"Come on partner, you're scaring me here. If you don't open your eyes in the next five minutes, I'm dragging you down the stairs and back to the hospital."

Consciousness crept back to Hutch with the speed and grace of a kicked puppy returning to it's master. The fabric underneath him was familiar… he was laying on the couch. Starsky's voice had been close, above him and to the right. The lights were either off or very dim. The TV was on but the volume was turned down very low. Obviously Starsky had been thinking ahead, and for that, Hutch smiled softly.

"Well it's about time."

Hutch blinked open his eyes and found Starsky looking down at him from over the back of the couch. He suddenly remembered why he was lying on the couch in the first place. He had passed out in the hallway, probably from both over-exertion and an overload of déjà vu. Was he dreaming now? Everything looked real enough… Hutch moved his gaze over his apartment. Was that pizza he smelled? You couldn't smell in your dreams, could you?

"Starsk?" he called out, mostly just to hear his own voice.

The burnet's features softened. "Hey, it's me, I'm right here. You need anything? Still remember your name and all that stuff?"

Hutch closed his eyes. "Yes, I know who I am. I know where I am." He looked up at Starsky. "Starsk, we need to talk."

Starsky looked over his shoulder. "What? I ordered one with cheese only. I know you normally don't eat pizza for breakfast, but-"

Hutch struggled to sit up and accomplished the task with Starsky's help. "No, not that. How long was I out?"

"About half an hour. Got to the top step and just dropped. You're lucky I was there to stop you from rolling down the stairs."

Hutch swallowed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks for that."

"No problem. You sure you're okay?"

Hutch remained silent for a heartbeat and Starsky moved around the couch, sitting at the other end. "What? What is it? Are you hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

"No," Hutch said, shaking his head. "I'm fine, really. It's just… I've been having these dreams-"

Starsky held up a hand and nodded. "Stop right there, partner. It's okay, we all go through those phases when there's a dry spell. You work late, not much time off, for meeting girls-"

"What? God no! What's wrong with you?"

Starsky's face fell. "Oh. Okay then. Go ahead."

Hutch shook his head, clearing the vision from his mind. "These dreams… they're more like, I don't know… premonitions."

Starsky squinted in thought, eyeing Hutch carefully. "Like, 'Seeing-into-the future' kinda premonitions?"

Hutch hesitated, hating to admit believing an anything so… unexplainable. "Yeah. Like that."

Starsky's gaze turned inward for a few moments, then he looked back to Hutch. "Wow. That's like- wow."

Hutch snorted. "Yeah."

"So like, what happened? Tell me about it."

Hutch sighed and leaned back against the couch, feeling very tired all of a sudden. "It started in the hospital, when I woke up. I had a dream-" The memory of Starsky's sudden and violent death replayed in his mind and Hutch froze up for a moment. Starsky did not need to hear about that. "I dreamt what you would say to me when I woke up, what I would say, what you were wearing… then I woke up and everything happened just like it had in my dream."

"That's weird. Why didn't you tell me, or the doctor?"

Hutch looked at Starsky. "Tell him what, Starsk, that I just saw into the future? I wasn't even sure what had happened."

Starsky nodded then glanced into the kitchen. "What else? You want some pizza?"

Hutch held up a hand in refusal. "It happened again on the way here. In the car." He watched Starsky lift a dripping slice of pizza from the box and toss it on a paper plate, then return to the couch. "The woman jogging, us going up the stairs…"

"So every time you sleep, you see things?" Starsky said through a mouthful of pizza.

Hutch's stomach flip-flopped and he averted his gaze. "So far, yeah." After Starsky swallowed, Hutch met his gaze once more. "You know all about this sorta stuff, what do I do?"

"Me? When did I become the expert on psychics?"

"I'm not psychic, Starsky."

"No? Lemme look up the definition in the dictionary, huh? I'm pretty sure psychics can see the future. And that, my friend, is what you just said you can do."

Starsky and Hutch stared at each other for a moment in silence.

"All right, so suppose I partially agree with you," Hutch began and Starsky huffed. "Now what? How do I make it go away?"

"Go away?" Starsky gasped, setting the plate and his pizza crust on the coffee table. "One, you can't just make it go away, and two… I think it could be useful."

"Yeah? How."

"How? Think about it! You could tell me the winning lottery numbers, when Dobey will be in a bad mood… when I'll get lucky with the ladies-"

"All the more reason to get rid of it!"

Starsky reached out and laid a hand on his arm. "Hey, calm down. I was just teasin'. Didn't Huggy just tell us that his cousin is a psychic? We'll just so see what she has to say."

Hutch took a deep breath and held it, letting it burn his lungs a little before exhaling slowly. "Okay. But later. I don't really feel like going anywhere just yet."

Starsky patted his arm then let go, standing and grabbing his plate before heading for the kitchen. "Me neither. I still have eight more slices to go."

o0O0o

He knew it was a dream, yet he was powerless to do anything about it.

After getting a hot shower and changing into fresh clothes, Hutch found all his energy had gone. He returned to the couch, where Starsky had not moved from while the baseball game was on, and quickly fell asleep despite his efforts to keep his partner company. His last waking moment was spent in the presence of his best friend, on the couch in his apartment.

His head ached. Images flashed through his mind quickly and out of focus, with enough speed to make him nauseous. Hutch was trapped inside his own body, helpless to do anything but watch the fragmented and meaningless pictures flash before his mind's eye. There was a stuffed animal, it was dirty… it looked like a well-love stuffed rabbit, the kind of toy that has been hugged to a child's chest so many times that the it's middle was flat and devoid of stuffing. Long floppy ears hung on either side of it's head. Was that a splash of blood? It was hard to tell- the fur was so matted with dirt and grime… perhaps it had once been white.

The image turned violent as the toy fell to a concrete floor and was engulfed in flames. Hot orange jumped and flickered, searing then melting the fur until it dripped to the ground in small droplets of whatever stuffed animals were made out of. The hard plastic eyeball grew large and unseeing, reflecting the flames before succumbing to the heat. As the eye fell silently to the concrete, a scream pierced the air.

Hutch flinched, despite the deep-seated knowledge that it was just in his head. The scream was female, it was young, and it was scared. It was the kind of scream that everyone tries to find the source of, because you know that it is a sound of sincere terror.

The darkness took shape then, shifting into walls and floors and blood-stained rope laying limply upon the ground. Empty bullet casings. Blood splatters. Large wooden crates, singed by fire.

The man with red hair- the one who shot and killed Starsky.

The terrified face of April Bently.

o0O0o

Hutch woke with a start, nearly rolling of the couch. Reflexively, he reached out, planting one hand in the carpet below him and the other plunging into the plush cushion beneath him. He was sweating and panting and hot and confused-

"Hey, you alright? You awake?"

Starsky appeared next to him and a familiar hand was laid upon his back. Hutch looked up, squinting. Bright sunlight filled the room now- he must have been sleeping for hours. "Starsky?" he questioned, but couldn't hear himself over the pounding in his head. "You're still here?" Okay, so it wasn't the friendliest greeting he could have given…

"Of course I'm still here. I'm not gonna leave you like this. Still remember where you are and all that?"

Hutch gathered all of his energy and rolled onto his back. He threw a hand over his eyes to fend off the offending brightness. "Of course, dummy. Quit acting like I'm gonna have a total brain meltdown."

Starsky crossed his arms and stiffened in a familiar stance of stubbornness. "You're my partner. I can't let anything happen to you. If I lost you, I'd be partnered with some arrogant, hot-shot rookie who might even have a nicer car than me. It would ruin my image."

Hutch peered at his partner with on eye. "Your image."

"Yes. My image."

One corner of Hutch's mouth raised in a lop-sided grin. "Heaven forbid someone should have a nicer car than that striped tomato outside."

Starsky smiled at him a moment longer before sobering. "You have another dream?"

"No."

"You're lying."

Hutch pulled himself upright and held onto the couch as the room spun around him. Almost instantly, a pain pill was placed in his hand. Hutch closed his fist around it and accepted the glass of water that Starsky pressed into his other hand. "Thanks," he mumbled and swallowed it quickly.

Starsky took the half-empty glass and set it on the coffee table. "Now tell me what the dream was about."

Hutch sighed. "I don't know. This one was different… darker. Left me with a bad feeling." A feeling of helplessness, and hopelessness. He ran a hand over his face, trying to rub away the tension. A feeling of dread haunted him, but he couldn't remember why.

"What did you see?"

Starsky was looking at him with wide eyes, as if he knew all the answers of the world. Hutch was glad he didn't.

He closed his eyes, gently pinching the bridge of his nose with his head bowed. Much like the green tinge that remains after staring at the sun, the washed out and distorted images of his dream burned in the darkness of his closed eyelids. There was a stuffed animal, melting as it was consumed in flames. A warehouse of sorts, littered with evidence of someone being held against their will. Bloody rope, bullet casings…

The image of April's haunted face came back to him with such a force that the air was pressed from Hutch's lungs. He gasped and looked up into Starsky's eyes. "April, I saw her," he panted, rising to his feet. "Starsky, we have to go. She's still alive!"

Starsky was on his feet also. "What? You saw April Bentley? Where? How?"

Hutch moved towards the door. "She's in some sort of warehouse. I don't think she has much longer."

"Wait a minute, Hutch," Starsky said, grabbing Hutch's elbow. "Do you have any idea which warehouse? I mean, this could be like finding a needle-"

"We have to try!" Hutch snapped, jerking his elbow free from Starsky's hold. When Starsky blinked and shifted backwards a bit, Hutch softened. "Please Starsk trust me. Let's just start driving. Start on the furthest end of town and work our way back. There's no other leads, what have we got to lose?"

Starsky looked into his eyes then, and Hutch saw the questions and concerns the burnet wanted to voice but did not. "All right, we'll go. Lead the way."

Hutch flashed him a smile before opening the door. This sudden need to find the girl was overpowering everything else. It overpowered the pain in his temples, the ache in his joints- hell, probably even his rational thinking, but it was a chance. A chance Hutch would not give up if there was even the slimmest chance that April might make it back to her parents, alive.

The warming rays of sunshine greeted him as Hutch stepped outside onto the glittering sidewalk, but he did not allow himself the time to revel in the beautiful day. Starsky passed him and jogged around the Torino's nose as Hutch pulled open the car's heavy door. They slid in the car simultaneously, seconds before the Ford rumbled to life. The tires squealed as hot rubber fought for purchase on the blacktop, then they were on their way.

Scenery scrolled by and gradually grew dull and void. They had entered the warehouse district. Large brick buildings loomed over the small red car, crowding and overwhelming the partners. There were so many buildings… so many floors in each building… how could they ever manage to find one nine year old girl, one that was already hidden so well?

There were no signs of life here. Even the bums found this are too depressing. Trash blew freely down the streets and sidewalks, collecting in corners and at the end of alleyways. Graffiti colored the walls sporadically. Most of the building's windows were knocked out. There was no electricity in the vacant warehouses, because no one had legally occupied them for years.

They were in the middle of a modern-day ghost town.

Starsky glanced at Hutch. "Anything?"

"No."

"Wanna turn around?"

Hutch studied the buildings harder. The Torino purred quietly as they coasted down the two-lane street. To his right stood a building with a simple piece of plywood for a door. The entire building looked ready to collapse should Hutch breathe any heavier. They had driven for about half an hour, cris-crossing their path multiple times just to make sure. Perhaps they were in the wrong part of town. There were two other areas that would be just as suitable for this search. Maybe it was time to move on.

"Hutch?"

They had reached the end of the block. Turning right would start the search over again, and turning left would lead them out.

Suddenly the pain in his skull flared to life. Hutch winced and put up a hand to shield the light from his eyes, at the same time focusing on building to his right. Something flip-flopped and burned within Hutch, bringing his attention back to the warehouse outside his window. It was completely unexplainable, but he knew they had just found the building. April was in there, Hutch was sure of it. He reached for the door handle.

"We're here."