Hutch?" He knew what had been done to them -- but seeing Hutch as a child was still a jolt to his system.
The boy responded to the name, turning his head to look. Seeing Starsky there -- looking absolutely normal -- he whimpered and flung himself onto his stomach, burying his face into the pillow. "Go 'way," his muffled child's tenor sobbed. "Go 'way, Starsk."
Instead, Starsky sat on the bed and rubbed the small back. "I'm not going anywhere, partner."
"Noooo...." he moaned. "Not partner -- not anymore." A sob, and one word forced out.
"Freak!"
Starsky's eyes widened as he realised that Hutch didn't know! "No, Hutch. You're not a freak."
Before he could go on, Hutch interrupted, "Yes, I am!" He rolled over and looked Starsky in the eyes. "LOOK at me, Starsky! LOOK at me! I'm SIX DAMNED YEARS OLD physically! My mind is an adult, and my body is a CHILD!"
"That's right," Starsky said calmly, supporting himself on the bed with the hand that had been resting on Hutch's back. "But you're not a freak."
"Starsky--"
"Marcy hasn't explained it to you, has she?"
Hutch frowned. "Explained? Explained what?"
"It's a power, Hutch. You can be any age from three to ninety." He smiled. "At will."
Blue eyes had widened as Starsky talked. His mouth worked, but nothing came out for a moment. Then he asked, "How do you know that?"
"Because," Starsky began.
Then Hutch yelped as Starsky suddenly shrank from thirty-five to match Hutch's six.
"Because," his startling pre-pubescent voice rippled out, "I have the same power."