Sitting in the Camaro, Starsky's heart pounded frantically. He felt unhinged, traumatized, and victimized, a trio of emotions that didn't mix well with the powerful feelings his meeting with Blaine had left behind.

Callie Baker was problem, a nosey one at that. He swore under his breath, calling her a litany of derogatory things before he ran out of air and was forced to inhale once more. What gave her the right—the audacity— to confront him like that? Appearing out of nowhere to harass him with hints of the truth, threatening him with the events of the past and alluding to the things she thought she knew but couldn't possibly understand. It was daring action that would come with repercussions—there was no doubt about that.

Pulling his iPhone from his pocket, he checked his notifications: five missed calls and two text messages, not a single one was from Hutch.

Tried to called you, pal, Lucas Huntley's catalytic words were reflected clearly on his iPhone's screen. I checked with the hospitals and confirmed Jackson Mitchell's DOD. He was pronounced nearly 48 hours ago, cause of death currently unknown.

Reading the inevitable words were devastating; the message shook Starsky, cut him in an irreparable way, the depth of which he couldn't began to understand—or explain.

Though he hadn't liked Mitchell, he hadn't wanted him dead. In his current state of mind, he hadn't wanted to believe life was that fragile, that someone could be alive one moment and dead the next. He was foolish for not wanting to accept such an irrefutable truth—he knew that. If his chosen career hadn't left him aware of how quickly life could be taken, then his childhood had. His father had been killed one unassuming day, and his life had changed in an instant. After Michael Starsky's death not one thing in his eldest son's life had remained the same.

It wasn't that Starsky hadn't believed Hutch when he had advised him of Mitchell's sudden death, but it wasn't until this moment—holding his iPhone tightly in the palm of his shaking hand—that he realized just how much he hadn't wanted to believe it was true.

He didn't want to believe any of it was true—not what had happened to him two years ago in bunker on the Marcus Compound, or the events that were taking place now, not Hutch's strange behavior or his obsession with the basement, not his own fleeting grip on reality or his ominous dreams, not the pictures Hutch had been keeping, not the unshakable sense of wrongness that had settled into his life, and not his miraculous discoveries of the bodies or their deep incriminating scars.

"There's a monster in my house," Starsky whispered, repeating the scandalous disclosure Baker had taken such pleasure torturing him with. The tired statement left him feeling terrified and relieved. He had said it before; as Baker had taunted, he had said it again and again. Though he hadn't dared say it out loud since returning to work, he had never stopped thinking it. He had tried to ignore his dread, and he had stopped giving his terror a voice, for fear of what someone would think, for fear of what it would mean. "There's a monster in my house," he repeated softly, the certain words awakening a fragmented memory hidden in the depths of his mind.

"I'm crazy, you know," he had whispered late one night. Back pressed against the headboard, his tearful eyes were set on the nightlight shining predominately in the corner of their bedroom. He couldn't remember if this moment had been after his first psychiatric hold or his second. But he remembered the aggressive antiseptic smell that had clung to his clothes, seemingly seeping into his skin. He remembered his hair had been cut too short, again. And he remembered still having the biting hospital ID bracelet on his wrist.

"No, you're not," Hutch had quickly assured as he sat on the bed next to him. "You are courageous and strong. You lived through something terrible, the lingering trauma of which is demanding a voice, that's why you feel the way you do. Why you question the truth you know or feel more confused some days than others. It is difficult having the courage to live knowing everything would have been easier if you would have died. People look at you, not knowing the depth of you pain. They are going judge you for a past you had no say in. They are going to label you a victim and treat you differently, all while asking why you cannot be the same person you were before you were brutalized. But you cannot let them win. You cannot let your confusion win. You know the truth, and in time you will learn to embrace it." Grasping Starsky's hand tightly, Hutch's lips curled into a smile and his eyes glistened in the moonlight. "You're not crazy," he affirmed gleefully. "You are the sanest person I know. You see so readily what others chose to ignore, and you live with the terror of a truth they zealously deny. The world doesn't understand what you know; it doesn't see what you see. It is easier for them to label you, to change you, than it is to tolerate the terror that comes with knowing the truth. There is a darkness in the world, sweetheart. You know it and I know it, too. You saw it in the bunker, and you see it in me."

Starsky hadn't thought much of the words then and he didn't want to consider them now. But he couldn't calm the question the memory awoke: Had Hutch uttered the words merely out of support, or had they been a clue, a veiled disclosure about what was really going on?

Five men had died, all of them viciously murdered, all of them sharing his distinct scar. But was that all they shared?

Closing his eyes, Starsky longed for the charred man to appear, to be granted a waking conversation with the dead man who always seemed to know so much.

"Where are you?" Starsky whispered as his vision remained dark. "How come you'll only talk to me in my dreams?"

He opened his eyes as the question remained unanswered. It was just as well. The charred man didn't have to tell him what he already knew; he had only wanted the company. For a moment, he had wanted to feel a little less alone.

"Cameron-fucking-Starsk," he laughed bitterly, the sound grating on his nerves. Though he knew the name should have bothered him, it didn't. It was familiar; in an odd way, it was comforting.

The charred man was dead but Starsky felt closer to him than he anyone else. He knew his affinity for the dead man had been born from something, but what? Was it the culmination of loneliness or instability? Confusion or grief? Or had the charred man chosen him? Had he decided to bind himself to him in an effort to help Starsky contend with the horrific things he knew?

And if Starsky was honest—if he finally gathered the courage to allow himself to be such a thing—he would have to admit that he knew a lot.

He knew he was lonely and unstable. He knew that Hutch had left after being dismissed from Bay City PD because, captive to his grief and guilt, he hadn't had the courage to come home. He knew that Huntley and Blaine were right: his intuition had always been spot on. He knew that the charred man was right, too: he couldn't go back now that he'd begun; the past had changed him—it had changed all of them. And with crippling certainty, he knew what he hadn't had the courage to accept the day Hutch had finally returned: That the man who had come back wasn't the same as the one who had left.

"There's a monster in my house," Starsky whispered. "He wears Hutch's face, but it isn't him. The way he looks at me, the sinister sheen in his fucking eyes, tells me that it can't really be him."

There was little point in denying what he knew now or the complications that knowledge would inevitably bring. After all, Baker had been right, too: his mental declines had always come upon him like clockwork and he was long overdue.

Well, he wasn't that overdue, Starsky mused humorlessly, Baker's well-timed words echoing in his ears. He had felt off for weeks; he had been denying the truth for longer—something that needed to change soon. He was done running, after all. The decision was liberating, empowering but terrifying. And determined return home and face whatever awaited him there, Starsky decided on a last minute detour, seeking brief respite at the only place he could think of.

Xx

"I need a beer," he said, the gruff words hinting at a hollow threat if the veiled demand wasn't abided by. Sinking into a barstool, he watched Huggy regard him through dark eyes slit with concern.

"No can do," Huggy said, wiping a wet towel over the bar top. "Firm instruction from your other half, remember?"

"Sure do. But the thing is, Hug, I'm no longer taking orders from him, and neither should you."

"Did you tell him that?" Huggy grinned.

"I don't need to."

"Because you're not taking orders from him anymore."

"No." Starsky frowned, overcome by a surge of simmering anger. Huggy didn't understand—nobody had ever really understood his fears when he voiced them before. How could he expect things to be any different now? "I'm sure Hutch already knows exactly how I feel. You see, he takes great pride in knowing things he shouldn't know about me. Shit, he probably knows a thing or two about you, too."

"Yeah." Huggy groaned. "I'm gonna pretend I didn't just hear that."

"Pretending doesn't change anything, Hug. Besides, why do you have to pretend you didn't just hear what I said? Is it because you're not comfortable with what it would mean if I had actually believed it?"

"No."

"Oh, I know, it's because you're tired of being stuck in the middle of my shit. You're sick of listening to me complain while I adamantly refuse to accept the truth right in front of me."

"That isn't it, either," Huggy said flatly. "But, since you brought it up, do you mind clueing me in on exactly what truth you don't want to accept?"

"I'm not going to tell if you don't already know."

"Why not?"

"Because it isn't going to change anything." Starsky shrugged obstinately. "I can't make you see what you'd rather avoid. And I can't really blame you for not wanting to see it. I wish I could ignore it, too."

"Okay, man," Huggy sighed, his expression fatigued. "I give. How about you tell me what's really going on.

"Nothing's going on."

"It doesn't sound like nothing to me. You okay?"

Starsky knew the question was rhetorical, his own answer irrelevant. Judging by his expression, Huggy had already decided he was far from okay.

"Of course, I'm okay,"

"You sure?"

"Sure, I'm sure. But I won't be for long if you keep me waiting for that beer."

"Hutch better not bitch at me for doing this," Huggy groused. Abandoning the towel on the shiny bar top, he complied with the request. Expertly pouring a beer, he slid it between Starsky's waiting hands. "What's the occasion?"

Taking a deep drink, Starsky shook his head. White foam clung to his upper lip as he carefully placed the beer on the bar and reached into the back pocket of his jeans.

"So," Huggy pressed. "Is this a celebration or a pity party?"

"Neither."

Pulling a trio of prescription bottles from his pocket, Starsky lined them up by his beer glass. Popping the tops one-by-one, he gave little care to where they landed as they fell from the bottles to scatter on the floor. He didn't normally keep the pills on him; it was pure fluke that he had decided to keep them in his possession today.

No, not a complete fluke, he thought wryly. After discovering the hidden pictures in Hutch's wallet and his conversation with Huntley, he hadn't wanted to leave them at home.

"You coulda fooled me," Huggy said, eyeing the prescription bottles. Extending his hand, he attempted to grab them, his face fell as it was rapidly pushed away. "What are you doing?"

"What I should have done months ago," Starsky growled. "Nobody touches these pills but me." He was done explaining himself, finished allowing other people to take care of him or allowing them to have the upper-hand. Callie Baker was wrong about him, but in an obscure way she was right too.

People avoided what they didn't want to see and they ignored things they didn't want to think about—he was no different. He had spent more time allowing Hutch disguise the truth than accepting it because it was too hard to think about—it was too frightening to give attention to.

"Blaine benched me."

"Shit, man, I'm sorry. What happened?"

"He thinks I'm psychotic."

"He actually said that?" Huggy asked skeptically.

"He didn't need to; I know how he feels," Starsky said, chasing the bitter words with another drink. "Jack Mitchell is dead."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Jesus," Huggy breathed. Seemingly at a loss for words, he looked numbly around the room for a moment before setting his concerned gaze on Starsky. "How's Hutch taking it?"

"Oh," Starsky sighed torpidly. "I don't know. Why don't you ask him the next time he turns up here looking for a stiff drink?"

"That'll be a long time from now," Huggy said flatly. "Hutch doesn't hang around here anymore. If he's imbibing, he's doing it somewhere else." Crossing his arms expectantly, he nodded. "But how do you not know how he's doing after something like this? He's your husband. You live with the guy."

Grinding his jaw, Starsky stared at Huggy for a moment, carefully weighing the complications of what he wanted to say against what he knew he should. Lying wouldn't help him now. It would pacify the people around him, but it wouldn't serve him well. It wouldn't calm his dread or give him his job back. It wouldn't miraculously return his life—or the life he and Hutch had built together—to the normal, happy, palatable existence they had enjoyed before Simon Marcus came into their lives and stripped them of their secrets and the fierce solidarity they once knew.

There's a monster in my house, he thought feverishly, holding on to the righteous words. They couldn't go back, nothing could ever be as picturesque as it had once been; he had come too far and experienced too much to hope for such an improbable outcome now. And it picked a hell of a disguise, because nobody knows it's an imposter but me.

"Well, that's the thing, Hug," he said. "I'm not exactly sure what it is that married, or who I'm living with." Finishing the beer, Starsky pushed the glass in front of his best friend and nodded. "I'm going to need another one of those."

"I don't think Hutch would appreciate—"

"I don't give a shit what it wants, and neither should you."

"It?" Face contorting, Huggy nearly choked on the word. "Starsky, this conversation is starting to sound too familiar." He nodded at open pill bottles. "You sure you're taking those when you should? Hutch isn't an it, he's your husband."

"That's exactly what it wants you to believe. You see, Huggy, Hutch left but he didn't come back. I don't know what's living my house but it isn't him."

Mouth slightly agape, Huggy stared mutely. "Shit," he whispered, eventually, shifting his sad gaze to the floor.

"You don't believe me," Starsky said simply. "That's fine. I'm not real sure I want to believe myself. I've been trying to run from how I feel for so long now. I've been ignoring my intuition; I've been a mess and I'm not sure I really want to know the reason why." Hand closing around one of the prescription bottles, he tilted his head in a devastated manner. "I don't think that the person I'm living with, that the thing I married, is human. I mean, just think about what that means. No matter how you look at it, it isn't good. If I'm right, and that isn't Hutch then what the fuck is it? What does it want from me? Why is it so intent on isolating me, making me feel disconnected and alone?"

"Starsky, you're not alone in this," Huggy assured. "You got a whole gang of people who love you."

"But I am," Starsky insisted resolutely. Though genuine, Huggy's gentle words were meant to comfort an entirely different problem. He didn't believe the truth Starsky was conveying; he couldn't. He was too focused on what he was interpreting as the problem. Too concerned with the wrong damning details, he was ignoring the most glaring of them all.

Hutch wasn't Hutch. He couldn't be, not with the things he said, not with how odd and secretive he had become. Anyone who really knew him had to realize that. But they didn't. They were too focused on his own behavior—his supposed wavering grip on reality—to pay Hutch's odd behavior any real mind.

"No, you're not. You have your aunt and uncle, Hutch and me. You've been struggling lately, we all know that. First with the stress of returning to work and, now, Mitchell's death, I think we can all understand how things would feel a little intense for you right now."

"It makes me struggle," Starsky said, hysteria creeping into his voice. He knew he was saying too much; he was going to invite trouble. This was the wrong time—a terrible moment to be displaying irrational behavior, but he couldn't stop the words from tumbling out; he couldn't ignore the horrifying dormant knowledge that Callie Baker had been careful to ensure her words awoke. He had to keep reiterating the truth; he had to say it over and over for fear of forgetting it—for fear of never having the courage to admit it, again. "It intensifies everything I feel. It always has and it always will. It makes me afraid to admit what I know. It pushes and pushes me until I don't have anywhere to go..."

"Starsky, nobody—nothing— is pushing you."

"...I don't know why it's doing this. I don't know why it chose to come back as Hutch, or why it's so intent on never letting me go. I don't understand what it wants from me."

"Hutch is Hutch, man. I don't know how else to tell you that. You know what, I really think that maybe we oughta call him, huh? Then he can come down here and prove he's himself in person. I'm sure that would make you feel better."

"Nothing is going to make me feel better!" Starsky spat. "Aren't you listening to a word I'm saying to you? If I'm right and that… that thing isn't Hutch then why the hell would I want it come down here? Why the fuck would I want to see it again?"

"What if you're wrong?"

Though simple, Huggy's question was disarming. Inhaling a deep, shaky breath, Starsky tried not to fixate on it. He didn't want to think of such a thing—he didn't want to consider what life would be like if everyone else was right and he was wrong—if Hutch really was Hutch and the only monsters were the ones who existed in his nightmares.

But, even so, he found himself assaulted by the past. Moments he had been too young to understand the context of at the time made complete sense to him now, culminating into the solid memory of one night, the details of which left him aching with pain and desperate to avoid the bothersome question Huggy had poignantly posed.

"You're not my husband!" Rachel Starsky had screamed, her voice filtering through the small apartment the family shared.

"Please, sweetheart, lower your voice," Michael Starsky had said, his voice quiet and tired. "It's late you're gonna to wake the boys. You're gonna upset them."

"You're an impostor. You're one of them! Mike wouldn't say these things to me, he wouldn't… he wouldn't do this to me!"

"I'm not doing anything to you."

Hiding unseen in the dark hallway, Davy jumped, his young face contorting with fear as his mother screamed shrilly, her hands clenched in fists as she lunged at his uniform clad father.

"Rachel," Michael pleaded, grasping her wrists tightly. "Babe, it's me. I swear to you, there is no other person I could be. Please, please, calm down."

"Let go of me!"

"Not until you promise not to hurt yourself."

"You're the one hurting me!" Rachel exclaimed in a crazed manner, twisting her arms in his grasp. "You're the imposter, not me!" she added shrilly. "You're one of them!"

"Stop," Michael said gently. "Babe, I'm begging you. You're going to wake the boys, and it's already been a hard day."

"You're a liar!"

"Why can't we just have a normal night?" Michael pleaded as Rachel slipped from his grasp. Taking a step back, she lunged at him again, but anticipating the movement, he gathered her into a tight embrace. "Why can't I come home from a nightshift with you remembering who I am?"

"You're not my Mike," Rachel repeated fiercely. "He wouldn't say these things to me, he wouldn't… he would do this to me…!"

"Dad?" Davy asked, his young voice shaking with fear. Emerging from the hallway, he moved to linger in the doorway of his parent's bedroom as his mother erupted into incoherent sobs. "What's wrong with mom?"

"Hey, kiddo." Looking at Davy over his wife's trembling shoulder, Michael forced a smile. "Nothing's wrong, Davy," he assured deeply. "Everything is okay."

"She's crying."

"I know. She... she had a bad dream."

"A nightmare?"

"Yeah."

Davy frowned. "Grown-ups aren't supposed to have nightmares."

"Yeah, well, some do."

"Because of monsters?"

"You could say that."

"But, grown-ups are supposed to know that monsters aren't real."

"Go back to bed, son," his father urged, his voice tight.

"Dad?" Clutching the doorway, Davy hesitated. "When I'm grown up, am I gonna have nightmares that make me scream like that?"

Bottom lip trembling, Michael held Rachel tightly and bowed his head, pressing his forehead into his wife's collarbone. "Oh, God, Davy," he said, choking on impending tears. "I really, really hope not."

When he was child, Starsky hadn't understood the worry in his father's tone—or the devastation etched into his face—as he answered the simple childish question. But as an adult he did. The illness that lived inside of his mother, lived inside of him, too. Though it had never really presented itself, the threat had always been there; it was in his blood, imprinted inside his genes.

And that night, his father had been fearful that one day Starsky would succumb to the hereditary disorder his wife struggled with, a crippling, unavoidable fear Starsky had been forced to live with every day for the last two years.

Everyone has a bit of darkness inside. Wasn't that what Simon Marcus had said? Now the words circled Starsky's mind in a maddening hiss.

Hutch's darkness was his past, brutal events he hadn't had any choice but to endure.

Starsky's own wasn't so obvious. Of course, he had told lies, been unfaithful to the man he loved, but that wasn't all of it. Unlike Hutch, his darkness wasn't hidden in the past, it was disguised by the future—it was the future. It loomed over him like storm cloud, threatening confusion and enveloping him in dread and fear.

He didn't want to be crazy, there were so many other unsavory things he'd chose over that. So many other things he'd eagerly trade in order to protect himself from the weight of the truth.

"What if you're wrong?" Huggy asked again.

Grabbing Starsky's empty beer glass, he placed it behind the bar, assessing the open prescription bottles out of the side of his eyes. For a moment, Starsky wondered if his friend was counting his pills. If Huggy, like everyone, had become a little-too-accustomed to taking care of him, of talking him down from an impending breakdown or ensuring he completed a litany of necessary tasks.

"If I'm wrong, then that means I really am crazy, doesn't it?" Starsky asked.

Swallowing dryly, he shook his head. He didn't want to be wrong. He couldn't accept the kind of life that was in store for him if he was. He couldn't tolerate knowing that Hutch—his Hutch, the passionate, protective loyal man he had once known and loved so much—would never leave him. No matter his physical or mental circumstance, regardless of good times or bad, Hutch would remain by his side, forever.

What kind of life was that? Starsky couldn't bear the thought that Hutch had endured — survived—a horrible childhood only to be bound to someone whose tumultuous mental unpredictability promised a future that in some ways was equally as bad as the past he struggled to forget.

"And, honestly, I don't know which is worse, which truth I'm dreading to figure out is the wrong one," Starsky continued. "Because if Hutch is who you think he is, who the whole God-damn world seems to think he is, do you know what that really means? It means the darkness won. It means that with all the things I lost on the Marcus Compound, and believe me, I know I lost a lot, that Simon Marcus took the one thing he knew I couldn't tolerate living without. He took Hutch from me."

"No, he didn't," Huggy disagreed.

"But it doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong, because either way, I lose. Either way, Hutch is gone. He is gone to me."

"He's not."

"He's either truthfully an imposter or I'll live the rest of my life thinking he is, because I'm as unhinged as my mom. Trauma changes you," Starsky scoffed bitterly. "Isn't that what you're all always telling me? That I've changed. That I need to embrace the change and sit with the truth, to accept the way things really are? But the problem with doing that is, it doesn't work if the problem isn't all you. And I don't think I'm the only one who's changed. I don't want to believe that the problem is me. And I don't want to accept that maybe the only thing I have left to look forward to in life, is this." Grasping the prescription bottles tightly in his hand, Starsky's eyes sparkled with a hint of rage.

He didn't accept the truth everyone else was so eager to believe. He couldn't, and he didn't have to, because a series of glaring facts still remained—things he couldn't have imagined, information he couldn't have construed.

Five men were dead. Two of the bodies he had been led to, but the other three Whitley had found.

Hutch had always had secrets—he had always had something to hide—his choices and behavior had always been occasionally questionable. He had sent a damning text message to Whitley directing him to bodies; he had unsettling pictures hidden away in his wallet; he had a basement project he refused anyone to see; and he had a childhood best friend whose cause of death was currently unknown.

Hutch had left, vanished for nearly three weeks, and then he had returned. But who—what—had really come back?

"The real question is this," Starsky rumbled, his voice suddenly deep and dangerous. "Why is everyone so much more willing to believe that I'm unstable than they are to admit that something might be wrong with Hutch?"

"Starsky, lower your voice," Huggy warned worriedly.

"Why is it easier to believe I'm nuts than it is to admit the truth that is sitting right in front of you? Hutch left, Huggy, and he didn't come back alone. I'm not even sure he came back at all!"

"You're making a scene. Listen to me, man, take a deep breath and calm down."

"I'm not fucking crazy!" Holding the prescription bottles firmly, Starsky flung them as hard as he could behind the bar. The pills flew through the air in flurry, scattering in all directions as they hit the floor. "I came here, because after everything we've been through, all the years we've known each other, and all the things you saw, I thought, you of all people, would be able to understand that!"

"Okay." Huggy held his hands up in surrender. "It's okay," he said, his eyes darting around the sparsely filled room. "It's okay." Looking at Starsky, he forced a smile and comforting nod. "It's all cool, man. You're not crazy, I know that. We all know that."

"Yeah, but you don't believe it!" Standing, Starsky face contorted with livid disgust. "What happened to you, Huggy? You believed me before. Shit, you were as afraid of Simon Marcus as I was, and now you're just like everyone else. You avoid what you don't want to see and ignore what you don't want to think about, and that's fine for the rest of you. But I can't do that anymore."

Xx

Leaving Huggy's, Starsky drove around the city for hours. He had no destination in mind, no intention to run or hide from the truth—rather suspend its complications. He only wanted to pretend for one more moment that everything wasn't as bad as it seemed.

Driving numbly he ended up parked in front of the beach house he and Hutch had once shared. He hadn't meant to go there; he had been intent on never going there again. Though, at the time, the decision had been impulsive—a frantic grappling for control after being rescued from the Marcus Compound—he had different reasons for avoiding it now.

The house held too many memories—good and bad, blissful and miserable, so many things had unfolded in that house. The first time Hutch had told Starsky he loved him was in in the kitchen. Starsky had been so surprised—so nervous by the very notion of what all meant—that he dropped a glass, shattering it on the floor between their bare feet. It took two weeks for him to summon the courage to reciprocate the words. The look on Hutch's face had been outstanding, as had been the way he gripped the sides of Starsky's face and pulled him into a deep kiss.

He and Hutch had been happier here, hadn't they? They hadn't started to really lose each other until moving into Venice Place. A horrible move in hindsight, a terrible misstep in a series of haunting mistakes, each made with the intent to heal but only serving to further wound.

The beach house had been painted and surround by a perfect, picket fence. There was a dog in the yard, barking playfully as it chased a laughing little girl from one end of the front yard to the other. Tiny and blonde, the girl's giggles were infectious, and Starsky smiled. Rolling down the window, he planted his elbow on the windowsill, rested his chin in his palm and watched her for a while.

The scene was so idyllic. It was shame it would ever end.

And it did end, soon the girl's mother was calling her to come inside, and Starsky was left alone, his careful gaze canvasing his old neighborhood like common criminal as he struggled to contend with how he felt.

Stopping at a red light, Starsky tapped his thumb against the Camaro's steering wheel anxiously and exhaled a taxed breath, looking around the intersection as he waited to be allowed to move.

The people in the surrounding cars didn't pay him any mind as he stared aimlessly at them, shifting his gaze from vehicle to vehicle, person to person. Absently, he wondered where they were going, if any of them were dreading the future as much as he was.

The sun was quickly dipping in the horizon, casting an obscure shadow across the city and reminding him that it was time to go home. It would be dark soon, and he didn't dare contend with the night alone.

Huggy's probing questions had awakened a stockpile of memories. Brutal images of his mother, before and after his father's untimely death. Horrible moments flashed though his mind, sporadic images that assaulted him with the glaring truth, illustrating the depths of her illness and the length his father had gone to contain her symptoms and hide her odd-behavior while he was alive. He had done a good job, too. It wasn't until after his father's death and he and his brother had been left in only her care that Starsky started to understand how sick she really was.

"Your father will come back," Rachel had said late one night, her voice firm but frantic. Sitting in the corner of the bedroom, she clutched her knees to her chest, her stained nightgown pooling at the base of her thighs as he gently rocked back and forth. "He always does."

"Dad's dead, mom," Davy said, for what felt like the millionth time since his father died.

"He'll come back," Rachel insisted.

"He's not going come back, mom. He can't."

"Don't lie to me, son. Don't be like them."

"I'm not lying." Davy cringed. He didn't know who they were or why his mother seemed intent on ensuring that he didn't become one of them. "Nobody's lying, mom—"

"But they are! They tell us lies and hide the truth. Your father, he became one of them, and that's why he isn't here now."

"One of who?" Davy demanded, frustrated tears gathering in his eyes. "Mom, dad is dead!"

"Davy?" a small voice asked from the doorway. "What's wrong with mommy?"

"Nothing, Nicky," Davy said. "Go back to bed."

"I don't want to. I can't sleep when you're not in the room," Nicky whined, pointing his small finger at the bedroom at the other end of the hall. "It's scary in there."

"It's not much better in here," Davy whispered.

"Or here," Starsky said, staring out the windshield as he absently responded to the memory of his younger self. Things had gotten bad after his father died. That night had been one of far too many to count. He still remembered how confused and afraid, grief-stricken and furious, he had been.

As a child, he hated his father for dying, for leaving him and his brother alone to contend with his mother's fierce unpredictable behavior and confusion, and as an adult, Starsky hated him for lying.

Michael was a police officer, he knew the risks of his job. He understood that each day he put on his uniform, strapped his gun belt to his waist could be his last. He was good man, kind and giving. He was devoted to his kids, endlessly faithful to his wife, but he had his faults. His love was shortsighted; he allowed it to disguise the truth, he allowed his fierce, protective affection to compromise the safety of his children.

Rachel was sick; she had an illness that couldn't be ignored, contained, or willed away. Yet, nobody knew she was sick—nobody knew anything was wrong. And so, when Michael was killed, nobody knew what needed to be done. Nobody understood how Rachel wasn't capable of caring for two young boys.

"Dad?"

Starsky groaned as the memory came rushing back for what felt like the hundredth time since Huggy's careful question dislodged it from the depths of his memory.

"When I'm grown up, am I gonna have nightmares that make me scream like that?"

"Oh, God, Davy, I really, really hope not."

His father's voice had been devastated, his expression more so. Starsky hadn't recognized the look when he was younger, but did now. Grief-stricken and desperate, the expression said more than words ever could. It was a horrible look; a silent cry of someone who was slowly losing the person they loved the most to an adversary they couldn't fight. Everything about it was haunting, from the deep lines of worry etched in his face to the hopeless glint sparkling in his dull blue eyes.

As a child, Starsky hadn't understood the expression, he had no reason to—no life experience or other occurrences to compare it to—but as an adult he did. It was the way Hutch looked at him.

He jumped as the car behind him honked their horn, the abrasive sound accompanied by the waiving of a disgruntled finger. "Yeah, yeah," Starsky grumbled, pressing his foot heavily on the gas pedal. "Fuck you, too, pal."

Xx

The sun had set; the sky was black, starless and foreboding as it seemed to hang too low. Pulling into his parking place behind Venice Place, setting his eyes on Hutch's perfect pick-up truck, Starsky had a fleeting feeling that he should have felt relieved. But slowly walking the distance between the parked cars and the front door, all he felt was dread.

Hutch was monster—he reminded himself— and he wasn't crazy, there were so many other things he'd rather be than that.

TBC