Moonlight and Sunshine

by Zebra 3 and Me

These Starsky and Hutch stories are dramatic and angsty.

MOONLIGHT and SUNSHINE

By TLR

Stories:

13 Seconds-The partners investigate a serial killer who preys on gays.

The Medium—Assistance from Joe Collandra when one of the partners goes missing.

Follow-Up-The partners after the Simon Marcus case.

The Difference-H isn't so keen on Kiko's career choice.

Implosion-A bomber targets African American establishments.

Golden Brown-Kiko may have a problem.

Rx (Tolerance 3)-S's new love following Sweet Revenge.

Crush Load-S deals with H following a kidnapping.

Life In The Key Of Hutch: Can the partners survive a botched hit by a crime lord?

13 Seconds

By TLR

When my bedside phone rang, I didn't even know what day it was, let alone what time it was. I'd been in bed with the flu for two days, popping down cold pills, vitamins, aspirins, shots of liquor in my health shakes, chicken soup, anything I could get my hands on to get over it and back on my feet as fast as possible, because Starsky was undercover at a gay club called 13 Seconds, alone now since I was sick. We were after The Bashers, as they were known in the squad room and in gay circles. We didn't want to lose our timing and momentum by pulling out now, so Starsky agreed to stay under solo until I could get back on the case.

I have worked sick before, and it's not a big deal. But this was one nasty flu. The kind that puts your body in neutral and your brain on pause. Starsk had a stuffed animal for a partner, and that could be as dangerous as not having one at all.

Captain Dobey didn't think it was wise to put a new cop into the club, as it would rouse suspicion, but I did talk him into letting Huggy drift in from time to time to keep an eye on the place, and on Starsk, since Hug already knew some of the people there and was actually the one who gave us the lead on the place to begin with.

Starsky had gotten close to the regulars and staffers without setting off any alarms, and we wanted to keep it that way.

My cover was, what else, a guitar player with the house band. Sort of blended into the background when I was on stage, but could also get a panoramic view of what was happening on the whole floor with all of the customers, waiters, and the curious who came in and out.

It was an upscale blues club, all male, and somebody was taking it upon themselves to get rid of the patrons by beating them to death. Gay bashing to the extreme.

Some victims were found outside the club, others on the street or a few blocks away, some near or in their apartments or in their vehicles.

We knew we were looking at more than one perpetrator. It was the work of at least two or three; maybe even a gang.

But they were slick, silent, possibly even sanctioned by some of the locals, or even cops and officials who weren't exactly gay-friendly.

They weren't choosey about their victims either. White, black, young, old, flamboyant, tame. It didn't matter. There were seven victims by the time we got the assignment, and

the factor that linked them all together was homosexuality. The factor that threw us off was that there was little evidence left on or around the bodies, and no witnesses.

"Hello?" I said into the receiver.

You know you're in bad shape when a telephone receiver feels as heavy as a brick in your hand.

"Hutch."

The way Huggy said it. Low, and with a tremble. I knew it wasn't good.

Another body. One he'd found himself, perhaps.

Huggy was accustomed to the streets, but he wasn't accustomed to seeing dead bodies, and sometimes my partner and I forgot just how gruesome our daily life could be, and that Hug was a willing, albeit often green, participant. Sometimes we didn't know what we would do without our number one asset, and he never knew what we could be dragging him into.

"He was gone when I got there tonight, Hutch. Nobody saw nothin'. Bartender. Waiters. Band. Nothin'. The custodian said he thought he might have gone out the back way sometime around midnight, so I go out to the alley…"

I rose up on my elbow in the bed, pressing the receiver closer to my ear, breath rising to a tight panic in my chest.

"We're at Memorial, Hutch. He's here. But you gotta…you need to make it pronto."

I threw the receiver aside and jumped out of bed.

XXXXXXXX+

The worst thoughts possible rolled around in my head like billiard balls as I walked through the emergency room doors of the hospital.

I saw the drawn curtain that the doctors and nurses were working behind; heard the police photographer's camera clicking as he took pictures. I started to rake the curtain back, but two doctors and a couple of uniformed cops who were already expecting me pulled me back, and Dobey helped force me away.

"Let them work," he said gruffly in my ear. "They said he has a chance."

They said.

He couldn't speak for himself. I didn't hear his voice griping at the staff or bellowing for me like a baby bull. The police camera was still snapping away.

They pulled me around the corner, where I punched the wall, a red haze in front of my eyes. I closed them to make it go away.

"He took a severe beating," Dobey said. "Huggy found him in the alley and called an ambulance. They left him for dead…but he hung on."

I opened my eyes to see Huggy standing near a medical cart a few feet away, then charged over to him.

"Where were you?!" I yelled as I grabbed him by the jacket and shook him around. "You were supposed to watch him!"

He didn't argue. He just sort of rattled in my fists like a sheaf of bamboo sticks.

"Who?" I asked as I let go of him and turned around to look at Dobey. "Did he say who?"

The captain shook his head in the negative.

I looked back at Huggy again.

"Did he say anything at all?"

He shook his head no too.

I stood in the middle of the hall, a steel cable stretched taut to the snapping point. I needed a name. A lead. Something.

If he didn't make it, I had to at least get the ones responsible. I owed him that.

XXXXXXXX

Words left me. I had no leads, so there was nothing to work with. No one to call, question, pursue. I could only think about my partner and how I hadn't been there to back him up.

"Huggy," I said as I approached him where he still held his post at the medical cart, a safe distance from me but close enough to hear any news about Starsk from down the hall. "I'm sorry."

"Ain't nothin' I haven't already told myself, man."

Dobey was on the phone in the waiting room across the hall, having sent the two

uniforms home, figuring one explosion had gotten the rage out of my system and he and Huggy could handle anything else that remained in me.

Little did they know. I was just holding onto it for a little while longer.

A doctor turned the corner and walked toward us.

I recognized him as Dr. Malone. I had seen him at 13 Seconds a couple of nights when I sat in with the band. Not with anyone; just having a drink and enjoying the music. Now the look in his eyes told me he had discovered through medical records or the staff that we were Hutchinson and Starsky instead of a guitar player named Hill and a new guy cruising around the place named Sonny.

"Ken," he said gripping my hand. "I won't blow your cover. He's in critical condition. He said your name. You can see him for a few minutes before we move him to ICU if you want to."

If I want to?

I ran down the hall, leaving them all standing behind.

"Starsk," I said moving around the curtain.

A nurse adjusted the IV.

It was obvious from his injuries that his attackers never meant for him to live.

One eye was blackened and swollen closed. The other cut and stitched at his eyebrow.

His left forearm lay in a cast, and his right hand was bruised and swollen; his lips cut; nose bloody, chest wrapped, head bandaged. He almost looked like Frankenstein's monster and the mummy combined.

"Starsk?" I said as I slid my hand under his still one and leaned over him. "You made it, buddy. You're at the hospital."

His hand moved slightly in mine, and the eye that wasn't puffy cracked open, where I could see a sliver of blue.

"Who?" I asked him quietly. "I need a name."

I didn't know if he could say anything, or if he even heard my question, but his lips parted, and he tried to say something, but only a breath came out.

I leaned down closer.

"Come on, buddy. Talk to me."

I waited for him to tell me something, but he was all out of strength.

Too weak. He had tried his best.

His eye slipped closed, and the nurse crowded a little closer to the bed as she checked him again.

"He needs to rest," she told me. "You'll have to see him later after we move him."

Of course. I would do whatever she said to help him.

"I'll be here, Starsk," I said quietly as I backed away from the gurney. "At the hospital. Stay with me."

XXXXXXXX

A million thoughts ran through my mind as I sat next to Starsky's bed and watched him sleep, gun in my hand.

If his attackers discovered that he had survived, they would be back, and I would be ready.

A uniform, Bernie Glassman, was posted outside the room, but I trusted no one but myself with my partner's safety.

I found him all crumpled up, Huggy told me. Facedown on top of some garbage cans like he was some toy they stomped on and threw away…

Had his cover been blown or was he supposed to be the eighth victim? Had he gotten a look at them? How many? Could he identify them? Had any physical evidence been left at the crime scene this time?

Those were my cop questions.

My best friend question was, How much did he suffer before he lost consciousness?

Starsky had had a black eye or two before, but I'd never seen him beaten like this. I had seen few people beaten like this.

He was a good, tough, resourceful fighter, but from the looks of him it was doubtful he'd been able to fight back at all. Ambush. They had definitely overpowered him this time.

"Fight, Starsk," I whispered to him, hoping he could hear me in the silence. "You can make it."

I turned my head to see Huggy standing in the doorway of the darkened room talking in a low voice to Bernie, then he looked at me.

"Dobey said to give this to you," he said holding up a brown paper bag. "His clothes. For evidence."

I rose from the chair, holstered my gun, then walked over and took the bag, opening it but not touching the contents.

When I looked in, I saw his bloody shirt, jeans, shorts, and sneakers; new anger rising inside.

Evidence all right. Of cruelty, hatred, and just how defenseless my partner had been.

I set the bag down next to my chair and joined Hug in the doorway again.

"Came to relieve you," he said. "Go get some coffee or somethin'. You look like death warmed over."

"I feel like it. Guess I'll go to the cafeteria. Do you want anything?"

"I just had coffee. Go on."

"Bernie," I asked, "you want something?"

He shook his head no.

I really didn't need to remind Bernie, but I couldn't help the instruction that came out:

"Don't let anyone through that door unless they show you a badge."

He nodded and I walked down the hall toward the elevator and stepped in, meeting two plainclothes cops we had worked a few cases with, Hines and Edwin.

I pushed the 1st floor button.

"Cafeteria?" Edwin asked.

I nodded.

"That's where we're going," Hines said as the doors slid closed. "We just came from visiting Eddie's sister upstairs. She just had a baby."

"Congratulations on being an uncle, Eddie."

"Heard Starsky was here," Edwin said as the elevator started down. "Did he say who jumped him?"

"No."

"We plan to go up and see him after we grab a bite. Is he gonna make it?"

"I think so."

My hurting head was feeling as big as a pumpkin, but inside I was smiling at my last statement. It looked like Starsky would pull through.

As I kneaded the back of my neck, I looked down and saw something on the sharp tips of Edwin's cowboy boots that made my heart freeze.

Both men were dressed in fresh clothes; not wrinkled or worn from a long day's work, smelling of new soap and shampoo, hair still slightly damp as if they'd just stepped from the shower; maybe the one at the precinct, except that Edwin hadn't noticed what was on his boots.

Bloodstains.

Where they had…

Kicked my partner?

"What did they name the baby?" I asked smoothly, praying that they couldn't hear my pounding heart.

"Mandy," Hines answered just as smoothly. "Mandy Marie."

My eyes casually slid to Hines' hands to check for scraped or bloody knuckles, but they were stuffed out of sight in his pockets. He noticed me looking down at his partner's boots, then he looked too, and I saw the outlines of his hands inside his pockets clenching into fists.

The three of us thought the same thing at the same time: I knew they had gotten sick kicks murdering seven gay men, and had planned to beat Starsky to death to keep him off the case and make it look like he had been the eighth victim.

And they knew I knew.

Instinct kicked in. Fight or flight. Live or die. Do something or something will get done to you.

They felt it too.

Lightning.

I shoved my left elbow into Hines' stomach; my right into Edwin's face. Both reached for their guns, but I already had mine out, firing on Edwin first, then Hines.

The gunshots were deafening inside the small confines of the elevator, the close-range impact sending red spatter, skull, and brain all over me, the walls, and the button panel.

Both men dropped in a tangled pile around me.

I was wheezing, almost heaving by the time the elevator reached the 1st floor and slid open. The struggle had left me winded. I don't know how long I'd have lasted fighting those two under the weather.

The people waiting to get on screamed when they saw the bodies, the blood on the floor, the blood on the walls, and blood on me.

"Police," I gasped as I put my gun away.

Hospital security and a bunch of doctors and nurses came running over.

I held up my badge with one hand and held the elevator doors open with the other. To one of the security guards I said, "Make sure the door stays open and don't touch anything. Don't let anyone inside there."

He nodded and did as I directed while I went to look for the nearest phone to call Captain Dobey.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

By the time I had talked to Dobey, other detectives and Internal Affairs, and then took my bloody clothes off in the doctor's lounge and bagged them, it was dawn. Body aches and fever were rendering me almost immobile. There was a constant fuzzy static in my head that kept me from thinking clearly and moving the way I wanted. Dr. Malone loaned me a change of clothing he kept on hand, and after I took a hot shower there in the lounge and changed into them, I was almost asleep on my feet.

"I think you should be admitted," he said with a smile, but his eyes told me he was actually serious. "You're very sick, and not exactly operating on all cylinders."

"I know, but…" I trailed off. I have no idea what I was going to say.

"Evan agrees."

Evan was Dr. Andrews, Malone's colleague.

"Someone say my name?" Evan asked as he came into the lounge and slipped his arm around Malone's waist.

Malone rubbed his back. "We can rest easier now."

"I know." Evan held his hand out to me. "Thanks, Detective."

I nodded, remembering why I should feel good about killing two cops I had known and worked with, why my partner and I were willing to risk our safety and our lives every day, why Starsky's beating held some sort of meaning after all.

I don't know if I shook Evan's hand. I meant to. I just remember the heaviness of sickness and sleep drifting over me like a dark fog as I collapsed into their hands.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

When I woke up later in the day, I found myself in a hospital bed in Starsky's room. Not exactly officially admitted; but lying down. Huggy was asleep in a chair between our beds. Another uniform had been sent by Dobey to relieve Bernie. Although I was certain that the danger was over, that we got the right people, and that no other perpetrators were involved, the captain still wanted to keep someone at the door.

I looked across the way at Starsky, whose good eye was open a slit and looking at me.

"Well, well," I said as I pushed myself out of bed and trudged over to him, leaning on the chrome bed guards a little more heavily than I meant to.

The fingers of his swollen hand moved and he opened his mouth a little as if he wanted to tell me something. I stroked his arm as I leaned down to listen.

"Cops," he breathed faintly.

That was what he had tried to tell me the night before, but hadn't been able.

"I know, Starsk."

"Hines and…"

"Sshh. Edwin. I know. I got them. Don't talk, unless there's something else I should know about."

He moved his head no.

"You're going to be okay. Go back to sleep if you want to."

"…cake…" After a few more seconds he added, "…fine..."

"Yeah, piece of cake. And you will be fine."

He grew quiet again as Huggy roused from his sleep to ask, "How's he doin'?"

"Stronger," I said, then stepped aside when the nurse came in.

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

"It was close to midnight when Hines and Eddie…Edwin…came in and told me that…they found a victim in the alley next to the club," Starsky told me a few days later when he was strong enough. "That's how they got me out the back door."

I needed his official statement for the case, and gave him plenty of time to remember things with a clear head. Internal Affairs would want to hear it again.

His bed was raised a little and the fingers poking from his cast grasped at the sheet that covered him. He was still hurting and weak, but he hadn't complained. I was surprised that he was a little nervous; and worried that it bothered him this much; especially since he knew the cops were dead and he was going to be okay.

But then again, he'd never been beaten this badly before either.

Sometimes I had the unrealistic notion that my partner was superhuman. He had survived so much, always bounced back, complained very little, kept a cheerful attitude.

But at that precise moment he looked only too human. Distressed. Hesitant. Even though he tried bravely to hide it. I was probably the only person who could see it, though.

I squeezed his hand. "Take your time."

He closed his eyes. "Somethin' went over my head. Bag or somethin'. Cloth. Don't know what color. Dark. Blue or black. Hines said, 'You're an obstacle. Nobody cares about a queer case.' And Eddie…Edwin said, 'So we killed a bunch of faggots. So what? You should learn to look the other way.' And then…one held me from behind while the other one went to work…"

His eyes, both now open because the swelling was down, traveled to the window, his grip on my hand tightening. Not exactly hard, but desperate. "I couldn't…" He jerked, as if from a blow. "Fight. I tried to…"

"Easy, Starsk."

"Guess I blacked out after that. I don't remember anything else. Just…being here at the hospital."

"Huggy found you a little after one." Left for dead on top of the garbage.

He gave a small smile, again trying to cover his fear. "Thought I was a goner."

"Me too. Is there anything else you want to add?"

Another cop question. But it wasn't the first time I'd taken an official statement from my partner, and it wouldn't be the last. It just sounded so…formal between us. Necessary to the system, of course. The wheels of justice had to turn; especially this time. But still clinical between such good friends.

He turned his head no on the pillow.

"I'll take care of things, Starsk. Huggy will be here in a few minutes. Bernie's just outside the door. I need to go to the station to talk to Dobey. I want you to take it easy while I'm gone."

"Yeah," he said as his eyes closed again. The statement tired him. But with it the case was virtually closed.

I started away from the bed, but he still clung to my hand.

I turned back.

"Buddy, don't worry. I'm just going to the precinct. It'll be okay. You…"

I saw tears gather between his lashes. I couldn't leave him with tears in his eyes and a fearful hold on my hand, so I pulled a chair over and sat down.

Dobey could wait. The case could wait. The case was my best friend, who needed me more at the moment.

His eyes stayed closed, and watching him fall asleep made me feel drowsy as well, so it wasn't long before I found myself dozing on a folded arm on the side of the bed, his hand still under mine.

I wanted to tell him so much. I knew he was scared. He always reached for me, clung to me, physically, when he was scared.

My heavy eyes stayed shut, and then, maybe I dreamed it, I'm not sure, but I think he put his hand on my head and said, "You're sick, Hutch. Rest with me."

XXXXXXXX

He mended quicker than they anticipated, but that's Starsk. Full of a life force that propels him forward. Dr. Malone gave me a couple of shots, and I recuperated right along with him.

The two of us being out of commission at the same time was a funny thing. I was more concerned about his condition, and he was more concerned about mine.

"Told you your health drinks weren't good for you," he said when he was stronger.

With that remark, I knew he was going to be all right.

XXXXXXXXXX

At discharge time, Dr. Malone came in to see Starsky off and to sign the cast on his left forearm. The signatures were from cops, friends, hookers, snitches, lady friends, and some from the gay crowd at 13 Seconds. There were so many autographs that there was barely any room. I knew he had a magnetic personality, but the large number of names told me just how much they liked him.

And not just names; but phone numbers.

"Pretty popular at 13," Malone smiled with a wink in my direction. "Real convincing. Guys lined up at his table a block long to meet him."

Dr. Anderson personally pushed a wheelchair in to escort Starsky downstairs to the lobby. Colorful balloons were tied to one of the handles, and a cake decorated with the words "Thank You" in blue icing was in the seat.

"Seriously," Malone said as he picked up the cake so Starsky could take a seat in the wheelchair. "Thank you both, for what you did. For…all of us." To Starsky he said, "You almost lost your life trying to help us out."

"Well," Evan finished, "it's not often we see that from our side of the fence."

"Hey," Starsky told him as he sat down in the wheelchair and took the cake from him, "just doing our job. No way we could let that continue."

"We truly are grateful," Malone added. "We could never properly repay you, but we would like to extend a token of our appreciation by inviting you to our house for dinner next weekend."

"Our?" Starsky asked, then looked at Evan. "Oh. Our." He looked at me. "Well, we never turn down the chance for a good meal, do we?"

"No," I smiled as my finger scooped up a bit of icing and tasted it. "We don't."

As Evan wheeled Starsky out the door and into the hallway, I looked at Malone.

"I just have one question, Craig."

"What's that?"

"Why do they call it 13 Seconds?"

He smiled. "In a place as nice as that, it takes about thirteen seconds to make a connection."

The End

The Medium (A Joe Collandra story)

By TLR

Starsky was furiously waxing the Torino when Hutch pulled up alongside his house and got out of his car.

"Well," Hutch said as he stood with his hands on his hips and watched Starsky at work. "It's good to see you're not sleeping in on a Saturday morning. And there's a good reason for not answering your phone."

Starsky didn't offer a smile. He just kept waxing.

"You know," Hutch offered lightheartedly, "if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were working out some inner turmoil."

Starsky stopped waxing to glare at him. "Last time I was immature and hostile. Now I have inner turmoil."

Hutch grinned and reached for the booklet he saw wedged into his partner's hip pocket, reading the cover aloud: "Cult Codex?"

Starsky snatched the booklet back and shoved it back into his hip pocket, then resumed his waxing.

"Just doing a little homework," he grumbled under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothin'," he said as he moved to the other side of the red car to continue his chore.

"I don't know everything that happened with Marcus' cult," Hutch said. "I know what you told me. I know what the report said."

"-Crossword puzzles and quilting bees-"

"-I mean. You gave your statement, but I don't know all the detai-"

"That's right. You don't."

"But I have a big imagination, and we know…something about how cults operate. So if you ever want to talk about it…"

Starsky moved his chamois cloth to the trunk, the farthest point from his partner.

"I got it under control, Hutch."

"I know. I just…"

"You just worry too much. I'm a grown man. I can take care of myself. I didn't screw up the Haymes kidnapping case, did I?"

"Of course not."

"Then what do you want from me, huh?"

Hutch stood looking mildly stunned. Starsky stopped polishing and straightened to look at him.

"Huh? What?"

"Starsk! They nearly cut you open for some kind of godforsaken ceremony! And you go on like noth-"

"That's right! Just like nothin' happened! Because it didn't! You got there in time, I'm fine, everything's okay now! How could I be a good partner to you if I can't put it behind me and get on with it?"

"You have a book in your back pocket called Cult Codex. It must be on your mind. You must be trying to understand what they did, why they do it, what purpose…I know I do. I wonder about it."

"I think you're having more problems with it than me, buddy. I dealt with it. But let me dispel the mystery for you. They roughed me up. They poisoned me. They had their fun. But I made it. Thanks to you. That's what counts. I don't dwell on the what ifs."

"Really?"

"Really."

"That's good to know. Sorry I asked."

Hutch walked toward his car.

Starsky pointed his polishing cloth at him.

"Hey! Where you goin'?"

Hutch sped off with squealing tires.

Starsky threw the cloth onto the trunk and kicked the rear tire.

XXXXXXXX+

The three teenagers dressed in jeans, T-shirts, and sweatshirts walked up behind the blond man fishing at the lake.

Hutch cast a line, then turned when he heard the snapping of a twig behind him.

"Oh," he said lightly with a smile. "Hello."

The teenagers didn't return the greeting.

"Summer vacation?" Hutch ventured again.

The one in front of the other two took a pocketknife out and began to trim a fingernail.

"What are you doing in our woods?"

Hutch looked around. "This is Harold Dobey's place."

"We claim it," a second boy said. "We grew up around here. Our parents own…"

"Shut up," the first teenager warned.

The other two looked chastised.

"Are you alone?" the leader asked.

"What's your name, youngster?" Hutch asked as he set his rod and reel against a log and walked up the bank toward him. "And what's your problem?"

The boy with the pocketknife pulled a pistol from the back waistband of his pants.

"Stop right there."

Hutch stopped, his hands automatically going in the air. "Is it money you're after?"

One of the teenagers went to him, reached under his plaid shirt, and found his gun, pulling it out.

"I'm a cop," Hutch said. "And you're a bunch of mixed-up teenagers. So if you want to start over, you can walk away and I'll pretend like this never hap-"

The leader shot him in the shoulder, the bullet knocking him around. He dropped face down in the water and made no offer to get up.

The young man put his pistol away and then held onto Hutch's, admiring it as he turned it over in his hands.

"Man," one of his friends said with wide eyes and a pale face. "What'd you do that for? You said we were just gonna hassle him."

The boy with the gun walked over to the edge of the lake and looked down. "We did."

XXXXXXXXXX

Starsky was tending a beer but leaving his chili dog and fries untouched when Joe Collandra came staggering into Huggy's holding his shoulder.

A few of the afternoon patrons gave him an odd look, and so did Huggy, who said, "Hey, man, what's up?" as he came quickly around the bar.

"Shot," he gasped as he leaned over.

Starsky jumped off his stool and moved Joe's hand away from his shoulder.

"You sure?" he asked as he looked for blood and a possible exit wound in his back. "I don't see any bl-"

"Not me. Hutch."

Starsky shot a look at Huggy, then grabbed Joe's collar and sat him on the stool. "What are you talkin' about?"

Joe raised frightful eyes to him. "Heavy. Hard to breathe. Dark. Dirty. I can't-" He leaned forward on the stool and gasped for breath.

Starsky sat him back up. "Are you sure? Where is he?"

"You're askin' him?" Huggy asked Starsky. "How come you don't know?"

"We had a discussion this morning."

"About the cult," Joe supplied.

Starsky stared at him.

"Yeah," Joe said as he nodded, then winced in pain. "I know about Marcus."

"Stay out of my head and tell me where Hutch is."

Joes shook his head as if in physical and mental pain. "I can't get that. I'm trying."

Starsky shook him.

"Try harder!"

Huggy pulled Starsky's hands from Joe. "Let him think, man. He'd tell you if he knew. Give him time."

Starsky's voice lowered, but his eyes still held bottled panic-Hutch doesn't have any time.

Huggy noticed that more customers were staring in their direction, so he shouted toward the kitchen, "Diane! Take over!" and escorted both of them toward his back door and out into the alley.

Once outside, Joe paced unsteadily, head working back and forth, struggling with what he felt and saw in his head.

"Bleeding. Water. Down."

He dropped to his knees, then facedown, groaning and panting.

Starsky yanked him back up. "Tell me!"

"I'm trying! You know I can't control it! It comes when it comes!"

Agony filled Joe's eyes, and Huggy wondered if it was from the feed he was getting or the fact that he didn't have enough to help Hutch.

"Woods. Three teenagers."

Starsky looked at Huggy. "Water and woods. Maybe he went to Dobey's cabin."

Huggy ran inside to use the phone to call the captain.

Starsky tried to calm himself. Blowing up at Joe wouldn't help find Hutch any faster.

"Yeah," Joe breathed as he leaned against the building. "Just give me a minute, will you?"

Starsky nodded, but hovered within inches of him, keenly scanning his face and eyes for the slightest change; the barest of hints. Near psychic himself in his perception; tormented by his own inner pictures.

"I was driving to the supermarket," Joe said wiping the back of his hand across his perspiring upper lip. "Then all of a sudden, it hit me. My shoulder. Thought I was having a heart attack. Couldn't move. Almost lost control of the car. Had to pull over for a minute, but then I drove straight here. I just got this big…Hutch feeling. I do think it's the woods. Or a lake. Somewhere like that."

"Would it be the zoo where I was?"

"No. That place is deserted. Simon doesn't dream about you anymore."

The way Joe averted his eyes brought a question to Starsky's, and Joe answered in a small, weak voice, "He dreams about Hutch."

Jaw set, Starsky grabbed him as if to shake him again, but the back door opened and Huggy came back out.

"Dobey says he didn't give Hutch a key, but that doesn't mean he didn't go up there. Said he was gettin' the sheriff to drive out there to check it out, see if his car's there."

Joe's head went down again and he clutched it against the hammering fragments.

"Dark," he said going to his knees again. "Water. Dirt."

Starsky and Huggy stared at him as his hands began to paw at the gritty asphalt, his fingers digging.

"Help," he wheezed barely above a whisper, and began to make choking sounds. "Hurry, Starsk."

Starsky crouched next to him, grabbing his collar and shaking him. "Joe!"

Joe kept raking his fingers across the ground. "Hard to breathe." His hands clutched at his own throat and his eyes squeezed shut as he collapsed onto the ground again.

Starsky clenched his shoulders. "Please!"

Joe opened his eyes and looked at him, his face relaxing, eyes softening, voice quieting; and Starsky saw Hutch's countenance there.

"Please," came Joe's Hutchlike whisper, and then his eyes rolled as he passed out.

Starsky caught his head and held it. "Hutch!"

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Starsky and Huggy helped Joe to the Torino and put him in the backseat, then Starsky jumped into the driver's side and started for Dobey's cabin.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw Joe winking in and out of consciousness like a dying light bulb.

"Stay awake, Joe. I need you."

"I'm awake, " came his hoarse voice.

Starsky looked around the front seat, car swerving when he took his eyes off the street.

"What you lookin' for?" Huggy asked as he held onto the dash.

"Something of Hutch's to put in his hands. To intensify the read."

Huggy looked around too. "I don't see nothing'."

Starsky felt under the seat, as did Huggy.

Starsky opened the glove compartment and sifted through the contents, fingers skimming across sunglasses and a granola bar wrapper. The items would do, but that wasn't what he was looking for.

He found a sheet of paper that was folded in half, then in half again, and took it out. He put his focus back onto the street ahead as he held the paper back over his shoulder in front of Joe.

"A song Hutch was writing."

Joe closed his eyes and put his head back, refusing to move his hand.

"Starsky, I can't."

Starsky's eyes glinted at him in the rearview mirror.

"Come on, Joe!"

"You don't get it! You have no idea what this does to me or-"

"Take it!"

As if reaching for acid, Joe's trembling fingers reached up and took the folded page. He pressed it between his palms, eyes closing, head going back against the seat.

Huggy turned to watch him. "The dude could have a stroke."

Guilt flickered in Starsky's eyes, but then he said, "Come on, Joe. Help us out."

Joe rubbed the paper between his hands.

"Too late," he whispered with his head still back, a sheen of sweat on his flushed face.

"It's not too late. Try."

"Too late."

"Joe!"

The folded square slipped between his hands to the floorboard, and his arms fell heavily to the seat.

"Can't," he breathed. "No more."

XXXXXXXXXXXX+

The sheriff's car and two deputy units were already at Dobey's cabin when Starsky skidded the Torino to a halt in the twigs and dirt and jumped out, pulling Joe out too.

Hutch's car was parked nearby under a tree.

Huggy picked up the folded lyrics to put in the café owner's hand, but Joe was staggering away from the car, trying to stay upright on folding knees.

"Not far," he gasped.

The sheriff walked over to them, gave Joe an odd glance, then spoke to Starsky.

"I got four men out there looking, Sergeant."

Starsky ran over to the tan Ford and looked in, seeing no blood or sign of a struggle inside or outside of the car. No disturbed twigs, leaves, or drag marks. Nothing out of place.

"He's hurt," Starsky told the sheriff. "Gunshot wound to the shoulder."

"How you know that?"

"I just do. Have an ambulance on standby."

The sheriff gave him a perplexed look, then reached through his open car window for the radio mike.

A few yards away, Huggy was following Joe as he made his unsteady way down the dirt road toward the lake.

Starsky hurried to catch up.

"Joe!"

When they reached the bank, Huggy started to pick up a fishing rod propped against a log.

"This Hutch's?"

"Don't touch it!" Starsky shouted. "Prints!"

Huggy's hand froze in the air just over the rod, but Joe's closed around it as he picked it up, trying for a deeper impression.

"Here," Joe wheezed. "Happened here."

Starsky looked around for other signs.

Joe sank to his knees again, the fishing rod falling to the ground.

Starsky and Huggy pulled him back to his feet.

"Water," Joe groaned as he took a few steps away and collapsed into the edge of the water. "Blood."

Starsky and Huggy each took an arm, hauled him out of the water, and followed his lead as he guided them in a stumble through the trees and deeper into the woods.

"Can't move," Joe said. "Can't get up. Dark. Heavy. Leaves. Bushes."

Joe stopped walking.

"Over," he said as his head weaved back and forth. "Too late."

"Not too late," Starsky said pulling him along. "Keep going. Find him."

Like a divining rod, Joe meandered his way through the trees, drawn by an internal

compass, Starsky and Huggy glancing in all directions for the slightest sign of Hutch.

"Dirt," Joe gasped as he dropped to his hands and knees and began to crawl near the bushes, hands digging into the damp earth. "Ground."

He raked aside handfuls of rich, moist dirt.

"Nothing," he whispered softly, but his hands kept digging. "Nothing. No thoughts. No voice."

The ground wasn't packed here. It was loose. In mounds. Partially covering. Concealing.

Plaid shirt. Ivory-colored hair.

"Oh my God," Starsky breathed as he dropped to his knees and began to help Joe scoop at the dirt.

Huggy did the same.

A low, desperate growl started in Starsky's throat as he pawed the earth away.

"Hutch, come on."

He was buried half in, half out; thankfully a hasty and poor job by the teenagers.

Facedown but with his head turned sideways.

"GET THAT AMBULANCE!" Starsky yelled over his shoulder in the sheriff's direction. "WE FOUND HIM!"

When they pulled the dirt away, Starsky put fingers to his partner's smudged neck and felt for a pulse, finding a thin one.

Huggy stroked his back as he swallowed a lump in his throat.

Joe was still on his knees, one hand clutching his hair, body tense and eyes clamped shut against the emotion in and around him.

"Just calm down," he implored to the air, but Starsky didn't realize Joe was talking to him or about him. "My head's gonna explode."

A small moan came from Hutch, but there was no attempt to move.

"Hey," Starsky smiled with tears in his eyes as he leaned down to brush the dirt and insects from his cheek. "Help's comin'. Gonna be okay. Just hold on."

"Boys," Joe moaned in Hutch's tone. "Got my gun."

"Don't worry about your gun," Starsky said. "We'll get it back."

XXXXXXXXXX+

Joe was pouring coffee behind his counter for a couple of customers at a booth when Hutch walked in a week later with his left arm in a sling.

The aroma of burgers and onions was in the air.

"Well," Joe grinned at him. "You look a heck of a lot better than you did the last time I saw you."

"Yeah," he said taking a seat at the counter.

"Want a burger?"

Hutch looked toward the kitchen. "No, but I'll take a fish sandwich if you got one. My fishing trip was hijacked, if you recall."

"I recall."

Joe told the cook to drop some fish into the deep fryer.

"Just came by to say thanks," Hutch said as he slid a newspaper in front of himself and looked down at it.

"I know. No thanks needed, but you're welcome anyway."

When Hutch said nothing else, Joe said, "Be right back," and carried the coffee over to the customers.

When he returned to his place behind the counter, he picked up his broom and began to sweep the floor.

Hutch kept looking down at the newspaper, then cleared his throat and looked around. "Um…Joe…"

Joe watched him from the corner of his eye, but continued to sweep. He said nothing, as if waiting for Hutch to speak, and when he didn't, stepped up close to the counter and leaned down on his elbows, sliding the newspaper aside.

"Yeah," Joe said quietly. "They terrorized him at that zoo. But he's okay. He'll be okay."

Hutch looked at him for a long time.

"I'm sure," Joe said, then turned back to the order window to check on Hutch's fish.

The End

Follow-Up

By TLR

Hutch walked into the squad room and over to the desk he shared with Starsky, sorting through a stack of forms and files.

"Has to be here somewhere," he murmured to himself. He looked at an officer who was on the phone at another desk. "Ron, is Dobey in his office?"

"Lunchtime, Hutch, I don't know. How's Starsky?"

Hutch started for Dobey's office door. "You know him," he said with a smile. "Gonna be okay. He'll be back to work in a couple of days."

Ron shook his head. "I've heard of some crazies, but Marcus takes the cake."

"He and his horde of zombies will be behind bars for a while. That's the important thing."

Hutch opened Dobey's door and went in. "Hey, Captain, have you seen the file on…"

But the desk was empty; the captain obviously out for lunch.

Hutch gave a quick look around, then walked over to the desk and lightly pushed files and paperwork around on his desk in search of the case folder he was looking for: One on Calvert Emmons, an arsonist he and Starsky had put away two years ago.

He didn't see the Emmons file, but he did see the one open on top that Dobey was reviewing, and it was the Marcus case.

He wouldn't have looked at it at all if he hadn't recognized Starsky's handwriting on two pages of notes, and his signature at the bottom of a typed statement.

Starsky had talked briefly about the zoo and the cult as Hutch drove him to the hospital in the Torino yesterday, but had given his official statement to Captain Dobey.

He started away from the desk.

Reading it would be pointless now. Marcus was still in jail and his followers were too.

There were other cases and criminals that needed their attention.

But (they were flakes, Hutch-brainwashed-robots-distorted reality-I'm fine-you can

let it go now-you got there on time) few had gotten to him the way this one had.

Tested him, tortured him…

(If it bugs me this much, how does Starsky feel?)

He picked up the file and read Starsky's statement; detailed because it had to be for court. Thorough because it had to keep Marcus behind bars. Objective and formal because anything less would look emotional, natural, and human; not professional.

But any attorney, judge, or juror with a heart would read the humanness in his words: Blindfold. Ropes. Tied. Beaten. Kicked. Punched. Poison. Flame. Knives. Struggle. Blood. Ceremony. Sacrifice.

No mention of fear. No mention of terror, pain, or weakness. Or of hope, survival, or prayers. Or of a worried partner, a sick heart, a sinking soul.

Also included in the file was an envelope of photographs. Pictures of his injuries taken in the ER by the police photographer.

"Hutchinson, what are you doing at my desk?"

Hutch looked up and saw Dobey, then put the case file back where it belonged.

"Follow-up," he said, then walked from the office.

"What?" the captain asked after him.

XXXXXXXXXX+

Hutch parked in front of Starsky's place and went up to his front door to knock.

"Hey, Starsk?"

Hutch waited for him to come to the door. Seeing the Torino, he knew his partner was home.

He knocked again, then when he received no response, took the key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

The house was still when he stepped inside; dark except for the light of a small lamp.

Starsky was asleep on the sofa, wearing jeans and a red T-shirt.

Hutch wasn't surprised to find him sleeping. Although he had checked out okay

physically in the ER, he was still exhausted and sore. The doctor advised a couple of days of rest before returning to work.

Not wanting to disturb him, he sat down in a nearby chair to watch him sleep, deciding that sometimes his partner looked like a big kid or a life-size teddy bear.

"Simone," Starsky muttered as he turned his head from one side to the other. "Simone."

Hutch came out of the chair to squeeze his forearm gently, once again seeing the red rings circling his wrist when he did.

"Hey, buddy," he said softly. "It's Hutch. It's okay."

Starsky's head moved toward him and he opened groggy eyes to smile at him.

"What're you doin' here?"

"Just wanted to check on you."

"Yeah? I'm okay."

"Got your appetite back?"

"Not yet. Hopefully tomorrow."

"What were you dreaming?"

"I don't know. Being in the cave. Somethin'."

"Wouldn't you be more comfortable in the bed?"

"It's okay here."

"You need anything? I can get it for you."

"No, I'm fine. Just wanna go back to sleep. You don't have to stay. Go home and get some sleep yourself."

Hutch looked at the healing burn around his eye, still red.

(I read the whole report, Starsk)

(Unless there's something else I should know…)

Hutch rose to his feet.

"Okay," he said quietly. "I'll come over in the morning. Bring you a breakfast shake."

"Please. I've already been poisoned enough."

Hutch smiled and started away, and then Starsky clutched his wrist.

Hutch turned back.

"What is it, Starsk?"

Hutch felt the sudden clamminess of his partner's hand on his skin, watched his pupils dilate, the hint of perspiration form on his upper lip.

"Starsk…"

Hutch knelt next to the sofa.

Starsky looked away, then looked back at him.

"They held me down on the ground. Stretched me out. Took turns gettin' me off. Kept chantin' his name. Made me drink some blood. Tried to drown me a few times."

Hutch said nothing.

"That's it," Starsky finished. "They got their kicks, but last night I couldn't sleep. Nightmares kept me up."

Tears in his eyes, Hutch stroked his arm.

"Sorry to lay this on you," Starsky whispered. "I just…know how hard you worked to find me. You've been with me thick and thin. No secrets, huh? So, if you could say somethin' meaningful right now…do somethin' about the nightmares…I could sure use it."

For Starsky to ask for help…

"Come here," he said pulling Starsky to a sitting position.

He sat next to him and put an arm around him.

"I'll be right here, Starsk. We'll get through it. Thank you for telling me."

Starsky grew quiet against him, and soon Hutch felt his lax body; heard his even, heavy breathing that said he was asleep.

Good, Starsk. Sleep well. I'll stay right here while you do.

Hutch sat with him all night, but was unable to sleep, cringing when Starsky jumped against him during a nightmare or said "Simone" in his sleep.

XXXXXXXX

The next morning Starsky lifted his head and sat forward as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"Man," he said in a slightly scratchy, hoarse voice. "Did I really sleep all night?"

"Yeah," Hutch said rubbing his own sore shoulder. "You really did."

Starsky offered half of a smile. "Seems like being there was all a dream. But I guess it wasn't. Thanks for comin' over. And for…listening."

"Anytime."

Starsky rose to his feet. "I think I'm hungry. You?"

Hutch moved his head no.

Starsky looked down at him. "Did you sleep?"

"Not really."

Starsky picked up an empty coffee cup. "Hey, I didn't mean to bum you out or anything."

"It's not you, Starsk."

"I want some coffee," he said as he went to the kitchen. "You want some?"

Hutch still sat on the sofa, eyes glazed as he stared at the door.

"Hutch? I said you want some coffee?"

"Uh…no."

"Waffles?"

"No thanks."

Starsky opened cabinet doors to find the waffle mix, then poured himself a cup of coffee

from the coffeepot.

"I feel a lot better today," he said as he turned to look at Hutch. "Can't wait to get back to work tomorrow. Wanna go for a drive or somethin'? Beach sound good?"

Hutch pushed himself from the sofa and started for the door.

"Hutch? Where you goin'?"

Hutch opened the door and spoke without looking back.

"I'll be back later," he said as he went on out.

Starsky set the cup of coffee down, then walked to the door and opened it.

"Hutch?"

Hutch was going down the steps.

Starsky followed him down.

"Hutch. What's goin' on?"

Hutch went to his car and opened the driver's side door.

"Hutch. Hey."

Starsky took his arm. "Talk to me."

Hutch spun and threw his arm off.

"DON'T FOLLOW ME!"

Starsky stared as Hutch got in his car and drove away.

Then he went to the Torino and got in to follow him, but found that he didn't have his car keys on him and hurried back up the steps to get them, but when he went inside and over to the end table to pick them up, saw that they were gone.

Hutch had taken them.

XXXXXXXX

Huggy was writing the day's special on a chalkboard behind the bar when Hutch walked in.

"Kinda early, Blondie," he said by way of greeting.

Hutch sat down on a stool that was farthest from Huggy, at the end of the bar, leaning over the counter with head down, hand in his hair and staying there.

"Cup of coffee?" Huggy asked.

Hutch moved his head no.

Huggy poured himself a cup, then took a sip.

"Had any sleep since Starsk got back?"

He moved his head no again.

"You can use the upstairs if you want to."

Hutch moved his head no a third time.

A couple came in and went to a booth.

"Diane!" Huggy called to the kitchen.

She came with a ticket pad and pencil, glanced at Hutch, then walked back to the booth to take their order.

"Huggy," Hutch said quietly, and without moving. "I'll take a strong drink."

"I got strong coffee."

"I said a strong drink."

Huggy turned to pour a drink of whiskey.

"Hug, uh…" He spoke while staring down at the counter. "If anything happens to me…make sure he knows I tried my best to find him as soon as I could."

Huggy looked at him. "He already knows, my brother."

"I'm going to kill Marcus," Hutch continued. "Then I'm going to kill his men."

Huggy carried the whiskey over and set it down in front of him. Hutch picked it up and drained it in one long drink.

"He deserves it," Huggy offered. "But it won't change anything-that matters, that is. It'll change you. Change Starsk. That what you want? That cult freak ain't worth it, man. You worked your tail off to get him back, for this?"

Hutch sat for a few long minutes, still not looking at him; just looking into the empty glass.

"You don't know everything that happened at the zoo, Hug."

Huggy leaned his elbows on the counter and glanced away.

"Yeah, I do. He told me."

Hutch still didn't look up or give a reaction.

"He wanted me to know…in case it gets a little too heavy for you."

"Yeah, well," Hutch said barely above a whisper as he got off the stool. "It just got a little too heavy."

He stood with his hand on the counter for a moment, head down, then took a slow step forward, then a second, trudging as if in a drunken sway. Huggy walked alongside him on the other side of the bar, watching him.

Hutch made it to the end of the bar, where he collapsed. Huggy caught his unconscious body and eased him onto the closest stool, where he hugged him from behind and choked a sob into his collar.

"Sorry, man," he said as he held onto him and looked toward the door to see Starsky coming in. "Had to stop you."

"Thanks, Hug," he said as he helped pick Hutch up. "Come on. Let's take him upstairs."

XXXXXXXX+

Starsky and Huggy were sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a checkerboard between them when Hutch moaned and opened his eyes in the bed.

Hutch's eyes roamed toward the ceiling, then over to them.

"You drugged me?"

Huggy looked guilty.

"Huggy, what did you put in my drink?"

"Think I'm gonna snitch on myself?"

Hutch looked at Starsky.

"I'll get to you later."

Starsky rose from his chair and went over to the bed to sit on the edge of it.

"No way you're gonna go off like some b-movie vigilante. He doesn't own me, and he doesn't own you. Got it?"

Hutch closed his eyes.

"I got it."

"Huh?"

"I got it."

End

The Difference

By TLR

Hutch was changing a tire on his car in front of Venice Place when Kiko rode up on his bicycle.

"Hi, Hutch."

"Hey. What's up?"

Kiko reached into his shirt pocket and produced an imitation police badge.

"We had career day at school yesterday."

"Yeah, Starsky told me all about it. Did he do a good job?"

"The best. Too bad you weren't there. It makes me want to be a cop more than ever. I didn't know you had to study a lot of books, though."

"It's not all about arresting people and shooting guns. But if I were you, I'd consider a different line of work."

Kiko lost his smile.

"Why? I want to be a cop like you. I've decided."

Hutch took the flat tire off to put on a retread.

"Kiko, last week a cop Starsky and I work with put a gun in his mouth and killed himself. We've been to the funerals of six fellow officers recently. A lot of people hate cops. They don't ask you in for coffee. They don't send you a birthday card. We work in a system that goes too easy on the bad guys, and too hard on the good guys. We serve and protect people who would rather spit on you than try to understand what we do. You go in for the right reason, and you end up…"

Hutch put his tire tool aside and looked at him.

"I just got Starsky back from a cult that kidnapped him."

"I know. It was on the news."

"And yet, I have to keep working with that pain in my heart. I have to go out there and pretend that I'm making a difference and act like I'm above the garbage that breaks other

people."

"But you help people. You do make a difference."

"Why, because I carry a gun and a badge?"

"No. My next-door-neighbor. Carmella? She told me you went to her house when her husband was beating her, and you arrested him and put him in jail."

Hutch bowed his head, looked at the retread, and sighed.

"You're young, Kiko. You have all these romantic, foolish ideas about police work. You need to wake up and find a better dream. If you want to help people and make a difference, be a schoolteacher."

There was silence in the air for so long that Hutch looked up at the boy, seeing tears in his eyes and an anguished look on his face.

"Hey," Hutch said rising to his feet and reaching for his shoulder. "I didn't mean…"

"Yes, you did," Kiko said in a watery voice, and pedaled away.

XXXXXXXX+

Starsky was putting pepperoni, mushroom, and olives on a homemade pizza when Hutch came into his kitchen that night.

"Thanks for knocking, Blondie."

"You're welcome. Hey, that looks good."

"I'll share."

Hutch dipped his finger in the pizza sauce and tasted it. "Mm." He reached into the refrigerator for a container of chocolate milk.

Starsky spoke over his shoulder to him as he put more toppings on.

"How's that poor excuse for a car of yours?"

"Perfect, of course."

"Perfect? Your car is never perfect. It's a monstrosity. I saw this cool Trans Am the other day-"

"Starsky. Please. That's your kind of car, not mine."

"Yeah, well, your kind of car is hard to find just anywhere."

"That's right. I had to look high and low for a car like that. It's one of a kind."

"You got that right."

The phone rang and Starsky reached for it, speaking into the receiver as he opened the oven and slid the pizza inside.

"Hello?"

Hutch looked through a stack of mail and magazines on the table.

"Wrestling Weekly?"

"Hold on," Starsky said into the receiver, then listened.

After a few minutes of listening, he hung up.

"Kiko's mom, Hutch. Said when she got home from work tonight, she looked in his room and some of his stuff was gone, like he ran away."

Hutch stopped sorting through the mail, then put it down and headed for the door.

Starsky turned the oven off and followed him.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

"How could you tell that to a little kid?" Starsky asked as he drove the Torino toward Kiko's house.

"I don't know. It just came out."

"He was so excited yesterday when I showed up for career day. You should have seen him. He kept asking where you were."

"What did you tell him?"

"Told him you were working on a top secret case. Didn't have the heart to tell him you just flat out didn't want to do it."

"I couldn't. It would have been…hypocritical."

"No. Hypocritical is when you say you're his Big Brother but you tear his aspirations down. He's just a kid. He'll learn about life soon enough."

"I just want to save him the heartache, that's all."

Starsky heaved a big sigh.

"Look. I know the Marcus case was a killer. But-"

"No buts. You almost died, and I had to mentally fence the guy just to find you. If I hadn't gotten there when I did…"

"But you did. That's what matters."

"Pollyanna."

"Okay. You want to quit so bad? Quit. Let's go right now and throw our badge in the ocean."

"I never said anything about quitting."

"Hutch!"

Hutch rubbed between his eyes.

"Hutch," Starsky said in a quieter voice, "I know it gets tough."

"Sometimes you don't act like it."

"Oh yeah?"

"Rubber man. Always bounces back."

"Is that what you think? You think I don't carry it around with me? Forest? Gillian? Solkin? And my stuff too? I am here for you. I know how you feel. I know what it's like."

"What if you're not enough? What if next time… what if I can't stop the bullets, or patch you up, or find the right words to tell myself? Or you?"

Starsky's voice was low and soft.

"I know what you were trying to tell the kid. But some things you just have to find out for yourself. Did you listen to your dad when he tried to keep you out of the academy?"

"No."

"Did we believe all those veteran cops before we got on the force?"

"No."

"Nobody could talk us out of it. We dismissed anybody who even tried to. It's just a rough patch, buddy. It'll get better. This is what you're best at. Who's gonna give all the Artie Solkins a hard time if you don't? Who's gonna be a Big Brother to kids like Kiko?"

"Don't worry. There'll be some other sucker with a badge. Man, I am such a heel. Why did I have to go and ruin it for him? You're right. I had an adult conversation with a little kid."

"It's okay. It's been a pressure cooker lately."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

They walked up to Kiko's front door and knocked. His mother opened the door with a worried look in her eyes.

"Still no word," she said. "Come in."

They went inside. Hutch looked around. "Did he leave a note?"

"No."

"I'm sure you called his friends?"

"Yes. They haven't seen him at all this evening."

She began to pace, wiping tears from her eyes. "I'm afraid something will happen to him. He's never done this before. I don't understand why he would run away. I don't know what I could have done to-"

"It's my fault," Hutch said.

She looked at him.

"What?"

Starsky put an arm around her and dabbed her eyes with the tissue she held.

"He told me he wanted to be a cop like me," Hutch said. "I tried to discourage him. Said some things that were maybe too strong for him to hear, that I should have kept to myself. At least, for his sake."

Hutch turned and looked at the wall, hands on his hips. "I'm sorry."

She looked at Starsky. "I'm sure Hutch didn't mean it."

"No," he answered quietly. "He didn't."

Hutch motioned for his partner.

"Come on. He was on his bicycle. Let's go look for him."

Starsky gave her one last squeeze.

"We'll check back with you, okay?"

She nodded. "Yes. Thank-"

A woman's scream from outside cut through the quiet house, along with the sound of a drunken raging man.

"What the-" Hutch pulled his gun as he went to the door.

"Carmella," Kiko's mother said with sudden alarm on her face. "She took him back."

Starsky pulled his own gun as he followed Hutch out the door.

"Stay here," Starsky told her over his shoulder.

But she didn't. She followed him out, staying on the front stoop to see what was going on.

When the detectives ran across the small yard and jumped the fence into the yard next door, the back door of a small house opened and Carmella's husband muscled her out like a hostage, pistol to her head.

"Police!" Hutch yelled. "Put your hands in the-"

The man fired off a shot at him, the bullet catching him high in the chest and knocking him back into the man's pickup truck.

The man turned his gun on Starsky, who shot him in the head.

Carmella screamed "Ronaldo!" and ran to her husband, who lay in their doorway with his head in a puddle of blood.

"Ambulance!" Starsky yelled to Kiko's mother; and she ran back inside to use the phone.

Starsky ran over to where his partner was leaning back against the truck but sinking, hand over the blood that was spilling from a wound just under his right collar bone.

"Easy," Starsky breathed as he caught him and sat him down, leaning him back against the rear tire. "I got you."

Hutch's only response was a weak groan before he passed out.

XXXXXXXXXX

Starsky had gotten Dobey to bend the rules and send one officer out to look for Kiko, even though he'd only been missing seven hours.

When Dobey arrived at the emergency room at Memorial Hospital, hat in hand, he found Starsky pacing in the hall just outside the door.

"How is he?" Dobey asked.

"Not sure yet."

The emergency room doors slid open again, and this time Huggy walked in.

"What happened?"

"We were at Kiko's. Domestic next door. Whole thing blew up."

Dobey and Huggy watched him pace and fume.

Finally Starsky pounded his fist on the wall, putting his head down.

A doctor came around the corner to talk to them.

"We got the bullet out, Sergeant. No lasting damage. He lost a fair amount of blood, but he's going to make it. You can see him once we move him to a room."

Starsky covered his eyes with one hand. Huggy squeezed his shoulder. "That's good news."

Dobey put his hat back on his head, then said, "Tell Hutch I'll be by to see him tomorrow. I'll let you know if there's any news about the kid."

Starsky nodded, then Dobey left through the emergency room doors.

"What kid?" Huggy asked Starsky.

"Kiko ran away because Hutch told him he was wrong for wanting to be a cop like him."

"Growing pains, huh?"

"Yeah. For the both of them."

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Hutch lay pale and groggy against the pillow when Starsky went into his hospital room to see him.

"Hey," Hutch said faintly as he clasped the hand his partner offered to him. "You get the guy?"

"Yep."

"Good."

Hutch closed his eyes. "Carmella okay?"

"Shaken up, but she'll be okay."

"Didn't get you?"

"Nope."

Hutch gave a slight, sleepy smile. "That's good. Did…" He trailed off, as if too tired to speak. "Painkillers."

"Yeah. Good for what ails ya."

"Did…" He searched for words to his question.

Starsky finished for him: "Kiko come back? Not yet. We got somebody looking though."

"Okay." Groggy again. "Gonna stay?"

"No, I was thinking about running home to finish that pizza. Of course I'm gonna stay."

"All right. I'll just close…" His words faded out, and Starsky pulled a nearby chair up to the bed to sit down.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

The next morning Hutch still looked pale and groggy, but his voice was stronger.

"Want some pizza?" Starsky asked him with a smile. "Had Huggy rescue it from the oven. He finished baking it for me."

"Not for breakfast, Starsk. I'll take… French toast or something."

Starsky shrugged and took a bite of his pizza. "Don't know what you're missin'."

Hutch turned drowsy eyes to the clock on the wall. "Any word about Kiko?" "No. I'll call his mother after I eat."

There was a light knock at the door, and Kiko said, "I came back."

Hutch smiled faintly. "Hey. Look who's here. Good to see you again. Have you…" He blinked tiredly. "Talked to your mother? She's worried to death."

"Yeah. I talked to her. She knows I'm here. Can I come in?"

"Of course. I was worried too. I owe you an apology."

Kiko walked over to the bed. "It's all right. I think you were just in a bad mood."

Starsky nodded as he took another bite of pizza.

"And maybe," Kiko said, "there's some truth to what you said. I don't know."

"I just want what's best for you," Hutch told him. "Whatever that is. I want you to be happy."

"I know."

There was another rap at the door, and Carmella stood tentatively in the doorway, dark circles under her distressed eyes.

"Officer Hutchinson?"

Hutch looked in her direction, as did Starsky and Kiko.

"I'm not sure if I should be here…I can go if you want me to…but I…I thought it would be different this time. He said…when we got back together…he said…"

"It's okay," Hutch said quietly. "He can't hurt you anymore."

"I…want to thank you. For trying to help me."

"No thanks needed, Carmella. That's what we're here for."

She looked at him for a short while longer, wiped her teary eyes on the sleeve of her blouse, then smiled at Starsky.

"I should go now."

Starsky set his pizza aside, then walked over to her and gave her arm a squeeze. "If you ever need anything…"

She nodded. Then, as if too emotional to continue, turned and left the doorway and walked down the hall.

Going back to his pizza, he said, "Kiko, you want a slice?"

Kiko nodded as he walked over to Starsky, his eyes going back to the empty doorway where Carmella had been.

"That's why I want to be a cop," the boy said as Starsky handed him a slice.

Hutch could only offer a bittersweet smile when he saw the plastic badge still sticking up from Kiko's back pocket.

The End

Implosion

By TLR

Huggy's was abuzz with the music and conversation of the noontime crowd when he carried Starsky and Hutch's orders over to them: Starsky a plate of ravioli; Hutch a bowl of clam chowder.

"What to drink?" Huggy asked them.

"Cherry cola," Starsky answered.

"Cream soda," Hutch replied.

Starsky looked around Huggy's shoulder, toward a strawberry blonde waitress who was picking up a loaded tray.

"Who's the new one?"

"Bettina."

"She available?"

"Why don't you ask her?"

"I think I will."

Huggy turned to get the drinks, when a little boy about seven wearing a pick in his hair ran in through the back door, an expression of alarm on his face.

"Huggy!" he yelled in a pant, pointing toward the back door. "I think there's a bomb out there!"

Even before Huggy yelled "Everybody out!" a confusion of bodies erupted as customers ran for the front door in a panic, some yelling, some shoving, some crying.

The kid turned and ran toward the back door again; Starsky chasing after him.

"Benny, don't!"

Hutch grabbed after the back of his partner's jacket-"Wait! Call the bomb squad!"-but the leather slipped through his fingers.

Starsky was out the door after the boy.

"Starsky!"

Hutch started after him, but Huggy hopped over the bar and struggled to hold back the adrenaline-charged blond.

"Hutch, no!"

The blast outside turned Hutch to stone for an instant in Huggy's grip; then both of them ran toward the back door, Huggy yelling, "Diane! Call for help!" over his shoulder.

The back door and frame were blown away, as was part of the building and the concrete steps at the back door across the alley.

When they ran outside, they found Starsky lying unconscious on his side amongst the concrete rubble, broken crates, dented dumpster, and tiny fragments of the bomb. His face was burned and littered with small cuts; parts of his clothing singed.

Benny was huddled down at the entrance of the alley, arms over his head.

"Starsk," Hutch whispered as he took his jacket off and crouched to cover him with trembling hands.

A small crowd, some from the restaurant, some from nearby shops and residences, started to gather at the entrance of the alley where Benny still huddled.

Huggy squeezed Hutch's shoulder, then trotted down to the boy, picked him up, and carried him back to where Hutch was still crouched next to Starsky with fingers staying on the pulse in his throat.

Face white, Hutch looked around for the possibility of a second bomb.

The boy hid his face in Huggy's shoulder, his voice strained with tears and emotion.

"He pushed me out of the way, Huggy. I'm sorry. I don't want to get in trouble."

Huggy patted Benny's back.

"You didn't do nothing wrong, boy. Don't worry about it."

The sound of an ambulance filled the air as Hutch looked up at the boy.

"Did you see anyone leaving the alley?"

The boy took a quivering breath, then nodded.

"Yeah. I saw a man set the bomb down. Then he left on a motorcycle."

XXXXXXXX

Benny was checked out at the curb by the paramedics and it was determined that he was shaken but okay.

Hutch rode with Starsky to the hospital, and had Dobey arrange for Benny to talk to a sketch artist and look at some mug books when his aunt brought him to the squad room.

The boy described a white man wearing "army clothes and boots".

By the time the ambulance reached Memorial's emergency room, three more bombs had been set off, all outside or inside businesses owned by African Americans in the same neighborhood.

XXXXXXXX

Captain Dobey arrived at the hospital to find Hutch pacing the hall just outside the emergency room.

Starsky wasn't the only bombing victim being tended to. Four others were also here.

"What do the doctors say, Hutch?"

Hutch couldn't speak. He could only move his head back and forth in a negative gesture.

"Homemade bombs," Dobey told him. "All of them. The boy gave a description and looked at the mug books, but so far nothing has turned up. We're trying to work it through the motorcycle and DMV now, and we're putting his sketch on the air. No record that we can find. This guy was obviously clean until this. Military or demolition experience, clearly."

Hands on his hips, Hutch blinked down at the floor with teary eyes.

Dobey went on.

"Five dead so far today. Racially motivated, and people are panicking. I've got every available man on it, so you stay here. ATF and Explosives is involved, and we have plenty of people to cover it. I'll keep you informed. Let me know when you hear word about him."

Hutch nodded, still looking down.

Dobey gave his shoulder a brief squeeze, then walked out of the hospital.

XXXXXXXX+

Huggy reached Hutch just as Dr. Turner was coming to talk to him about Starsky.

"He's very lucky," the doctor said to Hutch, who stood with his back against the wall, hands in his pockets. "No internal injuries, and he will survive. But the damage to his eyes, well…it's too early to say whether that will be permanent or not."

Hutch's voice was hauntingly quiet.

"When can I see him?"

"He's sedated. Pain medication. Perhaps in the morning. Unless you just want to look in on him…"

Hutch nodded that he did.

"Fine," Dr. Turner said. "A nurse will let you know when we move him to his own room."

Hutch nodded, but took the doctor's arm as he turned to go back to the emergency room.

"How are the others?"

Dr. Turner looked from Huggy to Hutch.

"They didn't make it."

As the doctor turned and left them, Huggy put a hand on Hutch's shoulder.

"Come on. Let's get some coffee."

They walked down the hall, Hutch shoving a medical cart into the wall as he made his way.

XXXXXXXXXX

Hutch stood at Starsky's hospital bed and looked down at him; Huggy standing next to him.

An IV was attached to him, face scuffed with fine cuts; cheeks reddish from mild burns; bandages covering his eyes. A second bandage covered a burn on his right forearm; a

third was wrapped around his left hand.

"We're here, Starsk," Hutch whispered as he stroked the inside of his left arm.

"Benny's okay," Huggy added. "You saved him."

Even though Starsky was asleep and couldn't hear him, Hutch said, "We'll be here in the morning too."

They stood a while longer in the silent room, then Huggy took Hutch's arm to lead him toward the door.

"Why don't you go to the waiting room and take it easy? He's gonna to be all right."

"I can't, Hug. He'll need me when he wakes up."

Huggy looked at Starsky again.

"Yeah. I can dig that."

Hutch saw a chair next to the window and pulled it close to the bed, where he sat down and leaned forward.

"Hey, man," Huggy offered. "Sorry this happened."

"It's not your fault a crazy bomber's out to hurt you."

"My head tells me that. But my heart…"

"I think you should stay at my place until this guy's caught. He may decide to hit you again."

"No, man. I got to go take care of business. And by that I mean my place. Or I'll have vandals runnin' in and out my back door and takin' everything I own. Angie's takin' care of some of it, but I need to be there. Plus I got a few contacts I can call, see if they know anything."

"Okay, but be careful. I'll have Dobey send a couple of uniforms to watch your place, just in case. You have a gun?"

"I do now. But I sure don't know the fine artistry of bomb defusin'."

Hutch nodded; leaning his forehead against the bed rail.

Huggy turned to leave, reaching up to turn the TV on as he did so, so that Hutch could catch the "If you see a man fitting this description" news bulletin Dobey was going to put

on the air.

XXXXXXXXXX

One of the night duty nurses came in to check on Starsky during the night, and when she did, she saw that Hutch was dozing with his head resting atop his folded arm on the edge of the mattress.

The night was quiet, with no additional bombings, but there was still anxiety in Bay City as some black business owners evacuated their shops, while others who had never owned a gun before went out and purchased one, while still others were flooding the phone lines to the local authorities and media outlets with demands for action and apprehension of the bomber.

In the morning Hutch was awakened by a repeat of the news bulletin Dobey had put on the air.

As he sat and looked at the sketch of the suspect, he heard Starsky's soft moan as he began to awaken, saw his hands come up to feel the bandages around his eyes; the slight rise of his chest as fear rose.

Hutch put a hand on his forearm. "Hey, Ollie."

"Hutch?" he asked weakly. "What happened?"

"Bomb in Huggy's alley, remember?"

Starsky tried to raise his head.

"What's goin' on?"

Hutch put a gentle hand across his forehead to keep him down.

"Don't try to get up, okay? Your eyes are bandaged, you have a couple of burns, but you're going to be just fine."

"How long am I gonna be like this?"

"Doctor Turner doesn't know yet."

The fingers of Starsky's right hand gripped at the edge of the bed. Hutch gave him his hand to hold on to.

"I know you're scared. But it's too early to know anything. We'll hope for the best."

"Yeah, but what if…"

"You'll be okay. We'll take it one step at a time. I'll be right here with you."

"Did…is the kid okay?"

"He's fine. It looks like we're dealing with a serial bomber. Not just Huggy's place. Three other black businesses were hit. They have a description circulating, but there's not much else to go on. It looks like he's had a clean record until now. Did you see anything?"

"If I did I don't remember it."

The room grew quiet. And then the silence was punctured by Starsky's half-laugh, half-sob.

"What was I thinkin'? That I could stop a bomb? I've made some pretty big foul-ups in my day but…"

"You were thinking about Benny. You saved his life."

Starsky's hand went to the bandages again. Testing; feeling.

"I gotta take this off."

"You can't. Now if I have to go tell a nurse…"

Hutch's words died out, because his partner turned onto his side away from him, his hand on the other bed guard.

"Starsk…I'm scared too."

"I know. I'm glad you're here. It's just…"

Hutch rose from the chair.

"Eat something for breakfast, buddy," he said as he squeezed his friend's shoulder. "I'm going to check in with Dobey for an update, but I'll be back."

"Okay."

Hutch started to leave his bedside just as Huggy came in.

"Top of the mornin'," he said brightly. "How's our boy?"

Starsky didn't respond, and Hutch could find nothing at the moment to be so cheery about, until Huggy slipped a scrap of paper into his hand.

"Little birdie told me," he said with a crooked smile.

"Told you what?" Starsky asked.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Huggy said to Hutch.

"Thanks, Hug."

"What's goin' on?" Starsky asked.

"Oh, nothing," Hutch replied. "Just our friendly neighborhood bomber about to go down."

Starsky turned onto his back and grabbed for his shirtsleeve before he could leave the bed.

"Hutch, no."

Hutch's smile was oddly lethal as he covered Starsky's hand.

"I have to."

"Hey. No private parties. Give it to Dobey. Hug, come on. Help me."

Hutch uncurled his partner's fingers and clasped his hand. "Who said anything about a private party?"

"Hutch. Don't do anything crazy. I'll need you with me."

Hutch smiled at Huggy. "Would I do anything crazy?" "Who, you? Perish the thought."

Hutch gave Starsky's arm a final pat before leaving.

"Take it easy, Starsk. I'll be back."

After he left the room, Huggy sat down in the chair next to the hospital bed. "What say we get some breakfast up here for you?"

"Hug…"

"Don't worry about Blondie. He won't do anything to throw the case. At least, I hope

he won't."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Police!"

Gun drawn, Hutch kicked Russ Bartley's door open and pointed it at the man who sat calmly on his sofa holding a framed photograph to his chest.

Photos of Bartley with his marine buddies were on the wall. Family pictures on the end table. Rifles standing upright in a glass gun cabinet. An enlarged aerial photograph of Bay City, a cluster of pushpins marking several businesses, one of them Huggy's.

"You killed a lot of people," Hutch said to the man in the camouflage clothes, military boots, and burr haircut. "And you hurt my partner."

"Operation Payback," the man said with a light smile. "A gang raped and killed my wife last year. Have to send a message. Authorities didn't do anything. I begged the cops and the mayor, even the governor to do something. Nothing happened. They didn't do a thing."

Hutch walked closer to Bartley, aiming at his head.

"The people you hurt and killed were not in a gang."

"Neither was my wife."

Hutch moved even closer, gun at Bartley's temple.

(Don't do anything crazy. I'll need you with me)

"Come on, cop. What are you waiting for?"

(Hutch, no)

"Stand up," Hutch said taking handcuffs from his hip pocket. "You're under arrest."

XXXXXXXXXX

Dobey was in his office talking to some of the ATF and Explosives agents when the phone on his desk rang.

"Hello?"

He listened for a moment, face still grim.

"Hutchinson? You did what?"

XXXXXXXXXX

Starsky was straining against the hands of Huggy and a nurse when Hutch walked into his hospital room.

"Hey," Hutch said picking up his pace toward the bed. "What's going on?"

Panting from effort and weakness, Starsky stopped moving at the sound of his voice.

"Wanted to get out of here and find you."

Because the patient was no longer trying to get out of bed, the nurse and Huggy loosened their hold on him.

Hutch put a hand on his friend's shoulder and sat down in the chair he'd sat in before.

"Take it easy. I told you I'd be back."

Starsky's head fell back against the pillow, giving a sigh of relief and fatigue.

"I arrested him," Hutch said.

"No guillotine?" Starsky tried for a joke.

"Not today."

Huggy allowed himself a smile.

The nurse looked at Hutch with something between a smile and a scowl. "He's very stubborn."

"He's just the half of it," Huggy said. "You're lookin' at the white knight and the dark angel. The Terrible Two."

"That's a little dramatic," the blond smiled with a slight roll of his eyes.

XXXXXXXXXX

As the case came to a close and Starsky continued to heal during the next few days, Hutch found himself feeling sad inside rather than satisfied. Yes, the bomber was caught and there would be no further bombing deaths. At least at the hands of this particular psycho. And yes, Starsky had survived the blast. But watching him grapple with the uncertainty of

his situation was frustrating; for his partner tried hard to present a brave exterior. He talked about the kinds of work he would do if he lost his place on the force. He talked of all of the things he would still be able to do. He talked of how fortunate he was compared to the other bombing victims.

But in the quiet moments of the night, when he thought Hutch was asleep in the chair next to the bed but was really watching him, he slipped out of bed and moved his hands over the items on his bedside table, and around the hospital room, as if to familiarize himself; orient himself, believe the reality.

Hutch knew all about the sensitivity and intelligence in his hands; the ones that understood the world of a camera, directed a tennis racket; prepared a meal, painted pottery, commanded a gun, built clipper ships, and delicately touched him when he needed comfort.

Hutch allowed his friend's private moment to go unmentioned; wished he had never opened his eyes and seen his secret thoughts; because he reasoned that a man was entitled to a few solitary moments that were solely his own.

It was Starsky who let him into it.

When Starsky finally made his way to the chair Hutch slouched in, without stumble or hesitation, his fingers lightly touched his hair, cheekbone, sideburn, then his shirt collar, then the zipper ring on his pullover shirt.

"Just wondered what you were wearin' today," he said quietly. "You okay?"

When Hutch didn't answer, Starsky's fingertips brushed against his eyelashes, feeling wetness.

XXXXXXXXXX

"Two weeks," Starsky said as he sat in the passenger seat of Hutch's car on the drive home from the hospital. "Doc says he'll take the bandages off then."

"Yeah." Hutch tried to keep his voice light. With sight, Starsky always had a way of reading emotions on his face or in his body language. Without it, he was almost psychic in the way he interpreted his voice, his words, his silences. "That's what they said."

Hutch knew he should be grateful that the changes in their friendship would only be window dressing, and that the inner workings would remain untouched. But it still unnerved him that Starsky had to change in any way at all, and that he himself could do nothing to prevent it or undo it. It reminded him of how helpless he had felt watching the cruelty of the professor's compound travel through his best friend.

There was no bullet to remove this time. No compound to track. No cult leader to beg.

I was so close, Starsk. I had my hand on your jacket.

"Your place or mine?" Hutch asked him.

"Mine. But I want to stop in and see how Huggy's doin' on the way."

"Yeah, he said to bring you around."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Good seein' you again, sweetheart," Diane said as she came around the bar to give Starsky a gentle hug.

"Same here."

Huggy came from the kitchen carrying a cake under a glass dome.

"Hold your hands out, Starsk. Got a surprise for you."

He held his hands out to receive it.

"Made a welcome home cake just for you, but you got to share it with Blondie."

"What kind is it?"

"Chocolate carrot."

Huggy looked at Hutch, seeing an expression that suggested he would rather be anywhere else doing anything else. Reality was setting in, and it showed on his face. Starsky was no longer in the secure environment of a hospital room, and Hutch had lost control of whatever elements in his life, and Starsky's life, he thought he had.

Starsky was already moving his head to catch all of the sounds in the bar that he could from all directions that he could. The way he had done in the cafeteria at the hospital; in the gift shop; the lobby; outside on the grounds. Hutch offered his arm without a word, and Starsky seemed to know where his arm was at all times.

"Chocolate for me," Starsky said. "Carrots for Bugs."

"Hope everything works out when you go back to the doctor," Huggy said.

"Me too," Starsky replied. "Hey. How you doin'? Hutch said the back of your place took a pretty good hit."

"Yeah," Huggy said with a wry smile. "'bout like you did. Don't worry about it. Workers already came and left. Looks good as new back there."

"Good to hear it. Hey…your new waitress still here?"

"Bettina? Her day off. But she did say you were cute."

Starsky grinned. "Hear that, Hutch? She thinks I'm cute. Well…catch you guys later, huh? Come and see me."

"We will," Diane said. "Be careful."

She and Huggy watched them leave, Huggy noting that Starsky had lost the spontaneity in his body; the freedom of movement. He was now careful and slow, and Huggy could only hope that some of his physical energy and ease would return.

Diane waited until they were well out the door, then she turned into Huggy's shoulder and sniffed.

"I know," he said quietly as he put an arm around her and led her to the kitchen. "I know."

XXXXXXXXXX

Once inside Starsky's house, Starsky carried the cake to the kitchen, but Hutch hurried ahead, moving a basket of folded laundry his partner had left in the floor, then pushed a stool back against the counter and closed a cabinet door.

"I can do that," Starsky told him.

"I can too."

Starsky set the cake on the counter. "Man, this is weird."

"What's weird?"

"Being in my house but not being able to see it. It's familiar, but not familiar."

"Yeah. I guess you'll have to adjust to a lot of things."

"Maybe not. Maybe when these bandages come off, everything will be okay." He smiled a little. "Seems like you're ready for the worst, and I'm ready for the best."

"I'm just being realistic."

"And I'm not?"

"I don't know. I think it's all…very stunning right now. There will be changes. I'll be out working through the day, so we won't get to pal around as much. I'll have a new partner. You won't be able to do some of the things you used to do. You won't have your job, your car…"

"Yeah, all of that's true, but I'll still have my best friend, and nothin' can change that."

Hutch nodded, then said, "Yeah. As a matter of fact, I have to get going. Dobey needs to talk to me about something."

"You're not leaving until we have a piece of this cake. Now get the milk."

XXXXXXXXXX

Starsky was on his second piece of cake and listening to a quiz show on TV when his phone rang.

He turned the TV down and answered it.

"Yeah?"

"Dave Starsky?"

"Last time I checked."

"It's…we haven't met. I'm Bettina. Huggy's new waitress?"

"Oh. Hey. Hi. Nice to meet you."

"Yeah. I'm glad you're okay. That bomb going off…really scared me. Since this is my day off…and Huggy said you were home from the hospital, I thought, well…maybe we could do something. Huggy gave me your number, and I'm kinda restless."

"Hmm. Well, I feel kind of cooped up myself. That hospital room was beginning to feel like a jail. So…sure…but I must warn you…I'll need a little help…"

"Oh sure, I understand."

"You up for a burger for lunch?"

"Sure. I know this neat little place near the park that's got really spicy burgers. Even the fries are spicy. I'll come by and pick you up."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Hope you don't mind my car," Bettina said as she pushed paperback books and makeup bags and articles of clothing from the passenger seat and into the floorboard as she helped guide him into her VW bug. "It's a little messy."

"I'm used to it," he said as he got in.

XXXXXXXXXX

Starsky and Bettina sat at a picnic table in the park across from The Burger Joint. As he listened to her talk about the new romance book she was reading, he couldn't help but notice the other sounds around him that came to his ears, like kids laughing and playing, the sound of skateboards gliding on concrete, a bird chirping in the tree above them, a radio playing in the window of the burger stand, a motorcycle down the street; a jackhammer in the distance; a bumblebee buzzing around a flowerbed behind them.

"So did they get back together?" he asked as he sipped soda through his straw.

"The characters in my book? I don't know. I haven't read that far."

"Are there any steamy scenes in it?"

"A few."

"What have I been missing?"

"BETTY!"

Starsky's head turned. "Does that mean you?" he asked her.

"Jeff," she said as if she hadn't heard his question, "I told you it was over."

The sound of panting came to their picnic table as a guy raked all of their food off into the grass.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked as he took her arm and pulled her to her feet.

"Ow! You're hurting me!"

Starsky grabbed Jeff's arm. "Leave her alone."

Jeff released her arm, clutched the front of Starsky's shirt, and pulled him up from the picnic table.

"What are you gonna do about it?"

Starsky swung at the sound of Jeff's panting, but the man ducked and came back with a punch to his mouth.

Starsky reeled backward and tripped over the flowerbed.

Jeff reached down and grabbed his shirt again.

"Stop it!" Bettina cried. "He just got out of the hospital!"

"Well enough to do you!" Jeff said as he drew his fist back again.

Starsky shoved his knee up into Jeff's groin, then when Jeff was doubled over, rammed his knee up into his face.

Jeff dropped to the ground with a moan.

The sound of a siren split the air as Bettina, breathless and frightened, helped Starsky toward the VW.

"Let's get out of here while we can, Dave. He carries a knife."

He stumbled halfway to the bug just as Jeff was climbing to his feet again and bulldozing toward them, his face twisted pain and hatred.

"Whore!"

As Jeff gained on them, a uniformed police officer, Bernie Glassman, ran across the park and pulled his weapon.

"Police! Stop right there!"

Jeff stopped, hands in the air, allowing Bettina and Starsky to reach the VW, where she clung to his neck and shook.

XXXXXXXX+

"The burger stand owner saw what was going on and called for help," Hutch said as he leaned Starsky back against the VW and applied pressure to his bloody lip with a handkerchief. "Are you okay?"

Starsky pushed his hand away and applied the pressure himself.

"Yeah."

Hutch looked at Bettina. "Are you?"

"I am now."

"Some boyfriend you have."

"Had. I left him when I left my old job as a dancer to go work for Huggy. He thinks he owns me."

Hutch looked around.

"What are you doing out here, Starsk?"

"Having a date. What are you doing out here?"

"Bernie radioed me. That nut could have killed you."

"No kidding."

"You shouldn't go places alone."

"I'm not exactly alone. What you mean is I shouldn't go places without you."

"Maybe you shouldn't."

"Are you kidding? I have to go out, and sometimes you're not gonna be around. Am I supposed to live around your schedule? I took care of myself."

"Barely. If the burger meister hadn't called the cops…"

"I'd have taken care of it."

Officer Glassman approached them after having put Jeff in the backseat of his black and white, then pulled Bettina aside to talk to her.

"Come on," Hutch told Starsky as he took his arm. "I'll take you home."

Starsky shrugged away from his hand. "I came with Bettina."

Hutch watched him lean over the VW and press the handkerchief to his mouth again, and when he did, was certain that he saw a tremble in his partner's hand.

XXXXXXXX+

The next morning when Hutch stopped at Starsky's house to have some cake for breakfast before going to the precinct, he discovered that he wasn't home.

Figuring he had spent the night with Bettina, Hutch shrugged and wrapped a piece of cake in some tin foil to take with him.

XXXXXXXXXX+

On the way to the police station, Hutch stopped at Vinnie's Gym to pay his bill, and that's where he saw Starsky in the back working out with a punching bag in gray sweatpants and black T-shirt.

Vinnie came over to the counter and took Hutch's money, putting it in the cash register.

"How long has he been here?" Hutch asked.

"Since I opened this morning."

Hutch walked back to the punching bag.

"Morning, Starsk."

Starsky didn't stop his jabbing.

"Morning."

Hutch made a second note of the cut on his mouth.

"How'd you get here?"

"Torino."

Hutch rolled his eyes.

"That was a joke," Starsky said.

"I got it."

"Called a cab, what else?"

"I thought maybe Bettina brought you."

"She offered, but I didn't want her to be late for work."

Hutch watched him work at the bag.

"I think you're a little scared."

"Kiddin' me?"

"You got lucky yesterday."

"That hurts my feelings. I thought I did pretty good when I cracked his nuts and busted his nose."

Hutch took the bag in his hands and moved it, making him miss and stumble forward a step.

Starsky righted himself and stood with his arms down at his sides, panting, sweat trickling beneath the bandage.

"Teach me then," he said quietly. "Show me somethin' I don't already know."

XXXXXXXXXX+

When the weekend came, Hutch dropped by Starsky's to visit.

"Where's Bettina?" he asked as he looked around the house, seeing a blouse she had hung over the bedroom door.

Starsky was busy poising himself in the middle of the living room floor, practicing balance movements, breathing techniques, and fighting/self-defense maneuvers that Hutch was teaching him. That he hadn't learned in the military, at the police academy, in his old neighborhood, or on the job. That involved a fair amount of body contact and unorthodox strategies.

"Huggy's this weekend."

Hutch grinned as he came up behind his partner and grabbed him from behind. Starsky bent forward and flipped him onto his back.

"Any cake left?" Hutch asked from the floor.

"You and that cake," Starsky said as he gave him a hand and pulled him up. "There's about half left. Let's get some coffee."

When they were eating a piece of cake with coffee, Starsky asked, "So Captain Dobey give you a new partner yet?"

"Not yet. Been working with different ones. I think he has someone in the wings, but he said he wouldn't assign one until next week."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Want me to go in with you?" Hutch asked as he and Starsky stopped just outside the ophthalmologist's examination room.

"No, I got it."

The door opened and an assistant smiled at them.

"Mr. Starsky, we're ready for you."

He reached for her elbow, and said over his shoulder to Hutch, "Now I have a good excuse to have roving hands."

Hutch patted his shoulder, then when the door closed, began to pace in the hallway, his heart wildly pounding.

That morning he had done something he hadn't done in a long time, and it was pray. For his partner to be whole again, and for himself to be strong enough should he not be.

At the end of a hall was a resource table full of books and pamphlets. It wasn't the first time he was tempted to pick something like these up and read them, but he thought maybe he should wait until they knew for sure. Somehow reading them would seem like…giving in. And not reading them seemed so suggest a glimmer of hope.

He saw a man with a cane going into another examination room, and tried not to see his partner in him, but he did. The tilt of his head to catch sounds. The way he minded his personal space. The radar-like way his body stopped when sensing something in front of him. The way his fingertips had replaced seeing.

I don't want this for him. I don't want this to be his life. But if it has to be…there has to be a way for it to become okay.

The sound of the door opening at the other end of the hall drew his attention away from the table of literature, and when he saw Starsky step out and look for him, point to him, and smile, Hutch let out a yell and ran down the hall, picking him up and swinging him around.

"Hey!" Starsky said as he squeezed him tight. "I gotta go back in there. I'm not finished yet. I just wanted you to know."

Hutch pushed him back a step and held his shoulders to look at him.

There was a slight pink scar at the corner of his eye, but that was the only visible sign that his eyes had been damaged at all.

"Beautiful," Hutch said with wet eyes, then pushed him back into the examining room.

XXXXXXXXXX

Hutch was like a happy teenager showing off a new car as he followed Starsky into Huggy's that afternoon.

Bettina saw him and squealed with delight as she ran to hug him, and Huggy and Diane weren't far behind.

"You don't know how happy we are," Diane said as they took turns hugging and patting him.

"I'm happy too," Starsky said. "Longest two weeks of my life."

"You guys hungry?" Bettina asked them.

"Sure," Hutch said. "I feel like soup and sandwich. Starsk?"

"Bowl of chili if you got one," Starsky said as he led the way to two stools at the bar. He looked around the restaurant. "Almost like seein' it for the first time." Huggy poured a couple of beers and set them down in front of them.

"Another visitor comes to call, gentlemen."

The detectives looked toward the door to see Captain Dobey walking in with Benny.

"You're looking well," he said with a rare smile.

Starsky shook his hand. "Thanks."

"I have a boy here who said he'd like to see you."

Starsky shook Benny's hand too. "Hiya, Benny."

"Hiya, Starsky. I'm glad you're okay."

"Me too."

End

Golden Brown

By TLR

It had been eight months since Starsky was shot in the police parking garage, so walking into the squad room again was a little like coming home. A Welcome Back sign. Familiar faces, fellow cops, warm handshakes, Captain Dobey, a dozen large pizzas, a table full of soft drinks, and a life-size eight-layer cake-one layer for each month of recuperation.

"When's the sexy lady poppin' out?" Starsky said as he scooped up some icing with a finger and licked it.

"Welcome back," Hutch said as he gripped Starsky's hand too.

"I wondered if this day would ever happen," the captain said with a moist twinkle in his eye. He cleared his throat and added, "I want to see you two in my office before the day's over. This is a working lunch, you know. No slacking off," then went inside his office and closed the door on any other emotion that might show.

Minnie plucked a pepperoni from one of the pizzas and fed it to him. "You're a sight for sore eyes. I just knew those bullets couldn't keep you down. How's it feel to be back?"

He looked around the squad room. "Kinda weird. Like goin' back to the old neighborhood. Same, but different. Mixed feelings. Smaller than I remember. Hope I'm not too rusty."

She smiled at Hutch. "Hutch would never let that happen."

As the officers gathered around to talk and eat, the phone rang on their desk, and Minnie answered.

"Sure," she said. "Just a minute." She handed the receiver to Hutch. "A Mrs. Ramos?"

Hutch took the receiver in one hand and a bottle of ginger ale in the other.

"Hello?"

"Ken? I tried calling you at home."

"Oh, hi. What can I do for you?"

"It's been so long. You've been busy helping David and everything. I hate to bother you, but, it's Kiko."

"Is he all right?"

There was a pause on the line, then she said, "Can you come over? I want to show you something."

"I'll be right there," he said, then hung up and looked at his partner. "Something's going on with Kiko."

Starsky grabbed a slice of pizza and a strawberry soda as he followed Hutch to the door.

"Starsk," Hutch said turning in the doorway. "You don't have to leave your party."

Starsky gave an apologetic shrug toward the squad room. "Save me some, Minnie."

"I will," she said as she waved them on. "Duty calls."

XXXXXXXXXX

"Is he here?" Hutch asked as he and Starsky met Mrs. Ramos in the doorway of her home.

"No. Come with me."

They followed her to Kiko's bedroom, where she knelt and pulled a knapsack from under the bed.

"Normally I don't snoop," she said as she set it on the bed and opened it. "But he's been acting odd lately. Ever since…" She looked at Starsky. "…you were shot. He skips school, stays out too late, won't tell me where he's going. And now this…"

Hutch looked down at the contents of the knapsack, seeing a few syringes, spoons, matches, and packets of heroin.

"Oh my God," Hutch breathed as he stared at the items.

Starsky stared at the stuff too.

"I don't know if he's using, or holding it for someone, or selling it. I just don't know." She looked at Hutch with pleading eyes. "I don't want him using this stuff. I don't want him going to jail. Or overdosing."

"I'm sorry," he told her in a small voice. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for him. I should have- "

"Where do you think he is?" Starsky asked her.

"I couldn't tell you. Some nights I go out looking for him, and he's in different places.

Friends. Street corners. Alleys. The beach. He's usually with three or four boys."

Starsky took his partner's arm and led him from the room.

"We'll find him," he told her over his shoulder. "We'll talk to him."

XXXXXXXX+

Hutch had driven the Torino that morning, but now Starsky decided it was his turn to drive.

He steered Hutch toward the passenger side, then got in once the blond was inside and his door was closed.

"I let him down," Hutch said as he propped his elbow on the door and rubbed his forehead. "I should have been there. I haven't talked to that boy in eight solid months."

"Hey," Starsky said as he scanned his side of the street. "Don't blame yourself."

XXXXXXXXXX

They looked all day. First going to his school to see if he had attended. He hadn't. His teachers said he was in danger of not graduating high school or getting a visit from the truant officer if he didn't start back.

They talked to his classmates to see if they knew where he could be. Some said they didn't know, and the others weren't about to turn him in.

They cruised some of the local hangouts but didn't find him there and could get no information.

By sunset they were running out of places to look. Hutch reluctantly asked Starsky to drive him home, and after he did, Hutch went upstairs to call Mrs. Ramos, who said he still hadn't made it in.

"I'll keep looking," he said, then remembered that they hadn't gone to the beach to look, and picked up his car keys.

XXXXXXXX

The moon was white and lustrous as Hutch got out of his car and started walking down the shore.

He passed a couple strolling hand in hand, a few surfers, then saw Kiko walking up ahead, his back to him, alone.

"Hey!" Hutch called as he walked quickly.

Kiko looked over his shoulder, then, seeing Hutch, turned and started to run.

"Kiko!" Hutch shouted as he picked up his pace. "Wait up!"

Kiko started to run up some steps, but Hutch caught his arm and pulled him back.

"Hey," Hutch panted as he leaned over. "Slow down."

"Why? You're not my boss, and not my father."

"Now wait a minute. I realize…I neglected you. I'm sorry. But Starsky needed me. He was…dying."

"I know that. I don't hold that against you."

"Then what…let me see your arm."

The warm breeze blew through Kiko's hair. He was now as tall as Hutch.

He moved his head no.

"Kiko, if you have a problem…I talked to your mother tonight…saw the stuff you keep under your bed…I would do anything. Anything. To keep you away from that."

Kiko looked at him with a childlike hurt in his eyes, tears brimming.

"Oh really? You hypocrite."

"Hypoc-"

"Liar."

"Kiko-"

"I know! I know you were on it! I heard Mickey talking about it at the diner!"

Hutch's face went stunningly white in the pale moonlight, eyes glassy, as if about to pass out.

"Wuh…wait," Hutch said holding his hand out. "Let me tell you how that hap-"

Kiko punched him in the face.

"I hate you!"

Hutch staggered back and fell down, and Kiko kicked sand at him.

"You're no Big Brother! Everything you tried to show me was a lie! What did I learn from you? Huh?"

Rising up on his elbow, Hutch pressed the heel of his hand to his eye.

"Let me explain."

"No," Kiko said as he turned and walked away. "You don't have to."

Hutch tried to climb to his feet, but stumbled again, and had to remain on all fours to get his bearings.

"Kiko…"

Kiko turned around and looked at him, walking backward away from him.

"See, Hutch?" he said pushing up his sleeve. "I didn't use it. I thought about it. I wanted to try it. But I didn't."

XXXXXXXX+

Hutch was waiting on the sidewalk in front of Venice Place the next morning when Starsky pulled up alongside him in the Torino to pick him up.

"What happened to you?" Starsky asked as he got into the passenger seat.

"Nothing," Hutch said as he tried to hide his eye, that was now black, blue, and swollen shut.

Starsky pulled away from the curb.

"Nothing? Somebody mug you? Jump you in your apartment? What happened?" "Kiko," Hutch finally answered quietly. He knew Starsky would find out sooner or later.

Starsky's hands gripped the steering wheel as he listened to Hutch explain the details. When Hutch was finished, Starsky hit an open hand once on the steering wheel. XXXXXXXXXX+

He waited until Hutch was busy with a witness in the squad room, then said, "Think I'll go out for some donuts. Want anything?"

"Couple of aspirins if you have them."

Starsky opened his desk drawer, took out a bottle of aspirins, and tossed it to him.

"Back in a flash," he said as he headed for the squad room door.

XXXXXXXXXX

Mrs. Ramos was speechless as she watched Starsky storm through her house and toward Kiko's bedroom, where he slammed the door open.

"Figured you'd be sleeping in," he said as he reached for Kiko's T-shirt and pulled him out of bed.

Mrs. Ramos appeared in the doorway. "David, what's going on? Don't hurt him."

Starsky kicked the door closed in her face, then turned back to Kiko.

"You wouldn't listen to him when he tried to explain," he said shaking the teenager. "Maybe you'll listen to me."

"Explain what? He used. Not me. I-"

Starsky shook him again.

"A mobster kidnapped him and forced that stuff into his veins."

"I-"

Kiko froze.

"What?"

"Mickey didn't mention that part, did he?"

Kiko sank in Starsky's fists as he listened to the details, until he was crumpled on his knees.

"Oh God," he sobbed hoarsely. "I'm sorry."

Starsky crouched in front of him, stroking his hair. "He loves you. And every good thing that you thought he was, he still is."

Kiko's hand went under the bed and pulled out the knapsack.

"When I heard what Mickey said, I was mad at Hutch. I thought, if he can do it, I can do it. I was going to show him how mad…how hurt…I was."

Kiko handed the knapsack to him.

"It's all in there. I don't want it anymore. I don't want anything to do with it."

Starsky took the knapsack and rose to his feet.

"Go apologize to your mother. You've been worrying her to death. And don't ever, ever lay a hand on Hutch again. Got it?"

Kiko looked up from the floor, nodding with tears in his eyes.

XXXXXXXXXX

Hutch was working on some past due reports when Starsky came back into the squad room.

"Hey," Hutch said looking up. "I thought you were bringing donuts?"

"Who needs donuts when there's an eight-layer cake around here somewhere?"

"Well, you should have brought them, because your cake is gone." "My…why?"

"Dobey told everybody to take some home yesterday."

"So they did."

"They did," Hutch said reaching on the desk behind him. "Except for this piece, and it's mine."

Starsky's hands went to his hips.

"I don't believe this."

"Just kidding," Hutch said handing it to him.

Starsky opened the tin foil and looked down at the lonely piece of cake.

"Truly is just like old times again," he said, then took a bite.

Hutch started to pinch off a bite for himself, but was stopped by a knock at the squad room door and a familiar voice saying, "Hutch? Can I talk to you?"

It was Kiko, and Hutch almost tripped over two chairs as he made his way over to where he stood in the doorway.

"Of course," he said leading Kiko into the hall.

"I'm sorry," Kiko said as he put his hand out. "I know what really happened to you. I feel really bad about everything."

Hutch gripped his hand, then pulled him into a hug.

"It's okay," he said. "Just a misunderstanding. I'm glad you're all right."

Arms still around Hutch, Kiko smiled at Starsky through the glass partition, and Starsky smiled back.

The End

Rx (Tolerance 3)

By TLR

It was a pretty day at the park. Little girls were roller skating in a train-like line, families were picnicking under trees, a group of boys were playing baseball, and Starsky and Hutch sat on a bench looking at a guitar catalogue together.

Starsky's cane lay casually across his lap; therefore it extended across Hutch's too.

"I like this one," Starsky said as he pointed to a picture. "Autographed by Chet Atkins."

"Pretty expensive, though."

"Not if we go half and half."

"Well, maybe. I like this one over here. It has the-"

Their conversation was interrupted by a blue Frisbee that sailed onto the catalogue.

Looking up, they saw a little boy of four with glossy black hair covering his face with his hands.

"Sorry!" his mother called. She also had the same shiny black hair.

"No problem!" Starsky called as he tossed the Frisbee back to the boy.

The boy caught it, then threw it back to him, but it sailed over the bench and into a fountain.

"I'll get it," Starsky said as he got up and limped back to the fountain to retrieve the blue disc. He turned and looked at the kid.

"Heads up! Here it comes!"

Starsky sailed the Frisbee, and the boy tried to catch it, but missed.

"You need to practice," his mother said to her son.

Starsky started back to the bench, then the boy came running over with the Frisbee in his hand.

"Will you play with me?"

"Sure, why-"

"Sean!" the mother said. "I'm sure he has better things to do than play Frisbee."

"No way," Starsky grinned as he walked toward the boy. "I'm in."

The mother looked at his cane. "Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure."

The boy picked up the Frisbee.

"What happened to your leg, Mister?"

"Bad guy shot me when I was a cop."

"You were a cop?"

"Yeah."

"Are you now?"

"I'm a private investigator. Still catch bad guys, but not exactly the same way."

"My name is Sean."

"Dave Starsky." He held his hand out to the boy's mother. "And your lovely mother is..?"

"Michelle Clark," she answered.

"Make yourself at home," he said gesturing toward the bench. "That's my partner Ken Hutchinson. He had his vitamins this morning, so he isn't biting today."

She smiled and walked over to sit on the bench with Hutch.

Starsky tossed Hutch his cane, then limped out into the grass with Sean to toss the Frisbee.

"Sorry to be a bother," she said to Hutch.

"No bother. I hate to see him overuse that leg, but I can't keep him down."

She glanced at the catalogue. "You play guitar?"

"It's a hobby we share. We're both sort of interested in getting a new one, and he has this idea of going in together for a nicer one. Maybe like…"

His sentence faded out, because she was looking at Starsky with something close to infatuation. Glancing at her hand, he saw no ring.

"Looks like your boy's having the time of his life," Hutch said as he smiled toward the kid, whose face was lit up like a small sun.

Michelle said, "His father died of a heart attack when he was a baby. John was an older man. Money. Security. You know. Sean never really knew him. It seems like he…just craves attention."

"That's understandable. You know, I happen to be a Big Brother. We look after kids like Sean. So if you think you'd be interested, I could give you a phone number to call, they could set him up with some…"

"No," she said as she watched her son play with Starsky. "We'll manage. I have two brothers who spend time with him."

Hutch shrugged. "Okay."

He watched Starsky toss the Frisbee, thinking how happy he looked; how free he looked when he did something physical; and how little of it he was actually able to do before the pain became…

"Oh man!" Starsky grimaced as he suddenly grabbed his left thigh in a stab of pain.

Hutch moved as if to go to his aid, but Starsky was already making his labored way back to the bench, biting back a string of profanity while in the presence of a lady and her son.

Michelle stood up so that he could sit down, and shook her finger at Sean.

"Now see what you did!"

Starsky held his hand up.

"No, no. It's okay. Happens all the time."

Hutch saw his face grow pale with pain, and damp with sweat as his fingers reached into his shirt pocket for a bottle of his medication.

Sean looked down, chastised, as Starsky popped a few of the pills.

"I'm sorry, Dave," the boy said quietly.

"No, it's fine. Give me a sec, and I'll be right with you." He looked up at Michelle. "You got a great kid there, Michelle."

The boy smiled.

Michelle said, "Sorry about your leg."

"I'm used to it."

"He'd be over there skateboarding if I'd let him," Hutch added.

Starsky motioned for the boy to join him.

When the boy walked over to him, Starsky pulled a quarter from his pocket. "Like magic tricks?"

"Yeah."

"Want to see this quarter disappear?"

"Sure."

Starsky put the quarter in his palm, closed his hand, then said, "You gotta blow on it and say the magic words."

"What are the magic words?"

"Hum Diddy Doo."

Sean blew on his closed hand, then laughed as he said the magic words.

Starsky opened his hand to show that the coin was gone.

"Mom!" he said as he looked up at Michelle. "It really disappeared!"

Starsky closed his hand again. "Want me to make it come back?" Sean nodded. "Do I say the magic words?"

"Always."

Sean blew on his closed hand, then said the magic words.

When Starsky's hand opened to reveal the coin, the boy smiled again.

"Mom!"

"I saw it," she said patting his shoulder. "I saw it. What a trick." She looked at her watch, then said, "Sean, we should go. We have to pick up a few things at the grocer's."

"So soon?" Starsky asked as he rose to his feet and smiled at her. "I mean, I was just getting ready to ask you out."

She smiled back. "Sure. I mean…" She reached into her purse, wrote her phone number and address on the back of a store receipt, then handed it to him. "I'd love to."

XXXXXXXXXX

The next weekend when Starsky drove to Michelle's house to pick her up, he was surprised to find that Sean was at the sitter's.

"I thought he was gonna go too," he said looking around her living room, where he saw nice, expensive furnishings but not many signs that a kid lived here. No toys, no photos, no clothes, shoes, or books.

"Maybe next time," she smiled. "It'll give us a chance to talk."

"Definitely next time."

XXXXXXXX+

"So if I'm the rich widow with too much time on my hands," she said over a candlelight dinner. "What are you?"

"Oh, let's see. Working class hero with good taste in women."

XXXXXXXX+

That night as he walked her to the door, he said, "Sorry we couldn't go dancing. My heart's in it, but my leg has other ideas."

"That's okay. We'll find other things to do."

He slipped his arms around her and kissed her.

"Yeah, I can think of a few."

She opened the door and led him inside, and then back to her bedroom.

XXXXXXXX+

As promised, the next date included Sean too. They went to a miniature golf course, where Starsky pushed through his pain to play with the boy, and then they went to a matinee so that he could rest his leg for a couple of hours.

Starsky insisted that they stop by a shop called The Magic Hat, where he bought two black silk magician capes with red lining. One for himself, and a child-size one for Sean.

"It's so cool," the boy said as he buttoned it around his neck and twirled around with a big grin on his face.

Michelle shook her head, but couldn't help her smile. "Dave, you're spoiling him."

XXXXXXXX+

The following week was spent mostly at Michelle's house, where Sean showed Starsky his bedroom, toys, and the things in the backyard that he liked to play with, like the swing set, sandbox, kiddie pool, tricycle, and flower garden.

Sean's face was radiant as Starsky pushed him in the swing.

"No fair," Michelle playfully pouted as she brought out glasses of Hawaiian Punch on a tray and set it on a picnic table. "Sean gets all the attention."

"Room enough for two," Starsky said as he kissed her, then took a glass of punch.

"Dave," Sean said as he started climbing on the jungle gym. "Can you chase me up here?"

"Love to, sport, but there are some things my leg just won't do."

"Does it hurt all the time?"

"Almost."

Michelle stroked his arm.

"I'll watch you, though," Starsky told Sean. "Go ahead. Let's see what you got."

XXXXXXXX+

"You like her, don't you?" Hutch asked when he dropped in to visit one day.

Starsky was on the floor putting a curio cabinet together for Michelle. "Yeah, I do."

"I can tell. You haven't looked this happy since…"

Terry.

"Yeah, I know. I'm havin' a good time."

Starsky pushed himself to his feet, massaging his left thigh after kneeling on it for so long.

"Past due for a pill," he said limping to the coffee table.

Hutch handed him the bottle.

"Just don't overdo it, okay?"

Starsky just smiled and shook his head as he took a couple of pills. "She likes my body, Hutch. The way it is. Says I look sexy with a cane."

Now it was Hutch's turn to smile and shake his head.

XXXXXXXX+

The next week was spent mostly at Starsky's house, where he showed Michelle and Sean his prized possessions. She didn't seem nearly as interested in the clipper ships, cameras, antique model cars, movie memorabilia, and baseball card collection as Sean did.

"I like your house," Sean said as he looked through a stack of Fats Domino records.

"You like games?"

Sean shrugged. "What kind?"

"Like, checkers or dominos or card games?"

"I don't know. I don't know how to play."

"I'll show you."

"Okay. But I really like your car. Can you take me for a ride?"

Starsky looked at Michelle, who was sipping a glass of wine. "This is a kid after my own heart. Wanna go with us?"

"Of course," she said setting the glass down.

"We'll pick Hutch up, then we'll go to Huggy's for a pizza."

"Huggy's?" Sean asked. "That's a funny name."

XXXXXXXX+

Starsky honked his horn when he pulled into Michelle's driveway, and both she and Sean came outside, Sean's magician cape flapping proudly behind him.

"What's up?" she asked as he got out of the Torino with a cardboard box and kissed her.

"Surprise for Sean," he said setting the box on the hood of the car. "Close your eyes."

The boy complied.

"Now open them."

When Sean opened his eyes, he saw two goldfish swimming in a clear plastic bag.

"Wow, Dave, thanks," he said taking the bag of fish and smiling up at Michelle. "Look, Mom." To Starsky he said, "What are their names?"

"Up to you."

"I'll name that one Fats. And the other one…" He smiled at Starsky. "You name him."

"Okay. Well. Um. Chubby. How about Chubby?"

"Fats and Chubby."

"Got a fishbowl too," Starsky said showing him the interior of the box. "And some food. A net. And some kind of castle they can swim through."

Sean was busy watching the fish swim.

"Dave," Michelle said as she looked at him. "I really wish you'd discussed this with me first."

"What, the fish?"

"I don't like fish in the house, and Sean doesn't need a pet."

Starsky looked at Sean's fallen face, then back at her. "They're just goldfish. I'll show him how to take care of them. Every kid needs some kind of pet."

"Dave, you didn't ask me. I think it's really rude to just assume that I would welcome two smelly goldfish into my home."

"Yeah, but if you clean the bowl out every couple days, there's no smell and-"

"Mom," Sean said with tears forming in his eyes. "Please let me have the goldfish."

"No, Sean. You know the rule about pets."

Sean stood looking tearfully at the fish.

"Hey," Starsky said crouching in front of the boy. "Let's ask her if you can keep them at my house. They'll still be yours, and you can come and see them anytime you want."

Sean looked up at his mother again. "Can I keep them at his house? Please?"

"Fine. As long as they're not in mine."

"Thanks, Mom."

Starsky kissed her. "Thanks, Michelle. They'll grow on you, and before you know it, you'll be wanting two more."

She smiled. "I doubt it."

"So can he go with me to help settle them into their new home? I'll get him a milkshake on the way back."

"I suppose. As long as he's back by bedtime."

Starsky kissed her again. "You are a princess."

XXXXXXXX

Starsky's home.

"They're really cool," Sean said as he watched the fish swim around in the bowl Starsky helped him prepare.

Starsky opened the box of fish food. "Fats looks hungry. Better feed him. Just a few flakes, though. Too much food will kill them."

Sean sprinkled a few flakes on top of the water.

"Think they'd like some music?" Sean asked. "Beach Boys? Since they like to swim too?"

"That's a good idea."

XXXXXXXXXX

Starsky and the little boy were enjoying a milkshake on the way home. They had a third one to take to Hutch.

"Hey," Starsky said turning the radio down. "You know I like your mom, right?"

"Yeah."

"A lot."

"Yeah. A whole lot."

"Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah. I like you a whole lot too."

Starsky ruffled his hair. "Thanks, kiddo."

XXXXXXXX+

Starsky watched Sean from Hutch's sofa as the boy explored the greenhouse.

"I mean, she just flat out said no to the fish," Starsky said to his partner as he put his right foot up on the coffee table and picked his left leg up to join it. "Don't you think that's a little unreasonable?"

"Well, no. My mother wouldn't allow any indoor pets either. Just outside. I didn't even have a dog until I went to my grandfather's farm."

"Did you think it was mean?"

"Sure I did."

"But was it?"

"I don't know. You think it's mean, don't you?"

"A little. But it's because my ma was different. She bent the rules a lot more than Michelle. And she seemed to understand the ways of boys more. And then there was pop too, for a while."

"Hey," Hutch said smiling as he opened his second beer. "Are you two getting serious?"

"Maybe. I'm really into her, but I think it's too early to tell."

Sean came back into the living room.

"Hey, Hutch, why don't you have any goldfish?"

"Not sure, Sean. I guess I have my plants. They're enough company. Do you like plants?"

"I like those flowers you have. I have a flower garden at home. A little one."

"You can take a few with you."

"I'd like to give some to my mommy."

Starsky grinned.

"We should clear it with her first, though, right? She may have something against flowers."

"Oh," Sean smiled. "Yeah."

Starsky clapped his hands once. "Hey. Sean. Show Hutch that new thing I taught you."

Hutch smiled suspiciously. "What new thing?"

A small imitation of Groucho Marx, Sean crouched and started strutting around the room with one hand on his hip, the other wiggling an invisible cigar. "That's the most ridiculous thing I ever hoid."

Hutch chuckled and shook his head, while Starsky laughed out loud and scooped the boy up. "I love you, kiddo."

"I love you too, Dave."

"Time to go home, huh? Almost bedtime."

"Okay. Bye, Hutch."

"Bye, buddy. Thanks for the milkshake."

XXXXXXXXXX

When Starsky answered the knock at his door, the last person he expected to see was

Sharman Crane.

"I don't believe it," he said as his eyes traveled her up and down. "Look at you. You're ravishing."

She smiled as she put her arms around him. He hugged her tightly and pulled her inside.

"Good to see you again, Dave. I was in town and I thought I'd drop by…"

"Sure, sure. Hey, you want a soda or something?"

"Why not?" she said as she looked around. "I like your new place. I mean, I liked your other one, but this one looks so…grown up."

He smiled as he limped toward the kitchen.

"Guess I grew up," he said.

She watched him and said, "I heard about the shooting. I'm sorry."

"How'd a famous TV star hear somethin' about little ole me?"

"I'm not a famous TV star. I do shampoo commercials."

"And perfume commercials. And lingerie commercials. And jewelry commercials."

"Would you believe your mother wrote to me?"

"My…are you kidding me?"

She laughed. "No, I'm not. I think she's my biggest fan. Anyway, I got her letter last month. I tried to call, but you were out. So I thought I would just come and see you and…" She looked down, then stroked his arm with her hand. "See if you're okay. Or if there's anything I can do. You helped me out, and I've never forgotten it."

When her eyes began to sparkle with tears, he pulled her against him.

"It was my pleasure, Sharman. I'm glad to see that things are still going your way."

"They are. They are. I'll be in town for about a week. Maybe we can get together for dinner or something."

"That'd be great. It's been so-"

A second knock came at the door, and Starsky opened it to see Michelle and Sean

standing there.

"Hey," he said kissing Michelle and ruffling Sean's hair. "Come on in, guys. There's somebody I'd like to introduce you to."

"I've seen her before," Michelle said as she held tightly to Sean's hand. "Weren't you in a kitty litter commercial last week?"

"Oh," Sharman smiled. "I don't think so."

"Diamonds," Sean beamed.

"Yes," Sharman said with a smile for him. "That's what it was."

Michelle looked at Starsky. "I came to invite you to a homemade dinner tonight, but it looks like you're busy."

"No, actually, Sharman just dropped in to say hi. We're old classmates. She and I may meet up later, but I'm up for whatever you want to do."

Sean looked past Starsky toward the goldfish bowl on the bookshelf.

"How are Fats and Chubby?"

"Doin' just fine, pal."

Sharman smiled at Starsky. "Well, I won't keep you two from your plans. Take care, Dave."

"Thanks for stopping, Sharman. You look beautiful."

After Sharman left, Michelle, still holding to Sean's hand, turned to leave too.

"Hey," he said softly, "where you goin'?"

She turned to glare at him over her shoulder with hot tears. "I'm rich but I'm not famous. Is that what you want?"

She didn't give him time to answer as she pulled Sean down the steps.

"Hey!" he called as he went out on the porch after her. "What are you talk-"

"Just leave me alone tonight! I don't want to talk to you!"

He watched her fume and stalk her way to her car, then leave with a squeal of tires.

XXXXXXXX+

"I can't stand it anymore," Starsky said as he paced in a painful limp around Hutch's living room. "She throws these curveballs at me. First the goldfish, now Sharman. I was much happier before we met, and I can't wait to break it off. I don't even know what I saw in her to begin with."

Hutch gave him a look of sympathy from his seat at the piano.

"I think it was a four-year-old named Sean. You see a little of yourself in him, don't you?"

That kid has stolen your heart, and it's beautiful to see you so enchanted again.

Starsky stopped pacing, shoulders dropping. "Yeah. I can't wait to end it with her, but it's gonna kill me sayin' goodbye to the kid. He was the best part of that relationship. What's he gonna think of me now, huh? The one guy in his life who could've been there for him, meant something, been some kind of father figure…"

"Maybe she'll still let you visit him now and then."

"Her? No way. It'd go against one of her rules. I mean, she's not mean to the kid, but she sure doesn't parent the way I would."

"Evidently you're not compatible."

"Evidently."

XXXXXXXX+

When Starsky arrived home from seeing Hutch, it was well after midnight and his phone was on its tenth ring when he lifted the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Dave! Please help me!"

It was Michelle, but he had never heard her sound like this before.

"What's wrong?"

"HE'S GONE! SOMEONE TOOK HIM!"

"Who? Sean?"

"HE'S NOT IN HIS BED! OH GOD, PLEASE COME!"

"I'm on my way. Stay there. Try to calm down."

XXXXXXXX+

She was curled into a hysterical ball in the corner of her sofa when he ran into her living room and scooped her up against his chest.

"Michelle, talk to me. Tell me what happened."

"I don't understand," she sobbed with her arms around his neck. "I got up about thirty minutes ago to use the restroom, and I went to his room to check on him like I usually do, and…he…was just gone. I looked all over the house. Outside. I just…"

"Sshh. It's okay. It'll be okay. We'll find him."

"I hope so."

"Did you call the police?"

"Of course. They said they would come over, but can't start an official investigation on a person who's missing for forty-eight hours."

"Standard procedure. The captain and I are good friends, though, so maybe I can pull some strings."

She pulled back from him and sniffed, twisting a tissue in her hands.

"Do you think he was kidnapped? I never worried about that before, but some people know John left me a lot of money."

"It's a possibility."

"Do you think he ran away? Do four-year-olds do that?"

"I don't think he ran away. But if it was a kidnapping, you'll be hearing from his abductors soon."

"Oh God. This can't be happening. Do you think they'll hurt him?"

"Don't think that way. Let's concentrate on finding him. First things first."

XXXXXX+

As Michelle spoke to Detective Glassman and his partner in the kitchen and gave him photos of Sean, Starsky and Hutch stood observing in the doorway of the adjoining living room, doing their best not to jump in and take over or direct the investigation.

"Somebody just grabbed him out of his bed," Starsky said to Hutch in a low, threatening voice. "If some pervert put his hands on him…"

Hutch saw that his hands were curling into fists, and squeezed his arm.

"Let's take it one step at a time, huh?"

"He didn't run away, Hutch. He was a happy kid. Where would he go?"

"Well," Hutch said with a small smile, "I think he would have tried for your house."

XXXXXXXX

It was daylight by the time the detectives left Michelle's to continue the investigation.

Hutch was lounging in an easy chair nursing a drink, and Starsky sat holding Michelle on the sofa.

It had been a couple of hours since any of them had spoken. It seemed that they didn't know what to say, or were too numb for words.

Finally Starsky lifted her face and said gently, "You need to sleep."

"I can't."

"Do you have anything in your medicine cabinet?"

"I don't want to sleep."

"Taking care of yourself is the best way to help him right now. You need a clear head and a rested body."

"I just want to look for him."

"Hutch and I can do that."

"Dave…"

"Michelle," Hutch said rising to his feet and setting his drink down. "Starsky and I will go look for him. You need to stay here by the phone in case the kidnappers call."

XXXXXXXX+

The detectives searched and questioned, Starsky and Hutch searched and questioned, and Michelle waited by the phone, but three days later, there was no word.

Starsky took more pain pills than he normally did, to keep hunting.

Hutch watched him almost shrink with pain, lurch around like an injured wolf, wince when he had to stop and massage his leg or give it a rest, until finally he took him by the shoulders on the sidewalk outside Huggy's and said, "Starsky, you have to stop it. You told Michelle she needed to take care of herself. You should take your own advice."

"Leave me alone."

"I can't. Now I'm taking you to your house, where I'm going to unplug the phone and make you lie down for some rest."

But when he took Starsky to his house, Detective Glassman and his partner were waiting to question him.

-When did you last see the boy?

-Do the two of you get along?

-Did you notice anyone suspicious hanging around?

-What is your relationship like with his mother?

-Is he a kid to just wander off?

-Who are his playmates?

-What are his routines like?

XXXXXXXX+

"Why would they suspect you?" Michelle asked him on the phone that evening. "They should know you would never harm him."

"They don't suspect me. They have to ask, to rule certain people out. They always question those closest to the missing person. You'll be questioned too."

"Do they think I did something to him?"

"No. It's routine with a missing child."

Starsky heard a knock at her door in the background.

"I think the detectives are here," she said. "I'll talk to you later."

"Okay," he said as she hung up.

He sat with the receiver in his hand, bleary eyes gazing ahead.

He didn't notice when Hutch came in and took the receiver from him.

"Buddy," he said hanging up. "You didn't sleep, did you?"

Starsky sat, still staring. "It's been three days, and not a word from the kidnappers."

"I know."

"You know what that means."

"The chances of finding him alive are…" He couldn't finish.

"No body," Starsky whispered. "They haven't found his body yet, so there's a chance…" He stood up, leaning heavily on his good leg and reaching into his hip pocket to take out his wallet. He almost stumbled sideways, but Hutch caught his arm.

Starsky showed him a small photo of Sean, and Hutch noted the tremor in his hand.

"He gave this to me, Hutch. Said if I ever missed him I could just take it out and look at it. I think we should give it to Joe."

XXXXXXXX+

Joe Collandra was at the front door of JC Café locking up and turning the Closed sign to face outward when they walked up and knocked.

Joe turned around and walked toward a back booth.

Hutch knocked again.

"Joe! Open up!"

Joe kept walking.

Starsky raised his good foot up to kick the door in, but Joe was already running back and

unlocking it.

"I know what you want," he said as he looked from one to the other.

"Good," Starsky said putting Sean's picture in his hand. "Saves a lot of explaining."

Joe didn't look at the photo, but his hand closed around it as he swallowed and turned haggard eyes to Hutch.

"He needs help."

"No kidding," Starsky said. "He's a missing boy."

"No," Joe clarified. "I'm talkin' about you."

"What are you talking about?" Hutch asked.

"Forget me," Starsky said as he leaned on his cane.

Joe looked down at the photo, caressed it between his hands. "I don't know. I'm not getting anything right now."

"Try."

"I am. It's not like it's a faucet I can turn on and off." He looked at Starsky. "Look. Would you get out of here? You're interfering."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Starsky asked.

"It means I can't concentrate on this kid with you banging around inside my head." He gave a pleading look to Hutch. "Will you get him out of here?"

Hutch took Starsky's arm and led him out of the café.

XXXXXXXX+

"Joe said you need help," Hutch said as he drove down the street.

"Don't we all?"

"Starsk!"

Starsky rubbed his face. "Yeah, well, try a missing kid on for size and see how you feel."

"I understand that, but I don't think that's what he meant."

"You're a psychic too."

"You have Sean on your mind, Michelle to worry about, no sleep, no food, shaking like a leaf, and how many pills in your precarious system?"

"You haven't been counting them?"

"I know your leg is killing you."

"A vision."

"No, your sunny disposition gives it away every time."

"How rude of me. I have a nanny, medic, counselor, teacher, and private dick for a partner. Everyone should be so lucky."

Hutch said nothing else, He just kept driving until he reached Michelle's house, where he let Starsky out with his cane and no word of goodbye.

XXXXXXXXXX

Starsky and Michelle were sitting on her back porch together, hips touching, holding hands, well after sunset. His eyes looked over the empty, lonely swing, jungle gym, sandbox, kiddie pool, tricycle, and flower garden.

When the moon was round and full, she finally smiled sadly and said, "You're hurting my hand."

He softened his grip. "Sorry."

"How long will they look for him?"

"Hot and heavy for a little while. If they get leads, they keep digging. If they don't…"

"Why would they stop?"

He gave a shrug.

"Other cases. Not enough manpower to devote to one person. Leads dry up sometimes. I just hope he's alive, and that whoever took him…maybe somebody who couldn't have a kid of his or her own and desperately wants one…if they don't bring him back…I just hope they take care of him."

"Are you thinking the worst?"

"No way. It's too early to quit. Something will turn up. The cops may give up, but I won't-"

His eyes shut tightly as he seized his thigh.

"Ah, not again," he said as he massaged it with one hand while his other fished around in his shirt pocket for his pill bottle.

"You're doing too much."

"I feel like a zombie," he said as he took two pills and used his cane to pull himself to his feet, where he swayed a little. "Sorry. I should be out there looking for him."

She reached for his hand. "Dave. I need you here with me."

He sat back down with her, fingertips rubbing his scratchy eyes. "You planted new ones?"

She looked toward the flower garden. "Yes, I planted some in his name. The ones Hutch wanted him to have. He brought them over this morning."

"Thanks. He really wanted those."

The ringing of the phone made both of them jump.

"I'll get it," she said as she rose to her feet and hurried inside the house to answer it.

He sat looking at the flowers Hutch had brought for Sean's flower garden. He didn't know what kind they were, but they were simple and colorful.

I planted some in his name.

Do you plant flowers in your child's name if you think he's gone forever and is never coming back, or do you plant them in your child's name as a symbol of hope and life, or do you plant them in any case? Have you given up already, Michelle? Is it too much?

"Dave? It's for you."

Again he used his cane to struggle to his feet, then trudged tiredly into the house and took the receiver from her in the kitchen, leaning back against the wall and watching her as she went back outside and sat down on the back porch again.

"Yeah?" he asked in a voice gravelly with fatigue and worry.

"Starsky."

It was Joe's voice, hoarse and harsh with emotion.

"Joe?"

"He's there. In the backyard."

Starsky dropped the phone; and then he dropped; but Hutch was there to catch him as Detective Glassman and his partner continued on through the kitchen and out the back door with a search warrant.

XXXXXXXX+

Starsky stood in mute silence in the kitchen doorway, Hutch's arm securely around him, watching as a cadaver dog, crime lab, and a forensic excavation team worked meticulously at the flower garden by inches and layers, until finally, a small hand was visible.

One of the technicians looked up at Glassman, who stood with Michelle next to the swing set.

"He's here."

Glassman looked at Michelle.

"You're under arrest, Ma'am."

A wounded cry escaped Starsky as he tried to break free of Hutch to go after her as the detectives led her to an unmarked car.

"BABY KILLER!"

Even when she was gone, Starsky wanted to move toward the grave, toward the red silk of the small cape in the ground, as if he could still save him, make it all right.

Hutch held tight, digging fingers into his arms.

"No, Starsk," he whispered tearfully. "Don't see him like that."

Hutch pulled him back inside the kitchen, wrestling him through the house and out the front door into the grass, where grief took him by physical force to one knee, Hutch's arms trapping him close.

The man who had withstood the death of his father, two women he loved, who was

accustomed to pain and crime, who had endured combat, bullets, and poison with few tears-was taken to the ground by wretched sobbing that broke Hutch's heart.

XXXXXXXXXX+

Michelle's two brothers told Starsky that he was not welcome at Sean's funeral. Hutch expected an explosion over it, but his partner was strangely silent about it; about her written confession full of both love and hatred for Starsky; and about the differing reasons given by many for why she smothered him with his pillow:

-Jealous of the boy's relationship with Mr. Starsky.

-Thought her son loved Mr. Starsky more than he loved her.

-Thought Mr. Starsky loved her son more than her.

-Feared having a child would interfere with her relationship with Mr. Starsky.

-Believed Mr. Starsky would never propose to a woman with a child.

-Clinically depressed over the loss of her unfaithful husband.

-Believed the boy was just like his father.

-Did it to punish Mr. Starsky for his affection for Sharman Crane.

-Medea killing.

Hutch tried to talk to him about his silence, but Starsky asked to be left alone.

Hutch didn't want to do that, but Starsky left him no choice, for when he dropped by Starsky's house to see how he was doing, found the Torino gone and no one home.

XXXXXXXX+

"He just needs to sort stuff out," Huggy told him. "He's been through tough stuff before."

"You know him as well as I do. He blames himself."

XXXXXXXX+

Hutch tried calling him over the next couple of days, but received no answer.

XXXXXXXXXX+

(He needs help)

(What kind of help, Joe?)

Hutch decided that he should go ask Joe just that question, but thought he would stop at Starsky's for another try before he did so.

"Starsk!" he called as he pounded on the door. "Let me in!"

He waited for an answer. The Torino was here, it was three in the afternoon, so there was no reason why he shouldn't be coming to the door.

"Hey!" Hutch said pounding again. "I have a key and I know how to use it!"

When there was still no answer from inside, Hutch took Starsky's house key from his pocket, opened the door, and stepped in.

"Hey, Starsk?" he asked moving through the house. "Where are you? Don't you think it's time to…oh my God."

Starsky lay curled on his side on the bathroom floor in white T-shirt and tennis shorts, pain pills scattered from a half-empty bottle next to his hand, the hell of the past week and a half seeming to speak to Hutch rudely from his lean, pale, damaged body.

"Starsk," Hutch whispered as his fingers found the pulse in his throat to be slow and shallow.

"Starsk!"

Hutch jerked him up into the bend of his arm, smacking his face.

"Come on! Stay awake!"

Starsky moaned and his eyes rolled.

"Can't sleep," he mumbled thickly. "Tired. Hurt."

Hutch struggled to his feet, pulling Starsky up with him.

"Come on. Talk to me. Tell me some more. Let's call an ambulance. Walk with me. Stay awake."

Starsky was not the one walking as Hutch helped him into the living room and over to the phone.

(Okay, Starsky. It finally happened. My worst nightmare has been realized. You accidentally overdosed)

After Hutch called an ambulance, he continued to walk Starsky around the living room.

"Don't go to sleep, buddy. Stay with me."

Starsky's head bobbed as Hutch led him around.

"I think you need some coffee," Hutch told him as he moved him toward the kitchen. "Want some coffee? Huh?"

Hutch's hand was on the coffeepot just as Starsky completely collapsed, and Hutch sat down with him, holding his head up.

"Starsk!"

Starsky made no other attempts to speak or move.

"HURRY UP!" Hutch yelled toward the front door when he heard the sound of the siren as the ambulance approached.

XXXXXXXXXX+

Hutch was pacing in the hall outside of the emergency room when Huggy and Dobey arrived together.

"Word travels fast," he said to them.

XXXXXXXXXX+

Hutch wasn't allowed to visit with his partner until the next morning.

"Wasn't like it was on purpose," Starsky muttered weakly from his hospital bed. "I just…couldn't sleep. Couldn't think, or cry, or feel. Couldn't even walk the floor anymore. I thought taking a few more would knock me out, help me sleep."

Hutch reached for his hand. "I know, buddy."

"Didn't mean to spook you."

"Spook isn't the word."

"You're right. I gotta watch myself. If…"

Hutch leaned down over him, hand on his shoulder. "If I lose you…"

XXXXXXXXXX+

A week later Hutch found his partner sitting on a park bench, staring at the grass, and took a seat next to him. He looked better. Rested. But still troubled.

"I hear his voice in my head, Hutch. 'Help me. Why didn't you help me?'"

Starsky closed his eyes. "Why didn't I see it? It didn't have to happen."

Hutch put a hand on his shoulder. "You couldn't have saved him. She was going to do what she was going to do. She's a very sick woman."

"I should have been more alert. Sensed something. Saw something."

"Starsk, you can't blame yourself. I hear his voice too, and you know what I hear him saying?"

Starsky said nothing.

Hutch reached into his pocket, pulled out the photo Starsky had given Joe to use, and put it in his hand.

"I hear him saying, 'If you ever miss me, just take this out and look at it'."

Starsky looked down at the picture and rubbed his thumb across it.

XXXXXXXXXX

"I think he'd like these," Starsky said as he and Hutch each carried a pot of colorful flowers into Starsky's living room to set on the bookshelf next to the goldfish bowl.

"Me too. Oh hey. Something arrived in the mail for you while you were in the hospital."

"Oh yeah?"

Hutch went to Starsky's bedroom, and came back with a long box.

"Long-stemmed roses?" Starsky asked taking it. "You shouldn't have."

"Open it up, meatball."

Starsky sat down on the coffee table and opened the cardboard box, then whistled as he lifted out the Chet Atkins autographed guitar he had admired in the catalogue.

"Our guitar," Starsky said as he ran his hands over the strings and wood. "What a knockout. Is it tuned?"

"I don't know, why don't you try it and see?"

He did try the strings, and said, "May need a little adjustment," as he handed it to Hutch.

Hutch tuned the guitar, then handed it back. "You go first."

Starsky began to strum a tune that was familiar to Hutch, but was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Your turn," he said as he handed the guitar to him and walked to the door. Upon opening it, he saw Sharman standing on his doorstep. Her expression spoke of care and concern as she held her arms open.

Starsky walked into them and gave her a long, warm embrace.

"Thanks for coming," he whispered into her hair.

The End

Crush Load

By TLR

When I arrived at the burned-out bookstore, two detectives, Conner and Fitzgerald, plus a couple of SWATS and bomb technicians (who'd gone in first) were already inside because they were helping me look for Hutch. An ambulance had been summoned, so it was waiting in the dusty lot, the medics ordered to stay at the vehicle until it was determined safe to go any closer to the building.

Captain Dobey was on the scene at his car communicating with somebody over the radio and ready to call in reinforcements if necessary. He didn't know exactly what to expect but was ready for anything. The kidnappers could have returned and could be heavily armed for all we knew.

We were all responding to a call from a couple of little kids who'd been sneaking a cigarette in the basement of the old building and found Hutch in there.

Pure chance. We'd been looking for him for three and a half weeks with no leads.

A few bystanders who'd seen the ambulance, SWAT vehicle, bomb truck and unmarked cop cars were standing around to see what was going on.

I jumped out of the Torino to run toward the back door of the bookstore because the front door was boarded up, but Dobey grabbed my arm.

"They're bringing him out," he said as he tried to hold his mike with one hand and me with his other.

I pulled away from him and started to run, getting halfway across the dirt lot when the back door opened.

Conner and Fitzgerald were walking him out between them, each holding an arm, SWAT and the bomb guys in front as if to shield him a little.

My run slowed to a walk, and then to a staring standstill at his dropped head and the way he was quivering and shrunken into himself like a beaten dog, on his feet only because he was being held up. He went right past me without his deadened eyes even looking at me or saying anything.

"Hutch?"

I finally got my legs to work as I turned around to follow them across the lot.

"Fitz?"

Fitzgerald just gave me this self-conscious look like he knew something terrible had happened to my partner.

I reached for Hutch between their barrier of bodies just before they got him to the ambulance, but Conner pulled me aside.

"He's out of it, Dave. He needs a hospital."

Dobey passed a grim look of sympathy in Hutch's direction as he joined me and Conner.

I tried pulling away from Conner too, but with Dobey there to grab my other arm, it was impossible.

"We found him in a closet," Conner told us. "Chains wrapped around him. Blindfold. Gag. We tried to get him to talk, but he didn't say anything. Won't talk, can't talk, we don't know. He's just not responsive."

"He'll talk to me," I said as I tried again to pull away.

Dobey nodded at Conner, and they released me so that I could jump inside the ambulance before it took off.

XXXXXX+

The medics worked on him on the way to the hospital while I tried to talk to him.

Dobey, Conner, and Fitzgerald were left behind to work the scene.

Hutch had been a missing officer, but now he was back with me, safe and alive. That was the important thing. But why had his captors not killed him? Were they planning a follow-up? Had they left him for dead?

He had the answers we needed as to the who and why of the kidnapping. But could he talk? Could he even help out with his own case?

"Hutch," I said as I picked up one of his hands. Grimy, bruised, and lifeless. I wanted to murder the people who did this to him.

"Talk to me. Say something."

My fingers went to his forehead to move some of his dirty, sweaty hair away.

"Hey," I said quietly as I struggled with the tears and emotions that'd been locked up inside.

So many times over the past weeks they'd threatened to spill out, but I kept it in check because I had to keep my head to continue the search.

He was back, but it wasn't over.

He didn't look at me. He acted like he didn't even know who I was.

"Gonna be okay," I told him, saying the words I wanted him to hear, but not sure at the moment if I really believed them. I'd never seen him like this before. He always had a way of being strong, even in the worst of circumstances. His condition brought back memories of finding him in the alley after the Forest kidnapping a year earlier, looking so different, seeing what it had done to his body, his behavior.

If the medics hadn't been around, I think I'd have leaned over the stretcher and cried.

He looked lost, alone, and unreachable.

XXXXXXXXXX

"How long is he gonna be like that?" I asked the doctors outside the emergency room door.

"It's difficult to say," Dr. Jones said. "We're going to examine him, treat him, do any tests that may be necessary, He needs time. Hopefully he'll come around."

Hopefully?

He had to come around. He had to recover. There was no way he could continue in the silent state he was in, and I didn't know if I could continue in the state I was in either. I had no idea how to help him, what to say, what he was even thinking.

By the evening, he was sedated, clean, connected to an IV, and asleep, and Dr. Jones came to talk to me again as I sat by Hutch's bed.

Captain Dobey was present too, and so were Conner and Fitz. They wanted as many details as they could for the investigation. Sometimes medical information can lead you in the right direction when you don't have anything else to go on, and right then we didn't because Hutch was unable to tell us anything. Conner said there was nothing at the crime scene they could use. My thought was that they didn't look hard enough, there is always something you can use, and that I would have to go to that bookstore basement myself and have a look.

"No sexual assault," Dr. Jones said. "No brain injury, no internal injuries, no broken bones, no drugs or toxins. We have contusions and abrasions, some dehydration and weight loss. Which is minor compared to the probable sensory deprivation, isolation, torture, and obvious mental distress from weeks of confinement."

Each word burned a brand into my brain. Dobey kept glaring at the doctor. He didn't want to hear it any more than I did, but we had to know.

Mental distress?

The term was too nice.

"A psychiatrist attempted to speak to him," Dr. Jones said. "Dr. Deutsch. Without success. He'll try again when he's stronger. Ken could come around on his own, once he realizes he's in a safe environment, with people who care about him. But I recommend some type of counseling."

It was late when they left the room. Hutch slept through it all.

I didn't sleep for hours. I had my eyes on him, hoping there was a chance he would wake up and say something, ask for me.

But he slept through the night without a peep, and I did too, after a few hours of observation.

A guard was posted in the hall.

XXXXXX+

The next morning Hutch looked stronger, rested, and more alert. He was actually looking around and seeing things and people, even me, but he wouldn't say anything. He was quiet and looked a little scared. The kind of scared only I could pick up on. Something just behind his eyes, just beneath his skin.

Conner, Fitzgerald, and Dobey came back to probe for details, but even with the four of us gently prodding and using every trick in the book to put him at ease and get him to open up, he still wouldn't talk.

Dr. Deutsch tried again, and so did Dr. Jones, but the more people that came in and out, the more clammed up he became. He didn't resist the nurses who helped him, he didn't try to get out of bed, he was this sort of compliant being who was okay with anything that happened and looked out the window like he was going to lay there in a hospital bed for the rest of his life.

When lunchtime rolled around, I tried to get him to eat his turkey sandwich, but he didn't

say yes or no, so I ate it myself, and then, hoping to get a rise from him, or a joke, or something, ate his butterscotch pudding, then his peanut butter and crackers, then his milk, then his raspberries. It worked; a little. His eyes came away from the window and kept watching me, and then a little smile came to his face.

"Hey," I said as I smoothed his clean, soft hair down. "That's the Hutch I know. Gonna talk to me?"

He looked at me for a long time, then moved his head no.

"Fine. Gonna tell me who took you?"

He moved his head no again.

"Will they come back?"

He closed his eyes and turned onto his side. Not away from me, I was thankful to see. But toward me.

I was getting somewhere. Little steps. I wanted to push him, but not so far that he wouldn't communicate with me again.

"Tired," he whispered weakly as his fingers moved on the sheet. A little toward me.

Hesitant. But needing me. Almost afraid to.

I took his hand, squeezed it, and he squeezed back.

There was a light knock at the door, and Huggy came in.

He would have been present during the briefing with Dobey and the cops, but Conner and Fitz really didn't like him, so he decided to stash himself away in the waiting room for a while, not wanting to put a kink in the investigation or antagonize the ones who were trying to find Hutch's kidnappers.

"Welcome home, my friend," Huggy said as he came to the bed, but not too close. His hands moved as if he wanted to slip his arms around Hutch's neck, but then went back to his hips as if he thought it best not to for now. "We were beginning to think we'd never see boy wonderful again."

Hutch went back into his shell again. He didn't tell Huggy to leave, but he shut him out just the same, by closing his eyes, drawing the sheet up close to his chest, and becoming silent again.

XXXXXXXX

When evening came, Dobey, Conner, and Fitz came back to take another crack at questioning him, but he wasn't going for it. He just stayed on his side and stared out the window.

After a string of questions, Hutch finally slid his eyes to them and said, "Can you just leave me alone?"

They looked shocked, since it was the first thing he had said anything to them, but decided they couldn't get anywhere until he wanted to say more, so they left him alone.

When Dr. Deutsch came around for another visit, Hutch said politely, "I don't need to talk to anyone, thank you," so the doc left his card on the food tray and left.

XXXXXXXX+

Hutch grew stronger over the next few days, and he did begin to respond to the nurses, but not in the remarkable way I'd hoped for. He didn't offer conversation; he only answered their questions yes or no, and when it came to choices, he was very uncertain, even about the smallest thing, like did he prefer vanilla or chocolate pudding; did he want to put clothes on or stay in the hospital gown; did he want to go outside for lunch with me or eat in the cafeteria. Sometimes he said it didn't matter. Sometimes he asked me to decide, and that's when I knew that something was very wrong with him.

XXXXXXXX

Jones and Deutsch said he could be discharged in a couple of days, but that he wasn't ready for work yet, physically or mentally, and recommended that someone stay with him while he recovered.

"My place or yours?" I asked him.

"I don't care."

"Which would help you feel safer?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Would you please pick one so I'll know where we're sleeping tonight?"

"Do you mind if we go to yours?"

"No, that's fine."

XXXXXXXX

Uniforms were to take shifts monitoring my place.

When I got Hutch home, he just stood in the middle of my living room floor like a kid at a new school.

"What do you want to do?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he said rubbing his arm with his hand. "What do you want to do?"

Sometimes my love comes out as anger. I don't mean it that way, it just happens. I have infinite patience when it comes to Hutch, especially if he is hurt or upset, but not when it comes to at-large psychos who altered him into someone I barely knew and could try to come back and hurt him, kill him, or God knows what else.

"What do I want to do?" I asked as I dropped a bag of his clothes onto my coffee table. I went over to him and took his arms in a grip that he couldn't get out of.

"I want to go arrest those sickos who did this to you, but you won't tell me who, you won't tell me why, and you won't talk to anybody that wants to help you."

He had the strangest look of fear and confusion on his face as he backed up with me still holding his arms.

"It wasn't that bad," he said with quiet reason, like I should know that. Like I should understand.

My heart froze in my chest. I wanted to say something, but the words froze too as he kept talking in his quiet, rational way.

"They didn't drug me like Forest did. They brought me water. They let me live."

I wanted him to yell at me, push me, pull away, cry, pace, run; anything but just stand there in obedience and let me restrain him.

He had more fight when he was broken from withdrawal.

"They didn't drug you like Forest did. They brought you water. They let you live. What more could you ask for? How thoughtful."

"You weren't there. You don't know how it was."

"Then how was it?"

He looked down and backed up another step, and then another, until his back hit the wall, where he stood for a second, and then as if suddenly exhausted, or overwhelmed, started sliding down the wall.

I pulled him back up and pulled him to me, but he was as plastic and detached as a mannequin.

"Come on," I whispered to him as I took him over to the sofa and sat him down. "I want you to be comfortable. Do you need somethin'? Huh? You'd tell me if you could remember, right? If you could recognize them, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

He spent the rest of the day sitting on the sofa, while I motored around the house cooking some vegetable stew and cleaning the place even though it didn't need cleaning. I put some music on and tried to talk to him. Called Huggy, Dobey, and Conner and Fitzgerald, with an update, and for an update. Set some magazines and books on the coffee table for him to look at. But he just sat quietly while I moved about. I did that to give him some space, to see if he'd initiate any conversations, but it didn't seem to help.

When night came, I made sure the door was locked and that the uniformed officer was outside.

"I'm gettin' some sleep," I told him as I put a pillow and some blankets on the sofa next to him. "See you in the morning."

"Thanks, Starsk," he said with slowly batting eyelashes as he became drowsy too. "I appreciate your help."

That's the Hutch I knew. But I didn't know how much of a help I was to him right then.

I turned the lights out and carried my gun to the bedroom, lying in bed and listening for sounds, both inside the house and outside, but none were made, and soon I drifted off to sleep.

It was around midnight that I woke up to take a leak, and after I finished, saw that Hutch was asleep in his sitting position.

Maybe he was too afraid to lie down. Or maybe he had to sleep sitting up in the closet. Or maybe he didn't think he had the choice to lie down at all. Or sleep at all.

"Hey," I said as I touched his shoulder, and when I did, he startled badly and jerked away from me to cling to the pillow and blankets, burying the side of his face in and clutching it in fright.

I came around to the front of the sofa and knelt down, stroking his hair.

"Hey," I repeated as gently as I could. "It's just me. It's okay."

I could see tears in his eyes as he looked at me.

"Hutch, are you afraid?"

He didn't answer me. He was very still as his eyelids grew heavy with sleep again.

"Go back to sleep," I said quietly. "It'll be all right."

When I saw that he was finally asleep again, I was relieved, and went back to bed to get some rest too, wondering how in the world I was going to keep a grip on my patience and understanding. I tried to remind myself that he couldn't help his state of mind. That those morons had done this to him. And that if he truly had a choice, he would help himself.

I didn't know how he was supposed to get his will back. His courage back. His heart.

It scared me to think that he could be scarred for life.

XXXXXXXX

I don't know how long I stared at the ceiling. Maybe hours. But just as my dark thoughts were melting into a puddle of twilight sleep, I heard a thumping noise from somewhere in the house that brought me out of bed and to my feet.

"Hutch?" I asked walking through the house, gun in my hand. "You all right?"

I turned a small lamp on, and saw that he wasn't on the sofa or anywhere in the living room.

"Hutch?"

I checked the kitchen, but didn't see him there.

Then when I heard a noise again, realized it was coming from the bathroom.

"Hutch?"

The door was halfway open but the light was out, so I slowly opened the door and turned the light on, looking around.

"Hutch?"

The shower door was closed, and I gripped my gun, unsure of who or what, but prepared for anything. Maybe somebody with a gun to his head; a knife to his throat.

But it was Hutch. Alone in the dry shower. On his knees and slumped sideways against the wall, panting, lost in a dream. He had stripped down to his boxers, maybe planning to

take a shower, but hadn't followed through. The bruises on his back were brutally clear, shorts damp with sweat, mumbling, murmuring, scared.

He rolled his head no on the wall. His arms were stiff at his sides, pressed close to his body, as if he couldn't move them. The way I'd seen them when he was brought out of the bookstore.

Long red abrasions formed patterns of circles around his body.

Chains.

For the hundredth time I had to fight back rage for the treatment they'd given him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered over and over to the wall, his cheek pressed against it. "I'm sorry."

"Buddy," I said as I reached for his shoulder and squeezed. "It's three in the morning. You're dreamin'. Wake up and look around. Look at me."

"What do you want?" he whispered. "What do you want me to do?"

I took his head and turned it toward me.

His eyes were open, but there was a faraway light in them, still lost in his dream, still in captivity.

"Hutch, talk to me. What's goin' on?"

"Thank you," he said as he looked at me. "Thank you."

I took his wrist and forcibly pulled his arm up in front of his face so he could see it.

"You're not chained in the closet anymore. Take a look around."

He looked around as if he were coming to, staring at his own hand.

"Come on," I said pulling him to his feet. "Come out of there."

The nightmare had left him as weak as a kitten. I helped him from the shower stall and to the bedroom, pushing him down onto the bed and covering him up, thinking that a change of location might help him relax.

"Thirsty," he whispered, and this time when he looked at me, he looked like he was fully awake and aware.

"I'll bring you some water."

I walked to the kitchen, got a glass of water, tossed in a couple of ice cubes, then carried it back to him.

He drank a couple of drinks.

"Thank you," he said again.

"Want anything else?"

He moved his head no.

"Want to tell me about your dream?"

"It's just…no. I'm okay. Just a dream. I thought…I was still there. I guess."

"Yeah."

I sat with him for a while, until he seemed to settle.

"Think you can sleep?" I asked him.

"I…I'll try. I didn't mean…to wake you."

"It's okay. I'll be in the living room. Let me know if you need me. Just call for me, okay?"

He nodded, then turned on his side to go to sleep.

"You're a good friend," he murmured as he unwound.

"You are too."

I sat on the edge of the bed until his breathing slowed and deepened, then went to the sofa, and this time we both stayed asleep until morning.

XXXXXXXX+

When I woke up the next morning, I wasn't exactly rested, even though I'd slept. I hadn't allowed myself to go deep enough for a real rest because I'd kept my senses halfway on alert for Hutch the remainder of the night. It was hard to relax when he was in such a condition. Sometimes it felt like I could feel what he was going through, though I guess that really couldn't be possible.

"Hey, Hutch!" I called when I rolled off the sofa and stretched. "You want me to make some breakfast, or do you want to go somewhere? Maybe Huggy's?"

Maybe he needed to get out, see the world a little.

Or maybe he didn't. Maybe it would make him retreat more.

I didn't really know the right thing or the wrong thing to do, so I had to play it by ear.

"You hear me?" I asked as I walked toward the bedroom.

I heard the shower come on, and knocked on the bathroom door.

"Morning!"

"Morning, Starsk!"

He had decided to take a shower. On his own. It was a start.

I went to the kitchen to start the coffeemaker, and when I passed by the table, looked down and saw that Hutch had written something in my spiral notebook, the one I kept for jotting case notes, phone numbers, grocery lists, doodles, all kinds of stuff.

Dear Robert,

I understand that you were trying to send a message and bring some attention to our broken system. And

My skin crawled with fear. For Hutch. For his mind. His soul.

And what?

What else was he going to say?

How could he think that way after what he'd been through?

I wanted to grab his shoulders, shake him, make him talk to me and answer questions, but I knew that wouldn't work in this situation. It would drive him farther away. I wanted to hug him, hold him, tell him there was nothing to be afraid of and that he was fine, but I knew he wouldn't believe me because it wasn't true. I didn't even believe it myself.

He came from the shower looking okay, and gave me a smile that had no warmth.

Robert and company had succeeded in stealing his spirit.

He saw that he had left the notebook open, and closed it.

"Did you say something about going out for breakfast?" he asked me as he pulled a dark brown T-shirt over his head to wear with his tan corduroys.

I tried to play it cool.

"Oh, yeah. Soon as I grab a shower too."

As cool as you could be while your best friend is slipping through your fingers.

XXXXXX+

I stepped over the yellow crime scene tape and into the charred, smoke-stained basement of the bookstore and looked around. Part of the room looked functional. The part that had a half-bath.

But all of it was bare, without a stick of furniture, a scrap of paper, piece of lint, strand of hair, or even a cigarette butt.

I saw where Conner, Fitz, and the investigation team had dusted for fingerprints.

They were right about no evidence. Someone had been diligent. Someone like a very experienced criminal or a very experienced cop.

Then my attention went to the only closet in the room, which drew me and repelled me at the same time. Each slow step toward it was a slow step away from it in my head.

I don't know what I expected when I opened the closet door. The place had been combed clean before the cops ever got there. Maybe I hoped to find something that would give me answers, something that would help my partner.

But the closet was bare too. Dark, smoke-stained like the outside. Nothing unusual about it. Nothing I could use.

The closet looked as empty as Hutch did to me, and the only thing it told me was what I already knew. That in this closet he had lived with terror and inhuman humans. I felt his fear and isolation in the close walls, the swept floor, the dark corners.

Suddenly it began to dawn on me what had happened; what was happening to him now.

The immaculate place. Not one clue.

It never occurred to me before because I never thought it could happen to Hutch, and I

hadn't encountered it personally before.

I went to the door, stepped over the crime scene tape again, then walked across the lot to the Torino where Hutch was still sitting in the passenger seat with the window down.

I went to his side of the car and crouched down.

"Hutch. If I'm ever gonna get them, you have to help me."

He sat with his head down, fingers rubbing his forehead.

"I can't."

I opened the door and took his arm to lead him out of the car, but he sat still.

"I told them how to clean the crime scene, Starsk."

My flash of insight was right.

Every tissue in my body and every cell in my brain wanted to rage for what it meant, but I had to bottle it.

"I know."

"They were…beginners. They didn't know what to do. Vigilante cops. It made sense. I could see what they were doing. I understood. I thought…"

"You thought they were gonna kill you, so you had to go along to stay alive."

"No. It was me. They didn't make me."

I held to his forearm, pulled it down so I could see him, tried to press love and understanding into his flesh.

"Yes. They made you. Every time they brought you water. Or loosened the chains. Or took you to the restroom. Or gave you a bite to eat. Or said you could live."

He looked at me with misery in his eyes.

"They wanted a list of criminals who had gotten off the hook, and I gave them some names."

"It was a survival tactic, Hutch. You wouldn't have done that if they hadn't…" The tears and emotion I had stuffed down in order to help him now rose to the surface. "…had you in that closet like an animal. I saw your note to Robert. Did you want me to find it? I know why you wrote it. Because you know they're still out there and could come back. You're still surviving. You're still scared. They controlled your life and death then. It's

not real sympathy you feel. You know what Stockholm Syndrome is. You explained it to me."

He moved his head no.

"I don't think I can turn them in."

"Hutch, you remember what it was like on heroin. You did things you didn't want to do. Said things you didn't really mean. You told them where Jeanie was, you begged for more needles. That wasn't your fault. This is like that. In time you'll understand."

"No. I'm guilty."

My heart broke. This wasn't Hutch talking. This was torture talking.

But at least the shell was broken and the truth was emerging, along with Hutch.

It would take a while for him to realize what I meant, but he would eventually recover.

XXXXXXXX

It was a flurry of activity.

Lawyers.

Internal Affairs.

Psychiatrists.

FBI.

Hutch's "confession".

His detailed report on Robert and the other kidnappers.

There were times when the lawyers would remind him that he had not kidnapped anyone and that anything that he had done while in captivity, he had done in self-defense.

There were times when the investigators treated him like an accomplice, and those were the times I stepped in and said, "Don't forget who the victim is."

There were times when the psychiatrists had to give him the definitions of torture and compassion.

There were times when I had to show him the difference between love and terror.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Identifying the kidnappers was pretty tough going. "Robert" probably wasn't even the guy's real name. Hutch had never been without the blindfold while he was in the closet, so he never saw his captors, he only heard them.

The only thing we could do was continue to investigate, and whenever there was the suspicious death of a rapist, child killer, or serial murderer, we got one step closer.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Hutch's recovery was slow but sure. He grew stronger, but still felt some guilt about cooperating with his abductors, even though they'd threatened to kill him if he didn't.

They'd kidnapped him because, basically, he was a cop, and they were looking for some inside information and allegiance. It could have been me, or Conner, or Fitz, or Glassman, or Dobey.

I would like to think that I'd have resisted, that I wouldn't have sympathized or gone along with them, but like Hutch said, I wasn't there. If it'd been me in Forest's hands instead of Hutch, the heroin would have forced me to talk too. Maybe it was because of Forest that Hutch was susceptible. A person never knows what they will or won't do until they're in a situation. You do what you have to do to survive. I bet I told Hutch that a hundred times. Cops are humans too. People can forget that.

I don't know how he survived as well as he did, because there were things he put in his report that he never told me about out loud. How one had made him stand for days at a time without rest until he collapsed, and then Robert would come in and help or force him to lie down. How his head would be dunked in a bucket of water until Robert came in to stop them. How one of them kept him bent over on his knees to decapitate him until Robert stepped in to prevent it. How they would bring one of their lowlife victims in and kill them just outside the closet, where Hutch could hear the screaming, the taunting, the rationale, and was told that the same thing would happen to his loved ones if he tried to escape.

XXXXXXXXXX

Then one day the news came that Robert and his friends had made the mistake of thinking they'd left a gangland boss by the name of Big Matt dead. But Big Matt survived and was given immunity in exchange for information on Robert and his band of concerned citizens.

Only, Robert and his guys didn't make it to trial. One of Big Matt's henchmen had them wasted while they were locked up.

I don't want to come off like Robert, but Big Matt did us all a really big favor in a

roundabout way. Especially Hutch. Because when he heard Robert and his boys were dead, he started to look, sound, and act like the old Hutch. A little guilt still remained, and sometimes he was a little too quiet and a little too pensive and standoffish, but it wasn't long before he was himself again.

The End

Life In The Key Of Hutch

By TLR

:::::::::::::

Day 1

:::::::::::::

One minute we were undercover schmoozers on Malcolm Lowery's yacht, this close to nailing him for a shipment of drugs he was bringing to the West Coast, the next minute I feel myself getting sick and dizzy from the drink his girl Gia served, and the next I find myself waking up from being dumped on one of his tropical islands.

I came to lying on the beach. All I could see around me was water, sand, and…tropical forest I guess. It was green and dense like a jungle.

When you wake up on a beach, say, like Playboy Island for example, you think, "Hey, I'll just relax and enjoy the scenery, then find the closest hotel and schedule a flight home."

But this was different. We had obviously been left here to die.

This was no ordinary island. Not one you'd find in a travel brochure.

There were no people, no hotels, no phones, no nothing. Unpopulated and probably uncharted. My keen powers of deduction told me he probably used it for private executions. Like this one.

I held my throbbing head as I turned it to look for Hutch.

By the way my stomach felt and the dizzy way my head swam, I didn't know if Lowery had meant for me to be dead when he dumped me, but it sure felt like it.

As for my partner, I didn't know what kind of shape he was in. Gia had served him a drink too, but I had no idea what happened to him after I blacked out.

He would have fought them after he saw me drop…if he could have…and if he did…if there'd been a struggle…they could have shot him, stabbed him, dumped him overboard...

"HUTCH!"

Yelling hurt my head, but I forced myself to sit up and look around. It was a beautiful island to look at, but it didn't feel beautiful. It felt menacing.

My gun and shoulder holster were gone, but I still had my clothes (ink-blue button shirt and white jeans-had to look cool for the yacht) and sneakers on.

I saw Hutch lying on his side at the edge of the water, half in, half out; some distance away from me, curled up like he was taking a nap. Too still.

"HUTCH!"

Headache forgotten, I scrambled over to him, tripping in the sand, lifting his head out of the water, feeling for a pulse in his throat, praying he hadn't drowned in just a few inches of water.

His pulse was there.

"Hutch. Wake up."

I smacked his face a little; brushed the sand from his cheeks. He was probably poisoned the same as I was, but it hadn't been that long since he'd been sick in the hospital with a killer virus, and he hadn't exactly rebounded to his fullest yet, so I didn't know how his body would handle the poison.

He groaned, and his eyes tried to flutter open, then he startled and tried to jerk away from me as if he didn't know where he was or who I was.

"No!" he yelled out. "No!"

He went for his gun, but they had taken it and his holster just like they had mine. At least he still had clothes and shoes. The heat and hot sand would be terrible without some kind of protection.

I held onto his head to make him look at me.

"Hutch. Open your eyes. Look at me. You're all right."

His eyes rolled a little, but finally opened and looked at me.

I smiled. Just seeing him alive made my heart jump.

He looked around same as I had, his voice weak and scratchy. His white T-shirt wouldn't stay white for long, and his black corduroys could get him pretty hot. I tied the shoestring of one of his black sneakers so he wouldn't lose it.

"Where are we?"

"Not on the yacht anymore. An island, but not exactly what I would call a vacation spot.

He thinks he overdosed us. We gotta find some way off this place."

He repeated my words in a dreamy voice as he looked around. "Off this place."

He tried to sit up; I helped him; letting him lean back against me until he could get his bearings.

He looked around like I had.

"Oh man," he groaned, and let his head fall into his hands. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Except for my head and my stomach."

"Me too."

He raised his head again, wincing, and we both looked around at our environment.

"I don't see any boats out there," I said as my eyes scanned far out into the horizon. "I think we're stuck."

"Dobey'll know something's up when we don't check in with an update."

"Yeah, but he won't know where we are. And Lowery will go underground. He's probably heading for one of his other, more inhabited islands right now."

I looked to my far left, where I saw a lonesome scatter of bones, including a human skull.

"Evidently we're not the first he's left here."

Hutch looked in the direction of the bones, then we helped each other to our feet and trudged over to the remains.

We crouched next to the skull and examined it; out of habit not touching it; just looking. It had a jagged hole in the top from a projectile, and as we peered inside, we could see a bullet in the sand beneath.

"There's one difference between this guy and us," he said as we climbed to our feet again. "He was probably dead when he was deposited here. We have a chance."

I looked around. "No food. No fresh water. No shelter. Where's the chance?"

Hutch looked around too, face still pale and sickly, but the wheels were turning.

"Well, we're surrounded by sea life and vegetation. That's a good start. We'll have to get creative with the shelter."

"And I thought camping was bad. This takes the cake."

He laughed a little, but I didn't think it was funny.

"Okay, Jack London, if you got any ideas about what we're gonna do, I'd like to hear 'em."

"See this water here?" he asked spreading his arm toward the water in front of us.

"Yeah."

"It's a lagoon. The water beyond it is ocean."

"What do we do for drinking water?"

"We'll have some if it rains."

"That's a big if. What about food?"

"We'll have some if we can find coconut trees and catch some fish."

"Another if. How we gonna catch fish without a rod and reel?" "We'll figure something out. If we had a net…"

"If again."

"Well, there's always spear fishing. Hand fishing."

"Have you ever done that before?"

"No, but now seems like a good time to learn."

"And what about shelter?"

"We'll have some if we use what we have around us."

"If."

"Maybe some branches, palms, big leaves, whatever we can find. We'll have to make some tools."

"Make tools?"

"What do you have on you?"

I looked down at myself and patted my pockets.

"My watch and wallet. Belt. That's about it."

He felt inside of his pockets.

"Pocket watch, penknife, and wallet."

"Penknife is good."

"Our first tool. Not as good as a Swiss Army knife, but it'll do in a pinch. We'll only use it in a have-to situation. It's no good to us dull."

"What's a have-to situation?"

"Self-defense."

I looked around. "From what, like, snakes?"

"No snakes here, Starsk."

"Man, that's a relief."

"Just sharks, eels, stonefish, sea urchins…"

"They can't crawl onto the island, can they?"

"Stay out of the water unless I go with you, okay? Some of those things are deadly. I'll show you what to stay clear of."

"You don't have to tell me twice."

"Come on, let's look around."

"Yeah, but, hey."

He looked at me. "What is it?"

I looked down at the skeletal remains. "Couldn't we uh…"

"Okay," he said as we crouched again and hollowed out a small pit for the bones, put them in, then covered them with sand.

I found a big shell the size of a football that I put on top to mark it.

"Maybe somebody will do the same for us someday," I said glumly.

"Starsk. We're going to make it. We have the will. We just have to find the way. Let's explore this place and see what we can do."

We started away from the makeshift grave, and Hutch suddenly stumbled sideways, going to his hands and knees.

"Hey," I said crouching next to him.

"Dizzy," he said closing his eyes. "What did he give us?"

"I don't know, but if you want to rest before we take a walk…"

"No," he said shaking his head and pushing himself back up. "I'll be all-"

He went to one knee again, then down to his side, where he started to gag into the sand.

"What can I do?" I asked as I kept his head off the ground.

He retched again, but nothing came up. His face was white and his eyes were glazing over.

"Too dizzy," he gasped squeezing his eyes shut again. "Can't get up."

I put his head back down and made sure he was lying on his side.

"It'll pass," he whispered with his hands over his eyes. "I hope."

I hoped too, because I didn't know what to do from here about anything on this island.

Looking at the distant sky, I saw storm clouds starting to roll in. "Terrific. We're gonna get soaked and you're gonna get pneumonia."

"It's rain water. We'll need it. We need something to catch it in." "Great. I'll just run over to the hardware store and grab a pail."

He laughed a little, then reached for my hand, clutching it.

I squeezed it, feeling even more helpless, yet even more determined to do something.

"Stay here," I told him. As if he could move at the moment. "I'll be back."

I started walking. Then running. Not sure of what I was looking for or what I was doing, but knowing I had to act. Hutch was right. The will to survive was the key to making it. I wasn't sure just where my will had been hiding since we landed on the island, but when he went down, I suddenly found it again.

Once again I was on a mission to save his life. Only this time I wasn't running the streets to help him, I was running on an island.

I ran a good distance when I saw what looked like an old wooden fishing boat with a hole in it. Looked like a rowboat, but bigger, about as high as my chest.

It reminded me of the skeletal human we'd buried. Weathered, broken, and forgotten—lost for eternity.

I ran up to it and looked in, hoping to find something useful, like a rod and reel, a tackle box, some flares, a lighter and matches.

No such luck. All I found was an empty coffee can, some deflated floats, a couple of old towels, a few rusty hooks, some fishing line, a big net, an old pair of broken reading glasses with one of the lenses missing. That's about it.

Hutch would be more interested in the smaller items. I was more interested in the boat itself. It was too wrecked to use for a boat, but if I turned it upside down and propped it up with strong sticks or something, it could be our shelter.

Hutch and I were relocating.

I'd have to go get him.

"Hutch!" I yelled as I ran back down the sand. The wind was starting to get strong, the clouds darker. My hair and clothes whipped around crazily.

He was still on his side, but curled up tight against the sand blowing against him.

"Here!" I said as I jerked him up. "I found a boat!"

He tried to hold on to me as we ran down the beach, the palm trees bending like spaghetti to our right, the water chopping around like hatchets to our left.

He was still dizzy, so I had to hold him up and keep him steady all the way.

"Can you help me turn the boat over?" I asked when we reached it.

The rain was starting; hard and fast. The wind almost knocked us off our feet. But the

boat was still here. It had obviously survived many storms. If we could just get under it, we could stay dry. It would be good for blocking the sun too, when we needed it.

"I think so," he said leaning over with his hands on his knees. But he didn't offer to move.

"Hutch! Come on!"

Fighting dizziness and the wind, he made his way over beside me at the boat. We rocked it, rocked it, rocked it, until, with help from the wind, it tipped over and we leaned it carefully against two trees.

I guess you would call it a lean-to. I pulled him under it, grateful for the immediate shelter. It reminded me of the weird tents me and Nicky made when we were kids. Sometimes we threw a blanket over the kitchen table and got under it, or leaned a big sheet of paneling or tin against a wall and crawled inside.

"Houseboat," I said as I pulled him close to my side.

I said it to make him laugh, but he didn't, and that really got to me.

The stuff in the boat had spilled out when we tipped it over, and it was scattered around us, so I scooped it up closer inside the hull to keep it from the wind and rain.

I found one of the old towels-more like a rag really-and put it around his shoulders. The rain was a little chilly, his teeth were chattering a little, and I didn't want him to get sick.

When the wind slacked off some, I set the coffee can outside to catch some rain.

The dark clouds were passing and the storm was dying out, but Hutch was still clinging to my shirtsleeve, forehead pressed into my shoulder like he was still fighting vertigo.

"Okay?" I asked him when the clouds had cleared and the sky was turning from gray back to blue again.

"No," he said with his eyes clamped shut. His other hand was on his stomach.

It always killed me when Hutch was hurting and I couldn't do anything about it.

If I could get him to a doctor, fine. Give him some medicine, fine. Use some first aid, fine. But I couldn't do anything for him here, and I hated the helpless feeling.

It wasn't long before his hand dropped away from my shirtsleeve and he was asleep.

I was glad. The storm was over and the sun was out.

I wanted to do some more exploring, but didn't want to leave him. If he woke up and found me gone from the boat, he would get worried and try to come look for me, and I didn't want him collapsing where I couldn't find him or help him.

So I just sat there with my arm around him while he slept, looking at the trinkets I had put in a pile.

There was more water in the coffee can than I thought there would be. Not a lot, but it was something to drink.

I slept too, dreaming about being on the yacht, and in my dream when I took the drink from Gia's hand, I hesitated before taking a drink, looked at Hutch, and we both set the drinks down at the same time, but when we looked at Lowery, he had a gun.

"Starsk! Look out!"

I jumped awake and opened my eyes, glanced around, realizing that it was only a dream, but also realizing that Hutch was gone.

"Hutch?" I asked as I scrabbled outside the boat and stood up.

It was dark, the stars were out, and it was by the light of the moon that I saw Hutch trudging into the water.

"Hutch!"

I ran after him.

"Hot," he groaned as he pulled his white T-shirt off and dropped it in the hip-high water.

I picked the shirt up and hastily stuffed it into my belt. We couldn't afford to lose anything.

"Hutch!"

He kept going; I kept chasing.

"Hey!" I said grabbing his arm. The water was waist-high now.

His arm was hot. I felt his face. Scorching with fever. Delirious, he didn't know what he was doing; all he knew was that he had to get cooled off somehow.

I helped splash some water on his face, poured some over his head. The water wasn't cold by any means, but it was cooler than his skin.

"Let's go back," I said leading him to shallower water.

He came without protest. Quiet, but more alert than he had seemed before.

We reached the beach and collapsed onto our back, just lying there panting up at the moon and stars.

One day.

We'd been here one day.

Somehow the night sky told me that this was going to be our home for a while, and it filled me with uneasiness.

"Hey," I said quietly in his direction. "We won't have a lot of food, so I think it's best we conserve our energy. You shouldn't run around and deplete yourself like that."

"Jack London," he murmured as he turned his head toward me.

My hand went to his forehead. His fever had broken.

"There's some stuff in the boat we can use, Hutch. I think. Maybe you can look at it tomorrow."

"Yeah," he whispered.

"How you feeling?"

"I'm not dizzy anymore."

"That's good."

"Stomach doesn't hurt."

"Neither does mine."

"Just a little hot and weak."

"Sounds like an improvement."

He closed his eyes, a soft laugh coming from him.

"I always wanted to sleep on the beach."

I laughed too.

"I hear you."

We were far enough away from the water. Almost back to the boat really.

Looking up at our new sky, sleeping under the stars in the sand didn't sound like such a bad idea.

There could have been a shark in the water, I thought as I drifted toward sleep again. It probably swam right next to us.

But it wasn't sharks I should have been concerned about. Hutch told me about the sharks.

But he hadn't said anything about the rats.

It was the middle of the night when I felt something crawling across my wrist.

I shook it off; thinking it could be a crab or something.

But then I felt the same thing going across my ankle, heard the squeak, and sat up.

The same two rats were nosing around Hutch's outstretched arm.

I kicked at the sand and chased them off, then pulled Hutch to a sitting position.

"Hutch. Rats."

He blinked sleepily and looked around.

"Huh?"

"Rats!"

I helped him up.

"Where did they come from?" I asked him.

"Boats, I would imagine."

The thought of rats roaming the island woke us both up.

"What do we do about 'em, huh?"

"Chase them away. That's all we can do. If one of them bites us…"

"The Black Plague was carried by rats."

"Starsk…"

"It's true."

"I know it's true."

"They can live up to five years."

"I don't want to think about being here for five years."

I felt my stomach churning. "Some people even eat them."

"Starsk!"

"It's true!"

"I know it's true!"

Suddenly I remembered our can of water, and ran toward the houseboat.

"Hey," he said as he shuffled after me.

I reached the boat and picked up the can of water, holding it to my chest as if it were a baby.

"What's that?" he asked as he joined me at the opening of the boat.

"Our water. I don't want them to contaminate it."

He looked around at the shelter I'd made.

"Good job, Starsk."

"Let's turn it right side up again. Rats can jump about three feet. We'll be safer if we sleep inside the boat. We'll only turn it upside down when it rains."

"Okay."

We pushed the boat back over, then I climbed inside.

"Hand me our stuff," I told him. "Then the water."

He did like I asked, then I helped him climb into the boat.

Being inside the boat already felt safer. Maybe they could climb up the side and maybe they couldn't, but I was going to make it as hard as I could for them to get to us.

I took a drink of the rain water, then handed it to Hutch so he could take a drink.

Extremely uncomfortable in my wet clothes, I peeled them off down to my shorts.

"See you in the morning," he said as he stripped down to his boxers too, then stretched out in the bottom of the boat and covered himself with one of the raggedy towels. He tossed me the other one.

I placed our clothes over the edge of the boat to dry, then stretched out in the bottom next to him.

"Yeah. Sweet dreams."

::::::::::::

Day 2

::::::::::::

The heat of the morning sun woke me up the next day, along with a sound outside the boat about a dozen yards away, near where the plants started. By plants I mean trees, bushes, foliage, all that green stuff.

Hutch was out of the boat. I stood up and looked around. He was still just wearing his boxers, and barefoot, but had his shirt tied around his head to keep the sun off.

He was busy. Whittling the ends of some sticks down to sharp points with his small penknife; the one his grandpop gave him.

"Morning!" I called to him.

He waved a stick at me, then kept on shearing.

The sun was beating down, so I wrapped my shirt around my head too, then pulled my pants and shoes on.

"What's that?" I asked as I climbed out of the boat and walked toward him, seeing his pile of about six saber-size sticks, and about four dagger-size ones.

"A weapon. If a rat gets too close…"

He stabbed the point down into the ground.

Impressed, I smiled.

"We can use them for tools too."

He had collected about four coconuts. He picked one up, wedged it between some jutting rocks on the ground, peeled the husk off, then dropped the nut back on the ground and stabbed a hole in it with the spear.

"See?"

Picking the coconut up with the spear, he said, "Coconut water has protein, vitamins, minerals, sugar, and some other good stuff. See these three dark spots? You poke a hole in two of them."

He set the coconut down to poke the second hole, then picked it up with his hands.

"Want a drink?"

I took it from him. "No straw?"

I lifted it and let it pour into my mouth, then watched him as he did a second one the same way and drank some himself.

It tasted good.

The third one he opened to scoop some of the inside out and handed it to me to eat.

The fourth one I picked up.

"We could throw this at a rat."

He grinned, then we sat down, leaned back against two trees, and ate some more coconut for breakfast.

We hadn't eaten anything the day before, and the poison had stolen our appetite, so now both of us were hungry again.

"I hope we don't have to make coconut shoes," I said. "But rugs are weaved from them, so that wouldn't be such a bad idea."

After breakfast, we decided to look around, so we both carried a spear into the forest, with Hutch pointing out all the plants. What was edible, what wasn't. What we could use them for.

He dug out some roots from one of them, and they were wet, so he squeezed the liquid into his hand and said, "This root juice is like one of my health drinks. Want to try it?"

"No thanks."

He sipped from his cupped hand, then said as he picked some leaves, "See this?"

"Yeah."

"Medicinal. Stonefish are the most venomous fish in the world. They camouflage, so it's easy to step on one. This leaf combats the poison. The venom causes pain, paralysis, shock, and tissue death."

"Thanks. I'll remember to wear my shoes in the water."

The storm had blown a lot of the branches down, so I thought they would make a good SOS signal.

We spent a while fashioning them on the beach. It seemed like a longshot, but we were determined to communicate to any plane that might fly over us.

When the sun was high in the sky, we were hungry again. We ate some more coconut and drank some more water; this time inside the boat where Hutch was checking out the paraphernalia. We both had our shoes off so our feet could get some air.

"I think we can start a fire with this," he said as he picked up a broken half of the glasses and popped the lens out.

"We don't have anything to cook, unless you want to roast coconuts."

He picked up the tangled fishing line.

"We need to catch a fish."

I picked up a rusty hook. "How about this?"

He picked up the netting and spread it out to look at it.

"Maybe this." He picked up one of the spears. "But I'll put my money on this."

We had options, but we didn't know if we'd catch anything.

I'd been fishing with Hutch before. Fish could be all around, but that didn't mean you could catch one.

"We'll try everything," he said. "Do whatever works."

My stomach growled.

"Think I'll go get some more coconuts," I said as I pulled my shoes on and hopped over the side of the boat.

I went to get them, thinking about all their different uses. Right now we were going to use them for food. But, depending on how long we had to stay here before we were rescued or found some way to get out, we could use them for other things, like bowls to eat out of, to catch water in next time it rained, or maybe to cook in if we could get a small fire going.

What we couldn't have was coconut pie or coconut cake. Unless Hutch had some weird recipe up his sleeve, and I would almost bet ten bucks that he did.

I didn't go too far into the greenery, because I didn't want to get lost. Since we'd been so busy making our SOS that day, we only had time to check out a small part of the island.

I got four coconuts and carried them back to the boat. Hutch was coming up out of the water with a smile on his face. In one hand he carried his spear with a big flat fish on the end of it, and in the other a couple of clams.

"Get some tinder!" he called to me. "We'll be eating a fish dinner in no time!"

Tinder. Tinder. Small bits to get a fire started, right?

I put the coconuts into the boat, then set about finding some tinder while he cleaned the fish. I gathered small fibers from one of the towels, some dry twigs and leaves, a scrap of paper I had in my wallet where I'd written a girl's number. The number was now smudged, but the paper was dry.

"This enough?" I asked as I crouched near the boat with the tinder cupped in my hands.

"We'll see," he said as he put the tiny pile into a hollowed-out coconut half and bent over it with the glass lens.

"What kind of fish is that?"

"Flounder. Why don't you go get some bigger pieces of wood to put on here for when this thing gets going. And get one of those big leaves to cook the fish in."

I ran back toward the trees, finding some loose sticks and weeds on the ground that seemed dry enough, plus a big leaf, then carried it all back.

There was a little bit of smoke rising from the tinder.

"Grab those other coconut halves. We'll cook the clams that way too."

I did what he said. He scooped the clams into the coconut.

He spoke in a whisper, as if our voices would extinguish the small flame.

"Put a little more wood on."

I bent down and added a few pieces at a time.

Soon there was a small fire going. Big enough to cook the fish and the clams.

When we could smell the aroma, we smiled at each other, and at that second I couldn't be prouder of what we had just done together.

It was so late when we ate, that it was more like dinner than lunch, but man, it was worth the wait.

The only thing wrong with the meal was the rats. We heard them scuttling around in the brush, and even saw a few darting across the sand. I tossed a coconut at them, but none of them got very close.

After we ate, we went exploring again, basically finding more of the same thing. Sand, green, and coconuts.

When nightfall came again, we weren't as disturbed as we were the night before. The poison was out of our system and we felt better. We had the boat to sleep in. We had food and knew how to get it. We had tools and weapons. We had each other.

::::::::::::

Day 3

::::::::::::

On the morning of the third day, I woke up first and looked around, hoping the island had all been a dream and I was at home in my own bed.

The novelty of our survival skills was starting to wear off, and reality began to gnaw the truth in my ear: Hutch and I could get by, but how long would we be here, and what would happen to us?

I didn't want to start any routines in this place. A routine almost felt like we were giving into it, or were getting used to it; and I didn't want to get used to it.

But I still found myself thinking that way anyway. I woke up and started cracking

coconuts for breakfast. That would be the routine until we left.

It was a sobering thought, bordering on depressing.

I looked out over the water, hoping to see a boat, but there was nothing. There were no other islands in sight. We hadn't heard any airplanes.

I kept telling myself it was just temporary. That Dobey and Huggy would somehow find out where we were and come after us, or send somebody after us.

After our coconut breakfast, Hutch started plaiting some leaves together for plates, and for screens to keep the sun out.

"We should save all of the clam shells, Starsk. We can use them for dishes."

His thoughts were about how we were stuck and had to make the best of it, while mine were on finding a way to get out of here.

I started to pace around. As I watched him weave, I said, "Couldn't we make some kind of raft?"

"Sure we could, but we don't know where we are or where to go. We could drift forever and end up as shark food, or a storm could wipe us out and we'd drown."

"So much for that idea."

He stopped braiding and looked at me. "I want to get out of here as badly as you do, but we can't leave without a plan, and right now we don't have one."

"I don't like just…sitting here."

"We're not just sitting here. We're living. Doing things. What else could we be doing? We got an SOS on the ground."

"You can accept it if you want to, but-"

"Starsky!"

Okay. Here we go. The adventures of Robinson Crusoe weren't so romantic anymore.

He lowered his voice and looked down at his leaves again.

"You're scared, Starsk. I'm scared. But we're in this together. We're stuck right now. All we can do is wait for help. And while we wait, we keep busy. We keep doing. That's not surrender. That's surviving. My idea of it anyway."

I watched his busy head. Two days ago he was in very bad shape. I thought I was losing him. But he pulled through and kept both of us alive. And here I was arguing with him about something we had no control over or didn't ask for. I didn't want to think about how I'd handle the island without his help, or how I could keep the will to live in this place if something happened to him.

Two days ago, when he was sinking fast, I didn't let him quit. Today he wasn't letting me quit.

He was right. We really were in this together.

I sat down with him and held my hand out. "Show me how to do that."

::::::::::::::

Day 7

::::::::::::::

By the seventh day, we realized that eating fish was a luxury, because, even though we were surrounded by them, it wasn't so easy catching them no matter how hard Hutch tried.

We lived mostly on coconuts. Neither of us complained out loud, but every day he went into the water to try to get a fish. Sometimes we got lucky, and sometimes we didn't.

Something else we realized too, was that we were running out of tinder materials. It was hard finding small bits of stuff that was dry enough to burn; and just when he had caught a lobster on the end of his spear too.

We looked at each other, pained. We had dropped a little weight the past week, so we really needed a good meal to keep our energy up. Plus it would just taste real good. But we had no tinder.

And then we thought of something at the same time.

"Money," we said together, and we went to the boat to get our wallets.

We both looked through our wallets to see what we had, both of us smiling that we had found some tinder to keep us going.

"Let's start with the small bills," I laughed as I took out a one-dollar bill. "Work our way up. Then if we run out of money, we'll have to start chipping away at the boat."

That night we had a tasty lobster dinner.

:::::::::::::

Day 10

::::::::::::::

On day ten I went back into some bushes to take a leak. I could hear the rats scurrying around, and when I looked over in their direction, I saw something I'd never seen before on the island. Something they were dragging around.

Bananas.

I chased the rats away, then picked up a good-looking banana and yelled Hutch's name as I ran back to the boat to show him.

He was sharpening some smaller sticks.

"Look!" I said waving it in the air.

He looked at me like I was a crazy man, then his mouth opened when he saw what it was.

"Oh man!" he said getting to his feet.

I broke the banana in half and handed his portion to him.

"Don't worry," I said as we munched. "The rats didn't nibble on it or anything."

We stood there savoring our piece of fruit, then went in search of banana trees.

:::::::::::::

Day 14

:::::::::::::

By the second week, we were finding ways to lighten our mood. We spent most of our time trying to get food, but sometimes it was so tedious we just had to break the routine.

Tic tac toe in the sand. Checkers with little seashells. Sometimes we even passed a coconut back and forth when our energy was up.

At night when we were going to sleep in the boat, we took turns humming or singing songs and guessing the titles or the singer, or play guessing games with historical facts. And sometimes we just talked. About what could be going on back home, with our families and friends, with Dobey and Huggy.

Two weeks was long enough for everyone to know that something had happened to us. Dobey would have assigned detectives to the case and would have an APB out on us and Lowery. Huggy would be chasing down his own leads. Nelson Hutchinson would be

hiring private investigators, and Ma and Nick would be worrying their heads off and calling Captain Dobey every day.

::::::::::::

Day 30

::::::::::::

Since our discovery of bananas was accidental, we decided to try to cover as much of the island as we could, to see what other food sources we could find.

There were birds, but we couldn't catch them. Some bugs, but we had other stuff to eat.

Since we had a steady supply of coconuts and bananas, we spent more time trying to catch fish than anything else.

Usually Hutch did the fishing. He was good at it, and fast. But at the end of our fourth week there, I was feeling bored and a little guilty about Hutch doing all of the fishing, so I decided to go out in the water with a spear of my own to see if I could catch one, hoping to increase our chances of another fish dinner.

Hutch was busy mashing up some bananas and coconut for some kind of pudding he was trying to make, so I thought it was only fair to try to help him out.

Flounder was pretty easy to catch, but they were nowhere around when I ventured out.

I waded out to see what else I could find, wearing my sneakers to protect my feet like Hutch did. Maybe I'd find some clams. Another lobster.

As beautiful and tempting as the lagoon was to swim in, we didn't. If one of us got hurt or stung, there was no ambulance to call, no First Aid kit to use, no emergency room to visit.

The water was a food source; a nice view; a place to cool off or wash something; but that was all.

The sky was darkening in the distance, so I had to hurry. We'd want to eat a fish dinner before a storm hit, but as fast as those clouds were moving toward us, I didn't think there would be enough time.

Hutch's "Starsk! Get out of the water!" confirmed it, so I turned and hurried back to shore.

The wind was already starting to pick up and whip our clothes around.

Hutch's hair, now bleached white by the constant sun, was waving all over.

It started raining the second I reached the beach, so I ran, and it was pouring by the time I got to the boat. The wind blew everything out of the boat and carried it away down the island.

"What the-"

I started to go after our stuff. All the stuff we'd worked hard to find and save and store. All the little things that kept us going. The lens, the spears, our bananas and coconuts, the utensils and dishware. Our wallets, coffee can, and towels. All our stuff! But he grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

"Forget it!" he yelled over the wind. "This is going to be a bad one!"

I managed to snatch onto the only thing left, and that was the fishing net. Lucky we had our clothes and shoes on, or they'd be gone too.

Without discussion, we turned the boat upside down and propped it against two trees and got under it, but it blew away too, and broke up into scattered pieces down the shore.

Our shelter. Safety and security. Hutch and me had always talked about finding a little place to hang out in. Well, we had, and now it was gone.

The wind was blowing us around. I didn't know what to do except clutch onto the net, then grabbed onto Hutch.

We tried to walk, but the wind wouldn't let us. Tree branches and brush flew all around us. I even saw a few rats bouncing past like little tumbleweeds.

The rain beat down, and it felt like the wind was sucking the breath from our lungs.

The sky was getting so dark it looked like night. It looked like death coming.

Hutch yelled something to me, but I don't know what. His voice was lost in the wind.

Everything was rolling, flying, or bouncing away. The trees swayed; some bent and cracked; some were uprooted. The rain hit in torrents. I don't know how hard and fast the wind was blowing, but I'd never been in anything like this in my life, and I knew Hutch hadn't either.

I caught a look at his face, and he looked trapped, like he didn't know what to do, and that wasn't good. He always knew what to do.

He pulled me to the nearest tree, both of us staggering and pushing through the wind, took the flapping net from my hand and wound it around us and the tree, then did the same with our belts; basically tying us to the tree.

When that was done, we wrapped our arms tight around each other, put our heads down so we could breathe and keep stuff from hitting our faces, and held on for our lives, waiting for the storm to pass.

We couldn't speak to each other, but I have a feeling our thoughts were of the same thing:

Home, family, friends. How we didn't want to die.

It felt like the storm lasted for hours, but it was probably just minutes. Then it finally started to let up. The wind slacked off, the rain got lighter, and the water got calmer.

Hutch didn't unbuckle our belts until the wind died down to a safe level, but when he did, we both dropped to the sand like a couple of felled trees ourselves, worn out and sore.

It was still afternoon, but we both found ourselves falling asleep right there on the spot, clutching each other's shirtsleeves like we could still blow away.

We would have slept into the night, I think, if it hadn't been for the rats.

They were going nuts with running and squeaking; brave enough, or scared enough, to get closer to us than they ever had before.

The storm had really stirred them up.

I got up, then helped Hutch up. We held our stomach and chest from where we were bruised by the belts and the tree.

"Come on, Hutch, we got company."

We watched the rats running to and fro, tried to chase them back into the bushes, but they were just flitting around like they didn't know which way to go.

Besides the rats, we had other problems, mainly our demolished houseboat and our missing stuff.

A lot of it could be replaced, like the food and the dishes. But the lens that we used to make fire was gone, and so was the cash we used to start it. We could search forever and not find it.

The island looked like a nightmare. Trees broken, uprooted, pools of water, branches, leaves, coconuts, bananas scattered everywhere.

"How we gonna keep away from the rats now?" I asked him.

He looked around. Always looking for solutions. He found a couple of sticks, handed me

one, and kept one for himself. Then he picked up the fishing net and walked over to two trees, tied an end of the net to each one, and made a hammock about four feet off the ground.

"You sleep here," he said tightening the knots as hard as he could and testing the strength of the net. Then he climbed up into the fork of one of the trees and leaned back. "I'll sleep here. We'll do the best we can."

::::::::::::::

Day 31

::::::::::::::

The hammock worked just fine. Hutch slept okay, but he was sore when he woke up the next day.

We were really quiet that day. Not scared. Just sort of…stunned, by all the devastation and the losses. In shock I guess.

We ate a coconut for breakfast, banana for lunch, and Hutch didn't even try to go fishing.

I think he felt worse than I did about losing everything.

"Hey," I said with a shrug. "We had nothing when we got here. We just start over, huh?"

He just flopped back onto the sand on his back and stared up at the blue sky. Beautiful today. Treacherous yesterday.

He wasn't in the mood to talk, so I did.

"Still got the penknife, right?"

He nodded.

"Can't we make fire by rubbing sticks together? When everything dries out, I mean?"

He nodded again.

"And we got some more rain water," I added. "Puddles of it."

He nodded a third time.

I started to get up, but he snatched my wrist and said, "Did you hear that?"

I listened.

"Yeah, rats."

"No. Listen."

I did, and yes. I heard a noise far away.

"Sounds like a plane," we said at the same time.

We both got to our feet. Even though we couldn't see a plane, we waved our arms around like it could see us.

"Our SOS blew away," I said.

"Let's get some branches and make another one," he said, and we ran like crazy men to scoop up some branches that had broken and blown down in the storm.

It took just a few minutes to make a new SOS, and we stood next to it waving our shirts in the air.

"Come on, whoever you are," I said out loud. "Be for us."

If we had the materials to start a fire, we could make a big one, and maybe the pilot would see it, or see the smoke.

But everything was soaked. Nothing would burn today.

The sound got closer, and we realized the sound was a helicopter, not a plane. We could see it as it flew closer.

"Hey!" we yelled up to the sky as we kept waving our shirts and moving around.

He pulled his pocket watch out and tried to catch the sun's reflection to send a signal.

The helicopter grew closer and closer. They were coming for us. We were gonna get out of here.

When it lowered down to hover over the water, I just stood there staring at it like I was caught up in a dream.

Hutch had to pull me along, and we ran through the lagoon for the last time, pulling our shirts on.

The chopper was really waiting for us. It wasn't going to fly away without us.

"Boy!" Hutch said over the noise of the helicopter as he climbed in and shook the pilot's

hand. "Are we glad to see you!"

He turned to pull me in, and I climbed inside, happy to see two medics waiting there to check us out, but feeling a twinge of guilt for leaving the skeletal remains of Lowery's victim behind.

"Hey!" I said as I grabbed the pilot's shoulder. "Can you wait a second?"

Hutch stared at me as I jumped back down into the water, then when he saw me running over to the grave marker, hurried to help me dig up the bones and then put them into a blanket he'd gotten from the medical supplies.

We made sure the bullet was included.

I carefully folded the blanket up around the remains like a knapsack, then headed back to the copter, trying to carry it in a way that avoided breakage of the bones.

Hutch got in first, and I handed the remains to him before I climbed back in.

"Okay!" I said to the pilot. "We're ready."

We didn't know it then, of course, but the remains turned out to be those of a cop from Mexico who'd been after Lowery months ago. Devante Rosales.

Not only would Hutch and I nail the gangster for trying to murder the two of us, we were going to nail him for this cop too.

:::::::::::::::

The medics said we were okay. Dehydration and weight loss, but okay. We drank some water on the helicopter, excited to be going home.

::::::::::::::::

They were waiting for us at the airport. Dobey, Huggy, Mr. Hutchinson, Ma, and Nick.

Mr. Hutchinson grabbed onto Hutch, and I grabbed onto Ma and Nick, and then Hutch's dad pulled us all into a big hug.

::::::::::::::::

We were newsworthy, but all we wanted to do was get to a hotel room for a shower, shave, and a change of clothes. After that we all visited together in Mr. Hutchinson's big suite. We were served a nice big meal, but for some reason I wasn't that hungry. Hutch tried to eat a little, but he didn't have much of an appetite either. We ended up drinking

some water and eating a few crackers.

We told Dobey everything we knew, and he told us how Huggy had gotten close to Gia and learned what had happened.

That night after everybody went to their own room to go to sleep, I stepped out into the hall to find Hutch coming out of his room too.

I think he wanted to talk. I did too. But we didn't. Being in the hall at the same time must have said what was on our minds. We just said "Goodnight" to each other and went back into our rooms.

::::::::::::::

When we got back to Bay City, I realized I felt differently about the world as the days passed. Trivial, tangible things now had little or no meaning. Family, friendship, time, and love were the precious things. I always knew it, but now I felt it.

I valued food more, but didn't necessarily eat more of it. More of a spiritual thing. No wasting. I was more open to different things. Took advantage of new experiences. Acted more on my curiosity. I liked my apartment more. Home. Shelter. Thought about other people out on the streets not having one or losing one the way Hutch and me had lost our houseboat. Even clothes meant more. Not in a materialistic way, but in an appreciative one. I spent more time photographing these meaningful things too.

As for how it changed Hutch, I could see that he became more philosophical about life, more protective of me, more daring in dangerous situations, and less worried about things like getting rejected by a woman, or making a mistake, or things not going as planned.

When it comes to both of us, I didn't think anything could bring us any closer. We've been through some pretty hairy times. They say stressful situations creates bonding. Well, this one is near the top of the list, and we do have a stronger bond than ever before, in the areas of respect, patience, and understanding.

I was never one to take life for granted, but our time away opened my eyes to view it through another lens. When you're thankful to have a ratty old towel for a cover, and a piece of glass to help you have a meal, and a best friend who shows you what love and loyalty are, you know what life is all about.

The End