Author's note: In order to straighten out Starsky's story line I had to change some details in the first dream Starsky had in chapter one. The following chapters might contain some of the answers you've been looking for.

Credit for some of the research and story line ideas in these, and following chapters goes to Starsky's Strut.

My heartfelt thanks go to all you wonderful readers!

Warning: Hutch hurt


Chapter 20

Dobey was leaning with both arms on his desk, his hands covering his face as he still heard the commissioner's voice ringing in his ears a few moments earlier over the telephone.

"The way I see it, you don't have a choice here, Captain. Either you drop the investigation, or you'll find yourself out of a job."

"They were setup! Two of my best man can't just vanish off the face of the earth!"

"There's a larger interest at stake here, the Feds are handling it."

"The Feds were in on this, Gardner!"

A brief silence fell, before the commissioner continued, "This order didn't just come from the mayor, Captain. It came from above, high above. And if you don't want to find yourself unemployed for the rest of your life, I suggest you follow it, and forget about your men."

Dobey could feel his face turning red with anger. "Forget about them? Listen, you can order me to do anything related to my job, but I will never… NEVER, forget about them, you hear me!"

"Harold…"

"And another thing, we don't even know if they're dead or alive, what am I supposed to tell their families, huh?"

Tell them that they're still missing, but that the Feds are taking over from now on, nothing more. Whether you like it or not, this case is now classified, Captain. And the Feds will not tolerate interference into 'their' investigation.

"Classified, my ass! The government is protecting the Forests for God knows what reason and Starsky and Hutchinson are the ones who're paying the price for that!"

Gardner's voice at least sounded lenient this time, "Look, we all know that sometimes certain sacrifices have to be made, and as much as I would like to, there's nothing I can do about that, my hands are tied."

"Well, unofficially, I'll still be looking Gardner, and if those Feds make one wrong move I'll be there to make sure everyone's gonna know about it! There's nothing I can do about that, either!"

"It's only because you're one of my closest friends that I can say I didn't hear that, Harold. And I'm sorry. I truly am."

"Yeah," Dobey said sadly, and hung up.

That was it then. He had no choice. He couldn't afford to loose this job. He had a wife and kids to support. Angry, he stood up, throwing the chair backwards with force. He stalked out of the office. The heavy silence descending in the squad room as he entered it didn't make things any easier. They all knew this day would come, eventually.

Dobey had his men searching for over three months now, non stop, but nothing had turned up. Forest had disappeared along with the two detectives, and the only lead they had was Helen, but every time they made some progression with her case, the Feds got in their way. Evidence got confiscated, records were deemed classified, statements changed, and stuff just got… lost, somehow.

Not even Huggy had been able to break the tight net the FBI seemed to have firmly in place. And it wasn't from lack of trying. The bartender had completely turned the town upside down, looking under every stinking rock, playing every card in his deck, cashing in on all outstanding favors, even asking for some favors of his own every now and then.

Nothing.

Dobey managed to spend more evenings at the Pits lately. More than he used to. Since the case was classified all he'd been able to tell outsiders was that the boys were missing. But Huggy already knew differently, so they at least could talk to each other about their anger and frustration. It somehow made the feeling of loss seem more bearable.

Quietly, Dobey now let his eyes pass over the small crowd. The atmosphere inside the squad room had turned grim over the last couple of months. There wasn't as much laughter as there use to be. They were all good men, most of whom loved their job. However, the disappearance of both Starsky and Hutch sadly had a lasting effect… on all of them.

He waited until he got their full attention.

Then, not trusting his voice he gravely shook his head, as if relaying the fact that one of them hadn't made it. "As of today…," he spoke in a thick voice, "the case concerning our two missing men has been deemed classified. From now on the Feds will take over. Your orders are to cease all related investigation at once, be it official, or unofficial, and to start concentrating on the new cases we got coming in."

Not waiting for his people to burst out in objection, Dobey walked out of the squad room, before either of them could see the tears forming in his eyes.


Hutch was tired.

He'd come to the point of braking so many times, he lost count. As much as the blond was a fighter, and not a quitter, Karl had been clever.

He'd managed to viciously draw out every character trait the blond possessed, along with his hopes, his strength, and his stubbornness, squashing them one by one by ways of fasting, drowning and other physical means, making him slowly loose his self respect and his dignity.

Each time he gave in after one of Karl's sessions, he hated himself more. He hated to see himself so out of control, so dependent on the one man he knew should never see him like that, to have to admit time and time again, that it was Karl who held his life in his hands.

He was holding on, barely.

What made it worse was that he couldn't 'feel' his partner anymore. Hutch had always assumed he would know whether Starsky was alive or not. He would feel it in his gut. But as strange as it sounded, that was gone. His partner's presence was simply missing, as if he'd never met the man. The numbness replacing it was killing him, the emptiness bled like a sore infested wound deep into his soul, tensing up his stomach, affecting his breathing, undermining his strength, his ability to fight, his resolve to endure this.

He couldn't close his eyes to escape it; he couldn't find peace in his sleep, for the broken feeling inside was always there, becoming even more tangible as he tried to shut it out. Every time his mind tried casting a thought of hope, that thought simply got lost in the dark where his friend used to be.

Karl knew, up to a point, that he'd delivered the blond a near fatal blow by literally ripping the two men apart. He used it, but not to its fullest extend. Hutch was well aware of that. If Karl ever were to find out how to break through his barriers, how to pull down the walls of faith concerning Starsky's friendship, Hutch wouldn't be able to keep his balance. Not in the state he was in now.

Behind those walls was a Hutch who simply craved to be loved, making him very vulnerable to those he'd given his friendship too. So the trick to get to him was simple. Just throw his care back into his face, use it against him, and the blond was devastated, like Vanessa had done, or his parents for that matter. So he sure as hell made certain he buried that side of his nature deeply within him.

But the tiredness had made him sloppy, and Karl's bait had worked.

Hutch was glad to see the boy, who hadn't made his appearance ever since he'd given the blond his pocket-knife. He should have known something was up when Tommy walked in, and apparently was allowed to speak to him.

"Would you like to come out and play with me?"

From his position on the cot Hutch turned his head to give him a weak smile. It was all he could muster these days. Karl didn't even lock the door anymore, there was no strength left in him to walk out. "I can't, Tommy."

"You look sick."

The boys worried features stroke a chord. "It's okay, don't worry, I'll get better."

"Your friend just left you here, didn't he? Happened to me loads of times, I don't have any real friends."

A sad look crossed Hutch's face as panic started to rise. If he'd been in any better shape he would have been able to comfort the boy, to tell him it wasn't true, that he hadn't been left behind. But as it stood now, the words from the kid cut right through to his heart. He stifled the fear showing in his eyes, it was gone before Tommy, or anyone else could pick up on it.

Or so he thought.

The soft smile didn't reach his eyes as he spoke softly. "I'll be fine. I'll be your friend if you want me to be?"

"Yeah?"

Karl's voice suddenly broke through their conversation. "Tommy, get back upstairs."

Looking up to find Forest standing in the doorway, Hutch didn't manage to cover his startled shock fast enough. It was obvious the man had been standing there for a while. Dread took hold of him as the boy ran out of the room.

Karl smiled, from having observed their little get together he had obviously figured out how to deliver the final blow.

Hutch lowered his eyes, realizing the game was over. Without a word he let himself being pulled roughly off the cot, and taken to one of the adjoining rooms where the Sumos tied him to a chair.

"You think someone's still out there who cares for you? You think that boy cares for you? You think the good guys will win in the end? You think Starsky will come back for you?" Questions were thrown at him. Questions which only demanded one answer. A negative one, and when he didn't gave it to them, the repercussions were hard.

"I bet you made fun of him lots of times. I bet you often ridiculed him in front of your fellow cops, didn't you? You seem like that kind of man, a spoiled brat who has to tease his partner in order to feel better about himself. Isn't that what you're about? So, why would he come back for you? Answer me!"

"I'm not… like that. Starsky's … he's …"

"What about your parents, Hutchinson, or your ex-wife for that matter? You look me in the eye, and tell me that they loved the conceited scum sitting in front of me now."

Hutch realized with horror that Karl had managed to access that part of him, which up till now only Starsky had known about. His answers came ever haltingly, the repercussions for giving the wrong ones, for showing any hint of pride, ruthlessly increasing. Until he muttered a stammering 'sorry'.

And Forest smiled.

When Karl's words continued to tug and rip his very being apart with every carefully stated question, every physical blow to his system, every mental blow to his heart, Hutch cried out in terror, screamed in denial and fear… and slowly lost his footing. He slipped. The solid rock he'd been standing on tilted, slowly, relentlessly… the process taking over an hour, until there was nothing left to hang onto anymore, and he fell.

When they finally put him back in his cellar again, Hutch knew… it was all over.


Belinda stared dreamingly out of the window, watching her husband's attempts to repair her green Ford. He looked especially good leaning over the car's engine under the open hood. She always loved to see him in tight jeans like this. He had looked rather well on their wedding too, dressed in black. The man had been positively glowing.

Too bad none of his family had been able to attend. When they'd had their first dinner over five months ago, David had explained to her he'd lived in New York all his live, and lost his parents a while back. He'd been travelling ever since then. And because he didn't have a permanent address, the contact with the rest of his family had been lost as well. He didn't mind. He told her he was an only child, so he didn't have any siblings. And the one aunt and uncle he did have never really seemed to like him anyway.

The story had made her heart fill with sympathy for the man. However, she also found it to be somewhat unsettling. Apart from the sad content, David's eyes had looked kind of glazy all throughout his monologue, only clearing after they'd had their first bite to eat. At first she contributed it to the fact that he simply hated to talk about stressful events in his past. But now she wasn't so sure. It was almost as if he'd been making things up as he was speaking to her in a monotone voice. In hindsight, it only added to the mystery his past seemed to be riddled with.

The wedding had been nice. Her family, albeit small, consisting of her father and an aunt had been there, as well as some folks from the local community. What troubled her was that David had seemed real happy at first, until the evening came. For when everyone had gone home her husband had carried that same glazy look again. She'd asked him worriedly what was wrong, but he'd never really answered that question. Instead he'd taken away her fears by giving her a night she would never forget.

That was two weeks ago. She sighed, recalling the events of last night. Something had woken her up. And when she'd turned on the small table lamp near her bed she noticed with shock that her still sleeping husband next to her was crying.

"A bad dream, Bell," that was what he'd said to her when she woke him up, "nothing more."

She wondered if that was all it had been, if this wasn't some traumatic event from his past still haunting him. However, he'd assured her that wasn't the case, and he'd never lied to her, or anyone for that matter, he just wasn't that kind of man. So what else could she do but to trust in the fact that he was telling the truth?

Beneath her window, her husband angrily closed the hood of the Ford with a loud bang. Looking up, he gave her a thumbs-down sign, a sad expression on his face telling the whole story. The car was a goner.

She smiled down at him.

He just shrugged, giving her a big grin in return.

Whatever had upset him so much in the middle of the night seemed to have gone now. Maybe someday she would find out more about his past, maybe not. It didn't matter. All that mattered was the future. They were a couple now, friends, and partners. No matter what the coming year held in store for them, they would face it… together.


Chapter 21

The phone sitting in the small office overlooking the factory's large storage facility was ringing off the hook for over ten seconds before Karl annoyingly picked it up. "Yeah, talk to me."

The voice on the other side of the line sounded a bit high pitched, "Karl is that you?"

"Yeah, Donalds, what do you want?" he snapped, recognizing the voice.

"Easy man, I'm just informing you of the current situation."

"What situation, you have everything under control haven't you?"

"We've been receiving reports that Starsky's still having flashbacks every now and then."

"You assured me that this couldn't happen! You said the drug was foolproof!"

"It is! Don't worry. These flashes will fade with time, believe me Karl. The man got married and everything. God, you wouldn't believe the paperwork we had to arrange for that."

"Donalds!"

"All right, all right, look, even if he does remember eventually, which I highly doubt, it'll take months for him to sort it all out, so it might be a while before the man returns to Bay City. If ever."

"Well, can't you stop him if he does?"

"We're not murderers, Karl."

"Not murderers! What about the test subjects?"

"What test subjects?"

Karl cursed under his breath. Of course he'd always known that when push came to shove the FBI would simply deny ever having had any contact with him. "Fine, let's just hope he won't remember then."

"He won't, trust me. In fact, we don't even consider him to be a threat anymore, so, as of now, Starsky's no longer under our surveillance. We instructed the local police to leave him alone as much as possible, but that's it. And just so you know, this is to be our last communication. You're a valuable source, Karl. We might be in need of your services again in the future."

Good, at least that means they won't kill me to cover up their tracks. "Yeah," he mocked, "I'll miss you too." He hung up the phone, and thought things through. The drug was strong, Donalds was right. Even if Starsky would remember eventually, maybe in another year or so, it was of no consequence to him. He would be long gone by then.

It felt good to be fully in charge again.


He could hardly believe it had been six months since he'd met Belinda. Starsky was devouring a homemade pizza, while at the same time admiring his wife from a distance. As she moved around behind the bar with grace, he recalled how beautiful she'd looked at her wedding a month ago.

His thoughts darkened as he pondered over this morning's events. To his relief, after his little escape at Hank's store, the dreams had left for a while. He'd even started to believe they'd been nothing more but images brought on by stress, caused by some sort of post-wedding anxiety. He was sure the strange hallucinations he'd had last week, merely served to drain some of his tension and now, life had returned back to normal.

Life was good.

Until this morning.

When he'd nearly crashed his truck into the nearby bus stop.

He'd been twiddling with the radio when his stomach had suddenly done a flip turn.

Just for a moment he found himself in another car, racing across a long and winding empty grey street. The seat next to him was empty. Tears were streaming down his face, though he didn't know why. He was angry, so angry… at himself, for being too late, far too late.

With a start he'd found himself back in his own pickup again, heading on a collision course with the local transporting company's property as he'd unconsciously sped up. He managed to miss the unmovable object by mere inches, bringing the truck to a skidding halt. He was glad Belinda wasn't with him, for the curses that followed would have made her blush a deep red.

The chimes of the door bell indicated someone was entering the restaurant. Shaken from his thoughts, Starsky looked up to see his wife standing frozen behind the bar.

"DON'T NOBODY MOVE!" The man wearing a long black coat and a ski mask anxiously pointed his gun at Belinda. Restless grey eyes quickly took in the surroundings, before he purposefully stepped over to the cash register.

The robber had failed to notice the brunet, who was sizing the man up from the safe position of the kitchen. Starsky hated guns, he always had. He had no idea why… he just hated them. Belinda owned one. She kept it in the kitchen in a pan she hardly ever used.

A nervous masculine voice interrupted his thoughts. "Just put the money in this bag, baby, and nothing will happen to that pretty little face of yours."

His wife was too shocked to move.

"MOVE IT, LADY!" The guy shouted, walking behind the bar, roughly shoving Starsky's wife to the cash register.

Starsky quickly moved out of sight as something inside took over. Without making a sound he opened one of the cupboards and lifted the lid of the pan, taking out the gun. Then he carefully proceeded to take the clip out of the drawer, locking it in place.

His own voice suddenly rang in his head, like an echo from the past. There are some things, you never forget. He walked over to the kitchen door. His movements graceful, his actions programmed, robot-like.

The man's attention was still on the money which Belinda was putting in the bag as quick as she could. With a certain amount of pride Starsky noticed her hands weren't even shaking.

"FREEZE!" he ordered.

The startled robber turned, aiming his gun at the brunet.

Before Starsky consciously registered what he was doing, he made a dive roll. When he came up, the man shot to kill, missing the brunet by mere inches.

Starsky fired.

His wife screamed.

The impact of the bullet threw the man backwards. Bottles, glasses, and the mirror behind the bar broke into a thousand pieces as the man fell into them. The overwhelming sound of breaking glass shattered a barrier inside the brunet he hadn't even known was there, a barrier which had kept yet another memory from surfacing. He sat frozen in place, one knee on the floor, gun with both hands still trained at the man.

In another time and place blue eyes met his…split seconds before the shot rang through the street, throwing the blond man full force through the glass door behind him. The noise of shattering glass… the feeling of utter despair when he saw him fall through that window… He saw it… clear as day… again, and again, and again. His mouth opened to call a name. But no sound would emerge. There was only emptiness.

Warm hands touched his trembling fists still locked around the gun. "Dave."

Slowly he registered Belinda's voice and looked up.

"It's over, lower the gun."

"How…" he stared at her, his voice soft from shock. "How could I forget something like that? Jesus…"

"Dave, come on." Belinda put her hands on his gun, slowly taking it from his grip.

Starsky stared from the gun to her kind face.

"How did you know how to do all that?" She asked bewildered.

"I don't … know… I just knew… I… we…were in a city, recently." He said confused, standing up.

"We?" Belinda's voice sounded slightly suspicious.

"Yeah, the blond…" Starsky explained, leaning over the bar to check on the robber, who was knocked out cold, thereby missing the flash of jealousy shooting across his wife's face.

"Blonde? A girl?"

With the memory of the man crashing through the window, still vividly burning his inner eye he answered without hesitation. "No, a guy."

She put a hand on his arm. "A guy? David, listen to yourself. You told me that after you left New York, you always chose small towns to spend the night in, because you hated the big cities. That wasn't a lie, wasn't it?"

"No," Starsky said, shaking his head, confused. He remembered the man. He remembered the image, and if he concentrated enough he could even remember him laughing, them talking together. But he couldn't remember a name, a place, what city they were in. That made it awfully unreal, for Belinda was right. He had not been to a big city since he'd left New York. And that was quite a while ago. There was nothing in his past that correlated with these memories. "I don't know… "

His wife stared at him in awe before calmly stating the obvious. "Listen, you're just upset. God knows I am. It's normal to create a bit of a fantasy in order to cope with… with what you just did."

"That doesn't explain me handling the gun like I just did, not to mention that… that dive roll. I'm telling you Bell, something's wrong, I can feel it."

"Dave, a person can do extraordinary things under extraordinary circumstances. You probably just watched 'The Rookies' just one time too many."

He turned away from her. His wife's logic made perfect sense. And if it wasn't for that little voice that kept telling the blond was not a fantasy, and was as real as the creep lying behind the bar, he might have let it go. But now, somehow, he couldn't.

What city indeed? He thought frantically, gripping the bar with both hands. Come on, Dave. What city? Bay City, a voice answered.

His head snapped up. "Bell, I have to go."

"Go? Go where?"

"Bay City."

"Bay City? In the US!"

"You can go with me or not. Either way, I'm going."


Tbc.