Quickly striding through the hallway, Hutch pulled anxiously on his shirt collar, undoing the few top buttons to rub absently at his chest. He felt like he couldn't breathe in spite of the fact that he already was, his chest rising and falling in perfect rhythm to his pounding heart. He wanted his partner; he needed to open his eyes and find Starsky standing beside him, his face wrinkled with worry.

Hey, are you okay, partner? Starsky would ask, and Hutch wouldn't have to say yes or no. He wouldn't have to say anything because they would both already know the truth. Simon Marcus and his band of eerie followers had terrified him, because he couldn't look at their violent actions, he couldn't look at the aftermath of all the horrifying things they had done to the people they had killed or the ones who survived, and not think of her.

While the men's corpses had bothered him, all the deceased women were somehow worse. His stomach had clenched with sick nervousness each time he and Starsky were called to another abysmal scene. With dark sunglasses shielding his eyes, hiding his pain from view, he had looked at each female victim's body, naked, bruised and mangled, their skin and lips tinted blue, and wondered if anyone had ever viewed Susan like this. If someone had stumbled upon her body as the poor teenager who had found the first of The Marcus Family's victims had stumbled upon that motionless and bloated corpse, lying face down floating in a tributary. It was horrible knowledge he hoped for and dreaded at the same time. Year had passed and he still wished someone somewhere would stumble upon something—anything—that would help him finally bring Susan home.

Everything always came back to Susan—there was nothing to prevent that.

If he closed his eyes tight enough sometimes he could still picture what she looked like; his memory of her was impenetrable. Stagnate and perfect, even after all this time. Her blonde hair had been unruly and wild beneath the headband she wore across her forehead. Her patchwork peasant skirt had been long and flowing, nearly disguising her bare feet. If he concentrated hard enough sometimes he could he still her sing, a hint of laughter in her soft voice, expelling her words in tandem to the lyrics filtering from the turntable endlessly playing the Creedence Clearwater Revival song that had presented her with the beloved nickname: "Oh, never leave me blue, Suzie Q."

And she had, though Hutch was certain she hadn't intended to. One day she had left and now she was gone. She was lost—missing like his partner had been. But, unlike Starsky, she seemed destined never to be found.

Standing in the middle of the corridor, his eyes still tightly shut, Hutch couldn't help but feel the loss of Suzie all over again. He knew her absence didn't change anything but Starsky's did. He couldn't ignore his debilitating questions anymore; they surrounded him, feeding his pain and self-doubt.

Was he shaken by what Simon Marcus and The Marcus Family had done because of Suzie's disappearance? Or was he shaken by Suzie's disappearance because he was aware of the evil that existed in the world?

Would he have been better equipped to handle The Marcus Family Investigation—could he have prevented Starsky's abduction at the courthouse—if years ago he had believed what Chief Ryan had solemnly swore was the truth? Was he haunted by Suzie's memory because of the pain of what he knew or the pain of what he didn't? Would he have been a better cop, a better friend, a better man had Suzie never disappeared? He couldn't handle any of the unanswerable questions; he had never been able to handle it, but Starsky had known that from the start.

"Nobody loves me,"Suzie had said once. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, her eyes glistened with unshed tears. It had hurt Hutch to hear her express such an erroneous claim. She was bubbly and free-spirited, loved by most everyone whose path she crossed; she made friends too easily to be weighted by precarious self-doubt. "I have all these feelings inside of me; I have all this love to give but nobody seems to want to love me back."

"I love you," Hutch had assured, knowing full-well that it wouldn't be enough. The love she was searching for he couldn't provide; he couldn't ease or soothe the discontent twisting and wrenching her soul.

"We're family. You have say that."

"I don't have to say it. I don't have to say it at all."

"It's different coming from you. It doesn't mean the same thing; it doesn't seem as important as it would be if it came from somebody else."

"Like who?"

"Hutch," Dobey said suddenly. His firm tone dissolved the strength of the memory as he grasped Hutch's arm. "Hutch?"

Hutch opened his eyes. "I let her down," he said. "And Starsky, I let him down, too."

"What?"

"Doesn't matter."

"It matters to me," Dobey said, pulling him into the privacy of an awaiting elevator.

"Why?" Hutch asked, feeling a surge of irrepressible anger. Where had Dobey come from? Had he been waiting outside of Ryan's office to covertly collect him the moment he walked out the door? Leaning against the back wall of the elevator, he crossed his arms and assessed his superior skeptically as he felt the lift move. "Did you know that Chief Ryan went through my desk?"

"Yes." Dobey neither hesitated nor looked as scandalized as Hutch wanted him to appear.

"Did you help him snoop?"

"Of course not."

"But you let him do it."

"I didn't have a choice."

"You always have a choice," Hutch seethed, sardonically citing a statement Dobey had spoken on more than one occasion. It was meant to be uplifting, empowering his detectives to hold themselves to higher standard of work and ethics they thought they were capable of. "Or is that just some bull-shit line you thought you'd spew to get me to—"

"Stop," Dobey said firmly, holding his index finger high. "If you think for even a second that I encouraged Ryan to riffle through your desk, then you're wrong. Dead wrong. I am on your side, Hutch. I have always been on your side, and you stand there and act like I had a choice. Ryan is the Chief of Police. He makes the rules and he's my superior. I have people to answer to, too. Sometimes I think you forget that any bad decision you make can have negative repercussions on—"

"Did he do it before or after Starsky was taken?"

"What?"

"Did he search my desk before or after my partner was abducted by those creeps?"

"What difference does that make?"

"Did he search Starsky's desk, too?"

"I don't know." Dobey looked flustered. "I only caught him riffling through yours; who knows what he looked at before I entered the squad room. Why? What do you have to hide?"

Mouth snapping shut, Hutch's lips formed a straight line. Nothing. He didn't have anything to hide—not anymore. His file full of contraband information had already been confiscated.

"Hutch," Dobey prompted.

"Nothing."

Dobey was unconvinced. "I can't help you if you don't trust me."

"I trust you," Hutch lied, punctuating the statement with a nod.

"Sure you do," Dobey sighed. "Which is exactly why you went MIA after you beat the shit out of Simon Marcus, right? You left the prison and disappeared for nearly twenty-four hours. You didn't call me to ask for help; you didn't call anyone. You went dark. Whatever you did, whatever clues you found and information you pieced together to lead you to that abandoned zoo and Starsky you gathered it all on your own."

"Are you accusing me of something? Noncompliance or mishandling the investigation?"

"Did Ryan?"

"Not explicitly."

"Good. He didn't because he can't. You didn't do anything unforgivable. Now beating up Marcus, that was a misstep..."

"I made a few," Hutch grumbled.

"Ryan's gonna make sure you pay for that," Dobey continued. "But there's nothing you can do about that now, other than own up to your mistake and deal with the consequences. What I'm suggesting you ought to do is come out of the cold. Let somebody else shoulder the weight of all this for a while. That's what I'm here for, Hutch, but our relationship only works if you trust me." Dobey's face contorted conspiringly. "Can I trust you?"

"Sure."

Unsatisfied, Dobey's brows furrowed.

Squaring his jaw and shoulders, Hutch stood tall. "Of course."

"Then tell me how you knew where to find Starsky. What led you to that zoo?"

Hutch flinched. They both knew he wasn't going to answer the question, so why would Dobey bother to ask it?

He couldn't began to explain how it had all happened. After he left the prison he had traveled to place-after-place. One after another there had been clues waiting for him at each location, individual pieces to a puzzle he would eventually assemble which would lead him to the zoo. He didn't know who had planted the clues; all of Simon Marcus's normal haunts had become empty and quiet, untouched by for the first time since The Marcus Family's reign of terror had begun. All of Marcus's followers had vanished in an instant, taking Starsky with them. The sinister man's game had started with Starsky's badge, the hefty familiar item he had returned, and ended with an ominous clue: The Temple of the first Kingdom where only the faithful keep the flame. The faithful and heavenly Polaris.

The story would make him sound crazy. Unhinged. Ill-tempered. Dangerous. He had assaulted Simon Marcus not because of what he had had but because of what he had said.

"My dream is your fantasy," Marcus had sneered, his lips curling over bloodstained teeth.

Hutch's well-aimed punch had cracked the man's lip and filled his mouth with blood. Grasping the collar of Marcus's blue inmate shirt, he pulled his fist back and hit him again and again. He didn't stop until the guards pulled him back; his hands were aching, bloody and bruised, but his focus was on Marcus's body as it lay still on the floor. For one horrible moment, he had thought he had killed him, then seeing Marcus's chest rise and fall in short, slight breaths, he knew he hadn't but wished that he had.

Hutch couldn't explain what had happened to anyone; he didn't want to—at least not now. Maybe one day he could confide in Starsky what he had done. How he had rushed from the prison too afraid to look back. How driving the Torino he had felt incredibly alone.

I made a mistake. "I had a hunch," Hutch lied.

"A hunch?"

"It was dumb luck. I hate zoos and Simon Marcus loves playing games."

"What where the rules to this one?"

"Doesn't matter." Hutch shook his head. The details of how or why he found Starsky didn't matter—at least not anymore. "I won. I beat him at his own dumbass game."

"I supposed you did," Dobey said thoughtfully. "And you were right about Marcus's followers. All the ones we had fingered for crimes and arrest warrants are dead."

"The bodies at the zoo?"

"The bodies at the zoo," Dobey confirmed. "Thirty people in total, all dead; they bled out from stab wounds that pathology believes where self-inflicted, slashed wrists and necks."

"Suicide?" Hutch asked, the theory not sounding quite right. Why would The Marcus Family kill themselves? Why would they take their own lives but not Starsky's? He was right there, tethered to the floor. It would have been easier to kill him than leave him alive.

"Mass suicide. It's a new term coined by our very own Coroner, Mickey Wheeler." Dobey tilted his head, unable to mask his disgust. "Despicable man. When he told me about the new term he was including his official reports he could barely keep the excitement from his voice. Who the hell gets excited about mass death?"

Hutch shrugged. Wheeler he supposed. Though it wasn't really the man's fault. Surrounded by brutality, consistently exposed to the violent evidence of the horrible things people did to themselves and others, it stood to reason that one would become a little desensitized. He refused to blame Wheeler for his self-preserving actions—especially since it was trait he had become covetous of himself.

What would he be like if he could laugh-off the horrors he was privy to? What would his life look like if he could live without the weight of the unanswered questions surrounding Suzie's absence, or the agonizing questions that swirled around his partner's uncertain future, promising to haunt them both?

He would have liked to remain by Starsky's side at the hospital, to advocate for him, to protect him, but Ryan's instructions had kept them apart.

Say you're sorry, a woman's voice whispered, sing-song words that hissed urgently in the depths of his mind. Though it was impossible, Hutch thought it sounded a lot like Gail. They had never spoken outside of his nightmares but in those dreams Gail stared at him with Suzie's blue eyes and spoke to him with her voice laced with disappointment and disgust. Gail wasn't Suzie—he knew that; their respective ages weren't compatible—but it was a fact that meant nothing to his sorrow and was easily forgotten when he gave into the pull of deep sleep. I want to hear your regret. I need to know you haven't forgotten me.

"I'm sorry," Hutch whispered sadly, his gaze locked on the floor. He hadn't forgotten—he only wished he could. With everything inside of him he wanted to forget; he wanted Suzie to come home; and he wanted to glance to his right and find Starsky where he belonged, standing next to him in the elevator, his lips twisting as he tried—and failed—to suppress a smile over the heaviness of Dobey's mood.

"You have nothing to apologize for," Dobey said, unaware of Hutch's internal monologue. "You didn't do anything that can't be fixed."

"I didn't do anything."

"Hutch," Dobey said. "We've already been through this. You did everything you could. You saved your partner's life." Clearing his throat, he lowered his voice, "Speaking of your partner, I'm taking you off the roster today."

Scowling, Hutch braced himself for an argument. "I just got back."

"Just for the afternoon. I expect you back tomorrow. I want you to report to me before speaking to Ryan. Had you done that today then I might have been able to save you from his chastising."

"He wasn't chastising," Hutch snorted bitterly. "He was... egotistical and pleased." And why wouldn't he be? I screwed up and he caught me. I got cocky, kept that damn file right under his nose; he found it and wanted to make sure I knew that he knew. But where does that leave us now? "What does it matter anyway? He reprimanded me and now you're sending me home. The two of you make a hell a tag-team."

"Who said anything about sending you home?" Dobey smiled as the elevator doors sprung open, displaying the unsettling darkness of the underground parking garage. "Detective Starsky is being discharged today, I thought that perhaps you'd like to be the one to pick him up."

"He's only been there for two days. You saw how he was, Captain, and now you're telling me they're letting him go home?"

"A lot can change in two days. I would think that you, of all people, would know that by now."

And Hutch did. He was haunted by the changes forty-eight hours could bring. Nearly ten years ago, two days had changed his life.

Author Note:

The following line isn't mine:

"Oh, never leave me blue, Suzie Q." Though I reference it as belonging to CCR, that recording is a cover. Original credit and compliments go to Dale Hawkins circa 1958.