For Brook – my best friend.

A Prayer in the Dark – by Kirsty Welsh

Disclaimer – I don't own them and I don't make any money from them, but sometimes they like to come out to play.

Chapter 1 - NOTE THIS IS NOT A DEATH FIC!

The spark glowed red in the early morning heat. It was a cheery colour that belied the devastating effect it would soon have on the surroundings. For the past week, the Californian sun and hot Santa Anna winds of over 50 miles per hour had fanned the flames of the wildfires around Bay City, giving the heroic fire fighters more than a small job to do. Day and night, the fire tenders, helicopters and every rescue vehicle available rushed to and from the edge of the fires, battling, cajoling, sometimes winning and sometimes losing another few hundred yards to the all consuming flames.

The newscaster said there was nothing to worry about. The man sitting in his comfortable air conditioned television studio, said that the worst of the fire was over and that pretty soon, things in the city would be back to normal. The nice newscaster said that hundreds were left homeless but that there had been minimum fatalities.

Until that moment. That moment when the cheery red ember found its way onto the shingles of the apartment.

A fluke, they'd said afterwards. A one in a million chance of the ember flying so far from the seat of the fire. Such bad luck that it was still hot enough when it landed that it had immediately ignited the dust dry shingles. Amazing bad fortune that the fire took such a ferocious hold in so short a time. And who could believe just how long the Speedwagons had taken to get to Ridgeway to begin to fight the inferno.

Hutch was roused from his sleep by the insistent ringing of his telephone. With a groan, he made a mad, uncoordinated grab for his bedside clock and stared angrily at the numbers. 4:48! Who the hell?

By the side of him, his girlfriend of almost three months snuggled further into his side. Sue was a sweet girl. She was just what Hutch needed after his long term relationship with Abby came to an end and she was like balm to his soul. At 5'5" tall, with long blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, she was almost a carbon copy of Abby, but where Abby had been quick to argue and equally quick to back down, Sue was calm, cerebral and cute. Three weeks ago she'd moved in with him and had made herself right at home. Unlike other girls Hutch had dated, Sue was happy with his job, didn't snipe when he couldn't make dinner and had no problem sharing her man with one David Michael Starsky, Hutch's partner of over ten years. It was refreshing for the blond not to have to explain his every move to a girl and the couple relaxed into the relationship as though they'd been married for years.

Very carefully, Hutch eased his arm from underneath the sleeping woman, sat up and swung his legs out of the bed as he reached for the telephone. Jamming it to his ear, he snapped into the receiver.

'Starsk, so help me if this is….'

Hutchinson!'

Hutch stopped mid sentence as his Captain's voice sounded down the telephone. Now with his nerves on high alert, the blond calmed himself to listen. Dobey never rang during the night unless there was an emergency, that was a known fact. Sure over the past couple of days with the wild fires getting steadily closer to the city limits, there had been crisis talks about what they would do if the Bay City Jail had to be evacuated, but the fires were dying down, weren't they?

'What is it Cap'n?'

'Hutch…..son. Um, you should probably get over to Starsky's apartment, right now.'

Fear clutched at Hutch's heart as his mind jumped through hoops trying to envisage why his Captain should be calling to tell him about his partner.

'Why?'

'Just do it Hutch. And um… hurry, huh?'

'Hurry? Why? What's happened? What are ya tellin' me?' Hutch said a little louder into the phone. His heart was racing now and beside him, Sue stirred and rolled over on the bed.

'It's um…. There's been an outbreak of fire. No-one knows why it hit his house and none of the others – just bad luck they're sayin' but….it um…. Just get over to Ridgeway quick. I'll meet you there.'

Dobey put the phone down and Hutch was left staring at the receiver. He'd never known his boss sound quite so rattled and it sent a chill of fear down his spine. Sue reached up and put her hand on his shoulder.

'What's the matter honey?' she asked.

'It's…it's. That was Dobey. He says there's been a fire on Starsky's street. He says I should….. should get there now.'

'Oh my God, Hutch! Can I help? What can I do?'

Hutch shook himself, running his fingers through his sleep mussed hair. 'I dunno. He didn't say if Starsk was ok or not. He didn't say anythin', he just…. I have to go Hon.'

'Yes, of course you do. Oh my God, poor Starsky. I should go down to the emergency shelters. I might be needed there' Sue said, getting herself out of bed.

Hutch had been amazed at his girl's stamina. During the holocaust of the past weeks, Sue had worked tirelessly at her day job of photographer at a local magazine, and in the evening at the emergency shelters put up for those unfortunates who had been made homeless by the fire. Sometimes it would be two or three o'clock in the morning before she was coming home to catch a few hours sleep, before getting up to go to the studio again in the morning.

The woman started to get dressed as she watched her man mechanically shouldering into his tee shirt. 'Just go, Hutch. Go see to Dave huh? He might need you.'

'Um…. Yeah, thanks Hon. I'll um…. I'll be back soon, I promise. Don't work too hard, ya hear? You do too much. You're too caring, that's your problem.'

Sue smiled at her man as the flaxen haired cop pulled on his holster, checked his gun and added a light jacket to conceal his weapon. Hutch never went anywhere without his Colt.

'Just go' she said, coming around the end of the bed to take his face in her hands. She kissed him lightly on his lips. 'Be careful, Hutch. I hate these fires. They do so much damage, and hide so many dangers.'

'I'll be fine' he assured her. 'I just need to find out what the deal is with Starsk.'

'I know he'll be ok. He'll be safe' Sue murmured.

'Yeah, he's probably got nothin' more than a blister' Hutch agreed, but without any conviction in his voice. 'See ya later.'

Closing the door behind him, Hutch raced for his car, got in and slammed the mars light onto the roof. With his sirens blaring, he snickered to himself, thinking what his partner would say when he arrived in record time and with lights and two tones proclaiming his arrival. He drove smoothly and automatically, rerunning Dobey's words in his head as he went, looking for any further clues that might tell him whether his curly haired buddy was ok or not. The sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that he was right to worry. Starsky was not the luckiest guy in the world when it came to keeping safe. He seemed to be a bullet catcher extraordinaire and more than one flake they'd arrested over the years had heaped retribution of the most painful kind onto the brunet. No, if anything was going to happen to anyone, Hutch could bet his bottom dollar that it would happen to Starsky. He set up a little prayer in his head. Please not this time, please not this time. Please let him be ok, as if the mantra, chanted for long enough, would somehow protect the sable curled cop.

As Hutch rounded the corner of Ridgeway, however, he realised that all his hopes had been in vain.

He drove down the street of houses that seemed untouched by fire, until he slammed his breaks on at the end of the road, brought up short by two fire tenders and a host of fire fighters.

Starsky's apartment was decimated. It stood a burning, soot blackened wreck, drenched by the water from the hoses aimed still in its direction. Smoke billowed up into the early morning air and there was a smell of charred wood and acrid steam lying heavily on the morning breeze.

Hutch flung open the door of his car, almost falling over himself in his rush to get to his partner. He ran towards the smoking wreck and would have charged up what was left of the steps had a soot blackened fire fighter not stopped him. The blond felt a strong arm round his waist and tried to shrug it off.

'STARSKYYYYY' he yelled at the smouldering building. 'STARSK….Starsky!'

'You can't go in there Sir. It's unsafe' the fire-fighter told him, still struggling to hold onto the desperate blond.

'No, you don't understand. My partner….my friend he's….. this is his house' Hutch pleaded.

'I'm sorry' the man said quietly.

'What? Sorry?... you got him out, right? He got out ok? He's…..'

A solid black figure walked towards him and took over holding him as the fire-fighter went back to his task. Hutch looked down into the face of his Captain. 'Hutch, you better come with me' the black man said softly.

'No, I need to get to Starsk….. I need to…. Where is he? Where's the meat wagon? Is he hurt? Is he in the hospital? Oh my God, I have to get there. I have to…. ' Hutch clamped his mouth closed as he saw the pain on Dobey's face.

'Son, just come over here an' sit down for a while huh?'

'I have to be with Starsk…. he hates fire, almost as much as he hates snakes. Where's he gone? Where did they take him? Ya know he hates the hospital too. Is he at Memorial? Is he a….' Hutch looked around him wildly, babbling nonsense in his fear. There were still eight or nine hoses trained on the house and as he watched, the first floor crumbled and sagged and then toppled as if in slow motion towards the ground. The blond let out a strangled sob. 'He's not….'

Dobey steered Hutch to his car, opened the door and waited while the flaxen haired cop collapsed onto the seat.

'Someone raised the alarm as soon as they saw it, but by the time the firemen got here, it was too late. The fire had already gotten a hold and they couldn't do anything. Hutch, son. I'm sorry' Dobey said, his voice breaking with emotion.

Slowly, Hutch looked up, his face white and his hands shaking uncontrollably. 'They got him out, right?' he asked, bracing himself for the answer,

They found his body, still in the bed. They battled through the flames to get to him Hutch, but he must have died from the smoke. By the time they got there it was….. Well, he was unrecognisable' the captain said gently.

The tall blond cop crumpled against the seat of the car, his hands up to his face to block out the world – a world devoid of a curly haired partner. 'Starsk…. oh my God, Starsky, nooooo.'

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

'What the fuck? Oh my god! Noooo, Oh Jesuuuuuuus' the raw voice called out into the blackness.

Starsky braced himself for the next pain, unsure why he was being punished, or by whom. The only thing the brunet knew for sure was that it hurt. And it had been hurting for almost as long as he could remember.

He'd been happily tucked up in bed when this started. He'd dropped Hutch off at his house, had joked about the blond's domestic life and how he was beginning to behave like an old married man, and then had returned home for supper and an early night. They had a hectic couple of weeks, the looting on the streets becoming more prevalent as the fires consumed parts of the surrounding countryside. At 10:30, he'd decided he'd had enough of The Three Stooges as he could handle for one night, had turned off the television and had headed for bed.

Starsky prided himself on being able to sleep anytime and anywhere and he'd been in the land of nod almost before his head touched the pillow. A little too readily, he thought now, realising that either the Cola or maybe even the pizza ad been drugged somehow.

So sound asleep was he that he didn't hear the three men come into his room. He didn't hear two of them huffing and puffing as they carried the third and he didn't hear them as they pounced on him in his bed, stuffing a gag into his mouth and binding his wrists and ankles together. For added measure, they then bent his knees up behind him and secured wrists to ankles so that he was hogtied and unable to put up any fight at all.

He tried to yell at them through the gag in his mouth, his nostrils flaring as he sucked in breath and he had just enough time to see them put another, seemingly unconscious body into his bed before they pulled a blindfold over his eyes and he smelled the smell of gasoline heavy in the air. Starsky felt himself being carried out and dumped into the truck of a car. From then on, things had gone steadily down hill.