Long Way Home

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After Gunther, they become lost. Can they find each other again?

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Somewhere in Montana
Present Day

The television was on.

Not that it really made much of an impression as he reached for the bottle the bartender had left near his glass. Nothing else made an impression either at that point: not the early evening influx of cowboys and construction workers who were looking for a little alcoholic help to unwind, not the increasing haze of cigarette smoke that seemed to obscure the already dim neons and overhead lights, not even the rather large man who seemed to have to make a damn production of climbing onto the bar stool next to him.

It didn’t matter.

None of it.

He watched the last of the liquor fall into the glass, with a strange fascination as the volume on the television intermittently drifted into his hearing.

“…And in National news, there has been yet another abduction of a celebrity’s child today. Sixteen-year-old Laura Lynn Hutchinson, daughter of internationally renowned model, Catrina, was reportedly abducted from the bedroom of a friend’s house late last night. New York correspondent Art Goldman has the story…”

Midway through downing the drink he froze, his blue eyes moving to the television screen that was now filled with images of his ex-wife, grief stricken and running a gauntlet of reporters on her way out of a New York City police precinct. He watched in disbelief as that footage was interchanged with various pictures of a smiling, blue-eyed, blond-haired girl he couldn’t help but recognize. “Laura,” he whispered, nearly falling off the stool in his astonishment.

All of a sudden the words being said were muffled, incoherent. He couldn’t understand what was being said, but even in his drunken stupor he couldn’t help but recognize the mother and the daughter and his hand inadvertently released the glass from his hand.

“Hey!” The bartender exclaimed as the glass fell to the bar surface and shattered into jagged pieces, spilling liquid and fragments over a sizable spans of bar surface in front of him.

He blinked as the news story ended, reluctantly returning his attention to the bartender as if being pulled out of a dream.

“Dammit, what are you doing man?! You’re on in ten mi…jeezus, man! Will you get your hand outta that?! You’re bleedin’ worse than a stuck pig…all over my bar!”

He looked down and saw his right hand, still in position for holding a glass, covered with rivulets of blood that were dripping steadily onto the bar.

“Are you listening to me?!”

A slow sigh escaped the man’s lips and he carefully extricated himself from the bar stool. Without saying a word to either the bartender or the surprised customer beside him, he started for the door, his red-rimmed, sunken eyes misting over slightly.

He vaguely heard the bartender calling his name, but he didn’t care. Barroom singers came a dime a dozen. He knew the old man would get over his conniption and move on with his life.

The problem was…could he?!

After all, it’d been a long time that he’d turned to the bottle for solace, to drown his sorrows, to numb his pain. He wasn’t the same man anymore; hadn’t been in a very, very long time. He’d come a long way, that was for sure. A long way to nowhere.

He swallowed and made his way to the door, not looking back as he stepped out into the slightly chilly Montana twilight. He stood on the dilapidated porch of the equally dilapidated building and reached into the pocket of his oversized, well-worn trenchcoat, crushing out a cigarette as he looked around the dirt lot filled with cars that had seen better decades, let alone better days. He hadn’t planned on having to leave so soon, thinking he could pick up a clunker sometime later in the month when he hitched a ride into town.

He sighed and with his free hand, ran a hand through his thinning hair.

The nearest town to this joke of a bar was a good 30 miles away. Even on his best day, anymore, he couldn’t hoof that far and hitching at night…along this stretch of highway…what were the chances he’d get picked up? Hell, he thought, even if he did, with his luck it’d be some nutcase, like that time outside of Akron.

I’m getting too old for this shit, he thought as he threw the cigarette to the porch and used the heel of his boot to crush it out.

“Hey, cowboy…”

He turned around slightly when he saw a woman in the doorway behind him, a doe-eyed blonde who looked no older than his daughter.

Laura.

He blinked a moment. “You talkin’ to me?”

She laughed, her crimson painted lips curving upward easily. “You see anybody else out here? Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you. Barney told me to give you these.”

He watched in astonishment as she handed him his guitar and his duffel bag. “I guess he wants you outta here,” She went on, looking up at him curiously. “You, uh…you got a ride into town?”

He was silent for several moments. “No. As a matter of fact I don’t…”

She laughed. “Didn’t think so. Barney said you was a drifter all right. Come on. My truck’s just over there.” She gestured toward where a battered cream-colored Ford pickup sat and started to walk toward it, but seemed to sense his reluctance and paused, turning around to stare at him. “Well? You gonna stand there and stare at me all night or are you gonna get in, Pops?”

“Um, well…uh…listen, I…uh…do you…do you always go around asking strange men if they want rides?!”

She sighed and thrust her hands on her denim clad hips. “Only the ones who look like they need one. Look, mister, I ain’t a fool. I can take care of myself. ‘Sides…” She smiled again and her eyes sparkled mischievously. “I figure a fella who has to ask me that, ain’t gonna give me no hard time.”

He had to admit…she had a point.

But as he reluctantly followed her to the truck, and as he started sobering up a bit, a horrendous thought hit him full force:

This could have been Laura.

********

New York City
Present Day

“Looks like a cold one out there tonight,” A familiar voice penetrated his thoughts as he stood at the window, his blue eyes gazing out into the burgeoning nightfall with a strange wistfulness.

He smiled slightly, felt a gentle hand on his arm, but remained where he was. “Sure does,” he replied quietly after a moment, not really sure how else to respond.

More silence before he felt her head lean tentatively against his upper arm. “David, talk to me, please. You’ve been so distant these past couple of days. What’s going on with you?!”

He swallowed. She was right, of course. He had been distant. Very distant. After all of this time, he thought, shaking his head slightly. Still lettin’ it get to me, partner. Still lettin’ it get to me.

Still.

He drew in a breath and straightened, slowly turning around to gaze down at the concerned face of his companion. He smiled again and cupped her face in his hands. “Don’t worry about me, honey, okay? I’m fine.”

She wasn’t convinced. “David, I know you’re not fine. I’ve known you long enough to know when you are and when you aren’t fine.”

He laughed slightly, still holding her face and gazing deeply into her dark eyes. “I guess you do, don’t ya, Mouse.” He paused and drew her close, momentarily burying his face in her sweet smelling, dark blonde hair. He looked up and around the living room, unable to notice the absence of himself and his past in the objects d’art he’d let her decorate it with. At the time he thought he didn’t mind.

Now, he minded. He minded a lot.

He drew back and let his hands trail down her bare arms to take her hands in his. “You…you’re gonna think I’m nuts,” he half-laughed after a moment.

He felt a slight pressure on his hand, as if she tensed at the comment. “Try me,” she whispered after a moment, her voice drawn but sympathetic.

“Uh, well…okay…um, well…uh, the other day I got a letter in the mail…”

She frowned slightly. “What kind of a letter?”

“The, uh…from the Auxiliary…um, the NYPD. Dad’s old precinct…they, uh…they wanna know if they can put his name on a memorial plaque they’re putting in on a wall down at the precinct.”

“Oh David, that…that’s wonderful, isn’t it? I mean, you told me your father was such a good cop and…”

“The best, Mouse. He was the best. And, believe it or not, that’s not what…I mean, I’m thrilled with that.” His words trailed off and he broke away, turning to look out the living room window once again. He closed his eyes a moment, forcing himself to swallow over the damn lump that had somehow decided to wedge its way into the hollow of his throat.

“Then why…I don’t understand…”

Neither did he. All he could think about after that letter arrived was the way his career on the force had ended and, worse yet, how his friendship with Hutch had apparently done the same also. He couldn’t get that day out of his mind, the last words his partner had said to him, the things he’d said to Hutch…

“David?”

He snapped himself back to the reality of the moment. “I…I’m sorry, honey, I just…I just need some air. I’ll be back.”

Before she could protest, he broke away and headed for the front door, absently reaching for the car keys that were kept, at her insistence, on a hook beside the front door.

“David!”

He didn’t look back, just walked out the door, keys clutched firmly in one hand.

********

“I need a one way ticket.”

Hutch stood before the ticket counter, running a hand over his face as he saw the dubious expression on the clerk’s face as she made no pretense in giving him a wary once-over. Hutch had forgotten what a mess he was. Life on the road all these years had been anything but kind, but since he’d usually kept to the most rural parts of the country, there weren’t all that many occasions where he’d had to worry about his appearance.

Until now.

“Uh huh,” The clerk replied after a moment, glancing anxiously around for a moment. “To, uh…to where…sir?” She forced.

“New York.”

“New York.” She glanced at her computer and let her fingers dance across the keyboard for several moments, eyeing the display screen. “Any particular place in New York? It’s a big state, you know.”

“The city, not the state. I’m sorry, I just assumed...”

“One moment, sir. You, uh…do realize we only accept cash here, don’t you?”

He sighed and slung the guitar strap back so the guitar fell against his back. Reaching one hand into the pocket of his faded, ill-fitting jeans, he pulled out a hundred dollar bill and slapped it on the counter, his expression hardening. “Any particular kind of cash, or will that kind do?!” He quipped sarcastically, shifting position so the duffel bag hung off the shoulder opposite the guitar.

The clerk was cowed, her jaw dropping in astonishment briefly before she attacked the keyboard again, this time with a noticeably larger amount of enthusiasm. “Um, yes…uh, we have a…we have a flight to New York…a connector from here…um, that goes to, uh Helena…then on to Chicago and then…”

“I need something more direct,” Hutch insisted firmly, ignoring the stares of the passersby and other airport workers. “The soonest you can book me. Do it.”

“But sir, I…”

“Please.”

“I’ll…uh, I’ll check…”

Hutch nodded briefly and straightened, turning around and surprised to find himself facing a pair of Security Guards, who were looking anything but pleased as they stood behind him. “There a problem here, gentlemen?” Hutch asked after a moment as one of them flinched, visibly taken aback by something.

“Not if you come along quietly, pal,” One of the guards sighed. “We don’t allow vagrants in here, son.”

“Vag…do I…never…the clerk…I’m paying for my ticket like a normal paying passenger! Is there a particular reason why I’m being singled out like this? Aside from my…appearance?”

The guards glanced at each other, then at the clerk, who was now watching the scene curiously. “Is this true, Darleen?” The second guard asked. “This bum paying for a ticket?”

“Bum?! Who the hell are…” Hutch forced himself to swallow his words. Man, I need a drink. I REALLY need a drink! He cleared his throat, forced himself to retain some semblance of composure as he glanced at the clerk briefly, surprised when she nodded slowly.

“That’s right, Ed. He’s payin’. It’s okay.”

The guards eyed Hutch again before reluctantly walking away. Hutch sighed inwardly and turned back around to the clerk, who held up a hand before he could say anything. “Listen, don’t say anything, okay? There’s a flight out of here in an hour that takes you straight to Chicago and then on to New York. That’s the best I can do on such…short notice.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Just…go. Please.”

He forced a thin smile as he reached into his jacket for the rest of the ticket fare.

So, our Golden Boy is now nothing more than a common street bum, huh?, a familiar voice from out of the past seemed to laugh inside his head as he stepped away from the counter, looking around the relatively small sized terminal that yawned before him in several different directions.

Time for a drink.

********

The East River looked strangely beautiful tonight.

He wasn’t sure why, but for some reason it struck him that way. Starsky smiled slightly and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. Not the same jacket he used to wear, all those years ago, but one that Lizzie had bought him just a couple of years ago.

He drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled, looking at the twinkling lights of the city buildings reflected in the water. So much had changed. So damn much had changed.

“Where has all the time gone, old pal?” He smiled wistfully, letting his mind travel back in time to try to recapture a moment…

“I…I can’t do it, Hutch,” He’ stammered, his eyes wide as he looked at the hospital entrance. “I…I thought I was ready for this, but I…I’m not! I can’t! I…”

He felt Hutch’s hand on his shoulder, a gentle symbol of support and reassurance. “It’s okay, Starsk. I’m with ya. I’ll BE with ya…all the way. Me and thee. The whole bit.”

Starsky swallowed, looking out at the car that was idling, the passenger door yawning open only a few yards away.

“Gunther’s gone, Starsk. He’s gone.”

Slowly, Starsky nodded. He knew that. On the most basic of levels he knew that. And yet, he was still terrified. Completely, utterly terrified.

After a few moments, he looked up at Hutch, saw the patient expression in his friend’s eyes, and smiled crookedly. “Guess I could speed this up a bit, huh, Nurse?”

Hutch’s hand stayed on his shoulder. “No rush, Starsky. Take your time. We’ve got time. As much time as you need.”

He felt a cold shudder trickle down his spine at the memory. Even after all this time, he still had the scars in his back and his mind. Some nights he even still had night tremors, dreams of Gunther coming back from the grave to finish the job, sometimes even using Hutch to do it.

He blinked and glanced down the river, listening to the sound of distant voices yelling something that the breeze easily contorted into something unintelligible. That was all right, anyway. The last thing he wanted to do right at the moment was listen to somebody else’s problems. He turned around and glanced at the hideous compact car Lizzie’s old man had bought them last year as an anniversary present.

Damn sewing machine. They don’t make cars like they used to.

He started walking along the sidewalk, the new sidewalk that some kind municipal official had thought to have installed on either side of the river. As if that would make the polluted waterway somehow more palatable to the city’s residents. Not that Starsky really cared. He hadn’t considered himself a real resident of this city in a long, long time, despite the fact that he’d moved back here shortly after he and Hutch’d had the Falling Out.

That was nearly…god, was it really almost...twenty years?!

He had to pause with that realization.

The breeze off the water picked up a bit and ruffled through his closely cropped, thinning, but still (for his age) admirable coif of dark hair. He could now practically feel the extra wrinkles and slightly sagging jawline, though thankfully he was still in fighting shape as far as the weight went. Time had been generous to David Starsky, at least in the physical department.

It was the emotional one that he was having some problems dealing with.

For a moment, he thought he sensed a presence behind him and he turned around expectantly. A low sigh of disappointment escaped his lips when he saw no one there.

Dammit.

“You’re gonna be the death of me yet, you know that, Blondie?” He half-chuckled, turning toward the water and looking out at the reflected lights again. “Twenty years apart and you still bug the living hell out of me.”

He paused before a wrought-iron framed bench, debating a moment whether or not he wanted to sit here a while or turn and head back for the warmth of the Sewing Machine.

The gray Sewing Machine, he added sarcastically as an afterthought and with a visible shudder.

He knew Lizzie was worried about him, knew he should get his ass back in the car and head on home or at least pick up the damn cell phone she’d insisted they installed in the thing and let her know that way that he was all right.

But he didn’t want to.

He really didn’t want to.

He’d spent too many years losing himself in this marriage because he’d been hurting about Hutch, too many years capitulating to a woman and her family that literally changed him from the man he had been when he’d first met her.

For god’s sake, Starsky, be yourself! Be a man!

He smirked, a smirk he hadn’t felt like making in a long time, and seated himself on the bench, the very top, so that his feet touched the seat.

What the hell’s the matter with you, Starsk? Can’t you ever sit in a chair like a normal human being? He imagined Hutch demanding.

He glanced at the sky and with his eyes slightly misty, chuckled, “Not any more, Blintz. Not anymore.”

********

“Hey! Hey you!”

The voice permeated Hutch’s consciousness and he opened his eyes, startled by the unfamiliar intrusion. He blinked himself awake and forced himself to sit up, frowning as he studied the face that blurred in and out of focus above him. “You talkin’ to me, buddy?” Hutch half-yawned, glancing at a nearby clock and thankful he hadn’t missed the flight.

“Yeah…you got a light?”

Hutch rubbed his eyes, then glanced at the chair beside him where he’d left his guitar and duffel bag before deciding to doze a little. Much to Hutch’s surprise, they were gone. He got to his feet, whirling on the man that had dared to intrude into his listless slumber. “Where are they? My bag! My guitar! Where are they?”

“Hey! Hey, man…I don’t know nothin’ about no guitar or no bag! I just…I just wanted to ask you if you had a light, man! That’s all! Back off me, will ya?!”

Angrily Hutch shoved the guy away and looked around, his eyes narrowed almost into thin slits. Hell, he sighed, watching the man quickly half-run, half-stumble away. What am I doing? What the hell am I doing?!

His thoughts were just starting to clear…really…to the point where he could actually realize his behaviors were all askew.

And the emotions started coming back.

He staggered, glancing up at a television set that was muted for sound but that continued to show images of his daughter and ex-wife, interspersed with images of other teenage girls who had been abducted in recent weeks. “Oh god,” he gasped, falling back into a chair and paling. It was as if he had been moving someone else’s body these past few hours. He’d heard the news, somehow knew enough to get his ass going and on his way to New York…but it was just NOW that he was realizing exactly why he was doing it.

Oh god.

Everything was becoming too focused. He couldn’t tear his eyes away even as his heart seemed to tear in a multitude of different directions.

Laura.

Cat.

He felt his left arm start trembling, the way it did when he went too long without the familiar numbing sensation his body had come to associate with liquid nourishment. That didn’t matter, at least for the moment, for once. As he sat tensely on the edge of the chair his mind drifted back to the last time he’d seen his daughter…

“Ken,” Cat had started, blocking the doorway of the home he used to share with her and Laura. “I don’t think today is a very good time. Laura…she has friends over and…” Her voice trailed off and she shifted uncomfortably in place, her blue eyes glistening with pain.

He stood there, feeling like an idiot, in a sport coat he hadn’t worn in ages, holding a bouquet of flowers in his hand as he kept his gaze on his ex-wife’s face.

“I think she should be the judge of that, don’t you, Cat? I mean we did agree to visits, right?”

“Announced visits, yes. Ken, please don’t do this. You’re making a scene…”

He drew in a breath and lowered his head a moment, forcing himself to remain calm. “A scene,” he repeated after a moment, his voice controlled and tight.

He looked back up at Cat. “A scene?! I haven’t seen my daughter in nearly three months and you’re worried I’m making a scene?!”

“Who’s fault is that, Ken?!” She choked, her voice near breaking as her eyes started filling up. She clasped the frame of the doorway for support. “She and I have been right here, where we’ve always been, but you…no, you had to go on some sort of macho odyssey to god only knows where looking for god only knows what!” She paused, seeing the wounded look on his face. “Oh Ken…let’s face it. You still haven’t gotten over the clash with David.”

He laughed thinly. “Wha…what? Oh come on, give me a break. I got over that a long time ago.” He didn’t sound convincing even to himself.

She raised an eyebrow and shook her head sadly. “No. You haven’t. We both know it. Even when we married, and after Laura was born, I had hoped…okay, I admit it was foolish…but I’d hoped that I could somehow help you put that out of your mind. But…it’s obvious I can’t. We can’t. Only you can do it, Ken. Only you.”

He drew in a breath, swallowing his anger and stiffening his back. “So what you’re telling me is because I didn’t call to tell you my every move, you won’t let me see my own child? Is that what you’re telling me, honey? Sweetheart?”

“Ken, please…” She reached out toward him but he stepped back, shoving the flowers into her hand.

“No! Don’t…just…don’t hand me an ultimatum, Cat, and expect me to be all smiles and grins about it.” He stepped back and let his gaze travel upward to the window that he knew belonged to his daughter’s bedroom. “Tell her I was here, at least, would you do that much?”

“Of course, Ken! But…”

He turned around and started to make his way down the sidewalk to where his beat up pickup was parked, right behind Cat’s sparkling new Mercedes. As he opened the driver’s side door, he looked up at Laura’s bedroom and saw her looking out, tears cascading down the sides of her face as she watched him.

 

He jerked back to the reality of the moment with a start, finding himself watching a commercial.

He was also surprised to find the trembling in his left arm had stopped and the top of his right palm was damp from where a tear had fallen onto it.

********

As he piloted the Sewing Machine home, Starsky flipped on the radio, eager for something to distract him, at least temporarily, from his thoughts. What he heard, however, caused him to slam his foot on the brakes and veer off to the side of the street, much to the annoyance of the drivers around him.

Amid a sea of curses and honking horns that passed him by, Starsky leaned forward and cranked up the volume and listened in disbelief to the local newscast that reported the abduction of another celebrity’s daughter, this one with a very familiar surname.

Hutchinson.

Laura Lynn Hutchinson.

“Oh my god,” he gasped, his eyes widening in shock as he listened to the few details the media had of the girl’s abduction. He fell back in his seat, his hands clenching the steering wheel before him so tightly his knuckles whitened.

Just then the cellphone rang and he seized it thoughtlessly. “Yeah,” he answered mechanically.

“David…David, where are you?”

He sighed and turned off the radio. “Did anybody call, Lizzie?”

“What?”

“I said, did anybody call?”

There was a tense silence on the other end of the line before his wife’s voice returned, guardedly. “Only my mother. David, what’s going on? Where are you?”

Damn.

“On my way to the station.”

“What? David, I…”

Slamming the phone down, he jerked the car out of Park and into Drive, giving only a cursory glance over his shoulder before pulling the Sewing Machine out into traffic.

Oh man, Hutch. Not your kid. Not little Laura…

As he made his way toward his father’s old precinct and where he still had connections, Starsky found his thoughts drifting back to another moment from the past…

“David!” The voice on the other end of the phone laughed, immediately changing tone. “Oh my god! Is that really you?!”

He smiled and leaned back in his chair, his eyes traveling around the empty kitchen that seemed so strange, even though it was technically his own. “Yeah, Cat,” he sighed.

“It’s me. How’s the Blintz doin’, huh?”

There was a decidedly lengthy hesitation on the other end of the line.

He frowned. “Cat?”

“Dave, uh…things haven’t exactly been great between us lately.”

He sighed, looking at his right hand and the simple gold wedding band that adorned his ring finger. I know the feeling on that one, he mused sarcastically, feeling the strain of the gradual deterioration of his marriage, a marriage that he had, at one point, labored so damn hard to preserve and protect. Just like his friendship with Hutch. And look what had happened to that!

He cleared his throat, cradling the cordless phone between his left ear and shoulder.” So nothin’s changed?” He asked carefully after a moment, his throat sounding hollow and rather dull, even to himself.

“No,” Hutch’s wife sighed. “He’s still remote, distant. He’s gone more nights than he’s home. I’m telling you, David…there’s only so much more of this I can take. Laura’s beginning to wonder what SHE did to drive her Daddy away.” The woman’s voice broke then and Starsky leaned forward, running a hand over his face as he listened to her sob over the phone. “Dammit, David, I don’t know what more I can do! He won’t listen…he…he won’t let me in! What the hell happened between you two anyway?!”

He closed his eyes, not sure how to answer that. Even now he wasn’t sure what had happened. How it had all gone so terribly, terribly wrong.

 

He parked the Sewing Machine in one of the city’s newest abominations: another parking garage with multiple levels and multiple problems. It was the only place he could park at that hour without getting his ass fined or towed, or both and even though he had to hoof it a good three blocks or so to the precinct itself, it was the closest of any of the other municipal parking areas.

Damn city anyway. Why the hell had he ever, EVER moved back?!

He walked briskly, shoving his hands into his coat pockets and keeping his eyes straight ahead, his mindset a tunnel vision of his destination.

As he approached the large stone façade he stopped abruptly, suddenly having serious reservations about this.

Oh god. I haven’t been inside a police station in years!

He felt his brow burst out in beads of nervous perspiration despite the chill in the night air and his pulse quickened. A quick glance down at his left hand showed that it was trembling slightly, as it always did in recent years when anything involving the police or police work came within physical proximity.

His stomach churned violently.

********

The flight to New York was mercifully uneventful. By the time his connector flight touched down at LaGuardia, however, the tremors were back and Hutch was feeling more than a little nauseated and dizzy. It was all he could do to pull himself to one of the exits and into the back of one of the waiting taxis.

“Where to, buddy?” The cab driver asked, glancing curiously in his rear view mirror.

“A bar,” Hutch muttered, struggling to keep his tremors under control.

The driver smirked. “Any particular one? This town is riddled with ’em.”

“I…I don’t care. Just pick one and take me to it.”

The driver shook his head. “Man, leave it to me to get the weird ones.”

Hutch said nothing as the car got underway. He leaned his head against the window frame, wrapping his arms about himself to try to help control the tremors a bit. To say that he felt like hell was a massive understatement. He closed his eyes a moment and was once more assaulted by a moment from the past…

“I can’t believe this is happening,” He stammered, his blue eyes wide with disbelief as he stared at the three men that surrounded him. “I can’t believe…” He concentrated his gaze specifically at Starsky, who was the obvious instigator of this Inquisition. “That my friends, the people I have trusted, that I’ve known…hell, that I loved…would do something like this to me!”

Starsky sighed. “Partner, we didn’t have a choice…” He reached out to put a supportive hand on Hutch’s arm, but Hutch yanked away, backing away from all of them.

“We’re not…we’re not partners, Starsky! Partners…partners are people who stand by one another! Who…who take care and look out for each other…who don’t stab each other in the damn back!”

“Hutch, man! For god’s sake, will you listen to yourself?! You’re drunk, man! Drunk! You…you came to work drunk, you nearly got me killed because you’re drunk…”

“Blondie, he’s right, man,” Huggy Bear started.

Hutch turned bitter eyes toward him. “Of course he is, Huggy! He’s always right, isn’t he?”

“Hutchinson, you’re out of line,” Dobey warned.

“You’ve been out of line since I was shot, man,” Starsky swallowed, stepping forward gingerly, his expression one of anguish. “Dammit, Hutch, we NEED to talk about this.”

Hutch half-laughed, running a hand over his mustache for a moment as he looked around the concerned faces before him, all gathered in Dobey’s office to serve him his sentence. Or so he thought.

“Hutch, we care about you, man,” Huggy began after a moment, the tension in the room becoming unbearable all too quickly. “What happened to Starsky, man….that wasn’t your fault, brother! You couldn’t have known…”

Hutch drew in a breath and looked up briefly, struggling to keep his indignation and anger in some state of check. “Listen…guys…fellas, I know in your own…misguided ways, you mean well…but what happened tonight…” He paused, swallowed, and pain briefly flickered in his slightly glazed eyes. “What happened tonight will never happen again.”

“Damn right it won’t,” Dobey insisted. “Hutchinson…”

“Cap’n…Huggy…can you guys give us a minute?” Starsky asked, his gaze on Hutch.

Dobey and Huggy Bear looked skeptically at Starsky.

“It’s okay, guys. Really.” Starsky added.

On his way following Huggy out of the room, Dobey paused and looked at Hutch. “Get some help, Hutchinson. We’re all pulling for you around here. Keep that in mind.”

Hutch said nothing and let the office door slam behind him before he turned to Starsky, eyes flashing. “Okay, buddy, you gonna tell me why you felt the urge to gang up on me like this? Huh? And don’t…don’t tell me it’s because of Gunther, man, because I’ve dealt with that…”

“Bull,” Starsky stated plainly, his blue eyes just as steeled with determined resolve as Hutch’s.

“Bull?”

“Bull. You haven’t even talked about it, Hutch. Not once. You just tried to pretend like it never even happened. After you brought me home, you tried to pretend like it never even happened.”

Hutch frowned. “Is it so wrong for me to want to look out for my best friend by trying to put such an ordeal behind him, huh?”

“It is when you yourself don’t deal with the problems, buddy boy. Look, Hutch, man, I’m only doing this…we’re only doing this…because we care, man. I’ve seen what this kind of drinkin’ can do to a person! It ain’t pretty, my friend.”

“So, uh…what are you saying here, Starsky? You think I should give up my badge and my shield just because I had a couple too many beers today?”

Starsky swallowed, straightening his back. “Temporarily, man, yeah...I guess that’s exactly what I’m sayin’. At least until we get you the help you need…”

Hutch laughed bitterly. “Help I need?! Help I need?! For god’s sake, Starsky, I’m not the one who needs help here! I…” He paused, shaking his head. “This is nonsense. Why am I even standing here listening to this? You want my badge? You want my gun, partner?  Fine. Take ’em.” Roughly, Hutch removed his shoulder holster and literally threw it at Starsky, followed by the billfold that contained his badge. “There, buddy. There you go. Happy now?” He started for the door, but stopped when Starsky practically leapt in front of him. “Now what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m not lettin’ you walk outta here alone. You and I are goin’ to get you some help.”

“The only kinda help is from the bartender down the street, now if you don’t mind…” Hutch started to force his way past Starsky, but found himself being pushed back.

“I do mind, Hutch! I mind a lot! I don’t know what the hell has happened to your brain these last few weeks! I’m beginning to think it disappeared along with that booze you’ve been drinkin’ like it’s goin’ outta style!”

“Let go of me, Starsky! Or so help me…”

“You’ll what? Hit me? Done it before, pally. It’ll take a lot more than a bap on the nose to drive me away. You ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easy.”

 

Hutch jerked himself out of his memory quickly, wincing as the memory stopped suddenly, strangely, in time with the cab pulling up in front of a small bar in the heart of what looked to be a less than affluent neighborhood.

“Here ya go, Mac. From the looks of ya, I’d say this would be about the cheapest dive I can think of. That’ll be $8.50.”

Not about to quibble over the fare, Hutch reached into the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a wrinkled ten and handed it to the driver. “Keep the change,” he muttered as he pulled himself out of the vehicle and, trembling, made his way into a dark and smoky atmosphere that was comfortingly familiar.

He paused just inside the doorway and looked around for an empty stool or chair. Thankfully there was one at the far end of the bar. Good. Nice and close. Just the way I like it.

As he settled himself on the stool, he watched as the bartender gave him an evil eye. “What’ll it be?” The balding, portly figure grumbled as he walked over to Hutch.

“Strong…something strong. Strongest drink you got.”

As he watched the bartender grudgingly start reaching for a bottle, Hutch put his elbows on the bar and put his face in his hands.

Some things never change.

********

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, my name’s Dave Starsky, I need to speak with Lieutenant Brenner. Is he in?”

The desk clerk lifted an eyebrow slightly and gave Starsky a cursory once-over. “He expecting you?”

“Yeah, we had a date for tea and bagels, now will you tell him I’m here? Please?!”

“Okay, okay! Don’t get your shorts in a knot.”

Starsky sighed as the clerk picked up the phone and started to look up Lieutenant George Brenner, a veteran of the force left from his father’s day who somehow managed to keep from retiring and from being promoted due to his sheer grit and irascible personality. Like Starsky, and (so he was told) his father before him, Brenner was a damn good cop who sometimes had a little problem with authority figures. No doubt that’s why he was still a Lieutenant after more than 30 years of service to the city.

Brenner was also one of Starsky’s father’s best friends and had been a semi-father figure to him for a number of years.

I only wish I’d paid more attention to the help you were trying to give me then, George, he thought as he looked around the lobby that seemed unusually busy for this time of night.

“Hey, buddy…”

Starsky looked at the clerk. “He’s on his way down. Why don’t you have a seat over there, huh?”

The clerk nodded toward a row of chairs nearby.

Fighting back the urge to make a wise-assed comment that would do little to better his purpose here, Starsky took a seat, reluctantly, glancing around at the people that seemed to be from almost every walk of life who passed by.

What the hell am I doing here? I told myself I’d never set foot inside a police station again. Especially a New York one.

And yet there he was.

He sighed, knowing exactly why he was here.

Hutch.

He straightened and watched as a nearby elevator opened and a tall, thin, silver haired man walked out. Immediately Starsky got to his feet as George Brenner approached, still surprisingly vigorous for his age. A slight pang tore at Starsky as he wondered what his father would have been like if he had lived to George’s age. Would he still be on the force? Or would he have retired to some god awful community in Florida like he used to joke about?

Starsky swallowed as George’s face lit up. “Oh my god,” he grinned. “Davey Starsky! My god…it is you! How the hell are you, son?!”

The two shook hands before the older man unabashedly gave Starsky a brief hug. As he drew back, Brenner’s eyes rimmed with tears. “You look just like your old man, Davey. Just like him.”

“Thank you, sir. Uh…”

“You, uh, got the letter, I take it? The one that the Auxiliary sent out about putting your old man’s name on the memorial plaque?”

“Yeah, I did. I think that’s great, but that’s not why I’m down here.”

Brenner’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “It isn’t? Well, come on, boy…let’s go upstairs to my office and talk about why you are here. Nothing, uh…nothing wrong, I hope? Your mother all right? I’ve been meaning to go see her in that home and…”

“Sir, my…uh…my mother passed away five years ago.”

Brenner paused. “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry. I, uh…I must’ve missed the announcement.”

“No problem. Say, uh…what are the chances that a civi like me can buy a respected member of the police establishment such as yourself a lousy cup of coffee around this joint? Maybe bend your ear for a minute, maybe?”

Brenner laughed and habitually tugged at the upturned elbows of his rumpled white dress shirt. “Just like your old man. Okay, Davey, let’s go. The coffee’s on me.”

Starsky smiled as the older man wrapped a fatherly arm around his shoulders and led him down the hall to a door marked, appropriately enough, LOUNGE. Stepping inside, Starsky found himself immediately overwhelmed with memories of the lounge back in Bay City and he had to stop a minute and collect himself, reorient himself to the present.

“Davey? Hey, kid, you okay?”

Starsky nodded, looking around the empty room briefly. “Yeah,” he lied, taking a moment to draw in and then exhale a deep breath.

Brenner shook his head, nodding toward one of two chairs at a nearby table. “So sit. I’ll pour. What do you take in your Joe, huh?”

As he seated himself Starsky shook his head slightly. “That’s okay. I don’t drink coffee.”

“What?” The Lieutenant laughed as he walked over toward a small kitchenette where a coffee maker was set up. “Give me a break, Davey. You’ve gotta drink coffee. All cops drink coffee.”

Suddenly Starsky’s expression sobered. “I’m not a cop anymore, George. I haven’t been one for a long time.”

The deadpan expression and monotone were unintentional on Starsky’s part, but they got his point across vividly. Brenner sobered as he poured himself a cup of coffee and proceeded to carefully seat himself across the table from Starsky. “Yeah, I…I heard about that,” he began awkwardly after a moment. “I think it’s a bum deal that you pulled out like that, Davey. Not your fault your partner couldn’t hold his own.”

“What?!” Immediately, Starsky’s instincts to defend Hutch kicked into high gear once again and his posture stiffened. “What do you mean? Hutch was the best damn partner I ever had…pardon my language, sir, but…”

“Hey, hey, take it easy, kid. Didn’t mean to ruffle any feathers. Guess it’s still a touchy subject with you, huh?”

It would be for you, too, if you knew everything that happened.

Reluctantly, Starsky nodded, unzipping his jacket and leaning back slightly. “Problem is, George…it’s kinda why I’m here tonight, too.”

The older man was silent a moment, taking a deep drought of his coffee and studying Starsky. As he lowered the cup to the table, he cleared his throat, suddenly concerned. “You heard about the girl, didn’t you?” he asked quietly after a moment. “The Hutchinson girl…that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. I just found out about it on the radio. And obviously you’ve known about it from the get-go, right?”

“Since the mother called…yeah, I’m working on it…”

Anger suddenly flared in Starsky’s eyes as he leaned forward again. “They why didn’t you call me the minute you found out, huh? You knew about Hutch and me! You knew that I’d want to know about something like this!”

Brenner sat back, holding his hands up in the air. “Now wait a second there, Davey…hold on a minute here. I haven’t seen or heard from you in years! How the hell…”

Starsky shook his head slightly, his hands clenching slightly at his hair in frustration. “I know,” he said quietly after a minute. “I…I’m sorry, George. I’m just…I’m just frustrated, y’know? Hutch’s kid…I mean…has anybody heard from him at all? Has he called in? Said he’s coming here? Anything?!”

Brenner was mollified Starsky’s return to a semi-calm demeanor. “Not yet,” he admitted after a moment. “The mother’s been asking about him, too. She’s a wreck. Wouldn’t leave the station until we had a couple of uniforms drive her home.” He paused a moment, his indigo colored eyes studying Starsky. “You really care about this putz, don’t you? After all this time? After all the crap he put you through?”

Starsky fell silent.

********

Hutch didn’t remember staggering outside or sagging against a nearby light post until he opened his eyes and felt a stabbing pain piercing his temples. He groaned and clasped the sides of his head, leaning over for a moment as his stomach churned in violent protest. Whatever the hell he drank was definitely not agreeing with him. The tremors were gone, yeah, but only to be replaced by problems of a whole other variety.

He gasped and slid down the pole as his stomach finally released its contents. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was a red light, blurrily approaching, and for a moment, he thought it was Starsky’s Torino.

When he awakened, however, it was painfully obvious that the red light he thought he saw wasn’t that of the Mars light on the Torino. Rough hands shoving him into the back of a cruiser quickly alerted him to that fact.

“Get in there, you bum,” A rough voice growled.

Hutch barely felt his head connect with the seat as the door slammed shut behind him. He lay on his side, blinking, his vision occluded as he listened to the front doors open and close and the sound of exasperated voices flooded his mind.

“Damn drunks!” One voice grumbled. “Puking’ all over themselves. Y’know, I’m gettin’ so sick and tired of this beat it’s pathetic.”

“I know what you mean, man. Let’s just get him into the drunk tank so we can get on with the real work, huh?”

“Yeah, okay. I gotta run by the shop for a sec and grab the damn paperwork first. Damn, damn, damn!”

Hutch barely felt the car move. Hell, he could barely feel a thing at that point, except sick. He closed his eyes again and listened to the sound of the police radio and the officers up front talking, taking him back…

 

“How’s the girl?” He asked, glancing at Starsky.

“Better. Got a letter from her the other day.” A slight smile upturned Starsky’s lips as he leaned back, casually resting his left arm on the open car window ledge beside him. “Charmen said to say hello.”

Hutch smiled. “Didn’t think she’d remember me.”

“You’d be surprised what someone can remember once they dry out.” Starsky smiled.

 

Hutch tried to sit up, struggling to suppress that tidal wave of nausea that wanted to swallow him. Everything was so damned out of focus, so hazy. Where was he? What was he doing…wherever he was?

“Relax, buddy,” A voice said, and a blurred round object suddenly floated before his field of vision. “My partner’s gotta go get some forms and then we’re taking you straight on to the drunk tank. No reason for you to get antsy.”

Painfully he sat up and leaned against the window and froze, his eyes widening in drunken disbelief.

At least, he thought it was drunken disbelief.

“Starsk?” He gasped, his hands splaying against the window as he watched the figure descending the precinct steps. It couldn’t be! It…sure as hell looked like him! But…but even in his stupor he knew that…that it couldn’t be.

Or could it?!

“Starsky?!” He called, reaching for where he thought the handle of the door was.

“Hey!” The officer in the front of the car exclaimed, turning around in his seat. “Settle down back there, buddy.” Through the wired grill that separated the halves of the cruiser, the uniformed officer glared at Hutch.

“Starsky!” Hutch called again, throwing himself against the door, his fingers unable to find a way to unlock the door which was, as it turned out, locked from the front.

“Knock it off!” The officer growled. “Don’t make me come ’round back there and cuff ya…”

“STARSKY!!!” Now Hutch was throwing himself against the door, again and again, prompting the officer to curse and slam his palm on the automatic door lock button before quickly scrambling out his door and moving around to Hutch’s door.

 

Starsky paused near the bottom of the steps, mulling about his talk with Brenner. Storming out after that crack about Hutch hadn’t helped matters, he knew. But dammit he was sick to death of people maligning the man, especially after all of these years. He hadn’t intended to blow up at his best connection in the Department (and, not to mention, a once near and dear family friend) like that and now…well, he wasn’t sure what the hell to do now.

“Swift move there, Starsky,” he muttered, looking around the street before him for a moment. “Real swift move.”

He started walking again when a noise caught his attention. He paused and turned around, watching as an officer in a nearby cruiser climbed out of the front passenger side, cursing like a sailor as he stormed around the rear of the car toward the left rear door.

And that’s when Starsky saw the face in that window.

His jaw dropped and he staggered back a step in shock. “H…Hutch?!” He practically coughed, his blue eyes wide and unblinking. Could it…could that…

No…no, that guy looked…

He watched as the officer yanked open the rear door and hauled the haggard, pathetic figure to his feet.

“Starsky!” The man slurred as the officer roughly turned him around so his face was against the trunk of the car and his wrists were cuffed behind his back. “Lemme go! That’s my…that’s my partner! That’s…that’s Starsky! I gotta go to him…I gotta…”

“Yeah, yeah, sure buddy. Hold still so I can get these damn things on you!”

I’ll be damned. That IS him! Oh god, Hutch…what the hell has happened to you?!

Starsky swallowed back his tears of shock and forced himself to rush over to the car as the officer was trying to shove Hutch back into the cruiser. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “Hey, wait a minute…wait a second there…”

The officer paused, holding Hutch like a rag doll since it was painfully obvious that Hutch had no real idea where he was or what the hell was going on. The cop couldn’t help wrinkling his nose and keeping Hutch at a slight distance and Starsky’s eyes filled with tears as he saw the front of the trench coat and worn black turtleneck beneath it.

Oh my god.

“What do you want, pal?” The officer frowned, dark eyes glaring at Starsky.

For several moments Starsky couldn’t find his voice, watching as Hutch’s eyes seemed to look around, then at, then through him, but unable to really focus on anything. Jeezus, Hutch...

“You look like hell, Hutch.”

Hutch said nothing, keeping his back stiff and his hands wrapped around the glass as he brought it to his mustache-shadowed lips.

Starsky sighed as he seated himself on the bar stool beside Hutch, shivering slightly at the tension-filled chill that hung heavily between them. “Hutch…Hutch, will ya…will ya say something, dammit? C’mon, pal, speak to me!”

Hutch took a drink with deliberate slowness.

“Hutch…”

“Hutch…” He rasped as he stepped forward. “Officer…what’s he done?”

“What?”

“This guy, what’re the charges against him?”

The officer stared at Starsky as if he had suddenly sprouted wings. “Huh? Why, you know this bum?”

Starsky looked at Hutch, watching as the man started to sag in the officer’s arms. “Yeah,” he replied quietly after a minute. “You could say that.”

“What’s going on here, Joey?”

All eyes turned as another uniformed officer approached, eyeing Starsky dubiously. “Something I can help you with, buddy?”

“Actually, um…fellas, I think I can help you. That guy you, uh…you picked up…he’s with me. I’ve been lookin’ all over for him and…”

“This drunk’s with you?!” The first officer exclaimed, grimacing under Hutch’s increasing weight. He glanced at his partner, visibly apprehensive.

“Yeah,” Starsky continued, hoping he sounded convincing. It’d been a helluva long time since he’d had to do something like this. Out of practice, Dave old boy. Out…of…practice.

Something within him clicked slightly.

An old flicker of excitement, of looking trouble in the eye.

Of defying authority.

Inwardly, he smiled slightly.

“Yeah, he’s my cousin. Just flew out from California. You know how these California guys are: nothin’ but wine, women, and song. Looks like Kenny here found the wine before the women or the song. Listen, we’ve been through this before. This guy gets a little carried away sometimes, so can I just take him home and let him sleep this off, hmm? Maybe bring him back around in the morning to fill out whatever forms or whatever that you guys need?”

The two officers were silent a moment.

“It’ll save us a helluva lotta paperwork, Joey,” one of them began.

“That’s true,” his partner nodded, shifting position as Hutch’s weight continued to bear down on him with some bit of oppression.

“And, I mean the guy is out here from California and his friend is right here and everything…”

“Whatever! Just…somebody make up their minds here, okay! This guy isn’t exactly easy to handle y’know!”

Starsky drew in a breath as the newly arrived officer helped his partner remove the cuffs from Hutch. “You need a hand gettin’ him to your car, buddy?” he asked as Starsky, without flinching, eagerly took a hold of his nearly unconscious friend.

Starsky nodded slightly. “If you guys can hold him while I bring the car around, I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” He started to walk away.

“Hey!” The second officer exclaimed, causing Starsky to pause and turn around in curiosity. “H…how far away did you park, anyway?”

“The garage. Where else?”

The second officer groaned and shifted position slightly.

********

That drive was the strangest experience Starsky had endured in some time.

As he glanced in the rear view mirror at the slightly discombobulated, hideously reeking figure in the backseat, his heart broke. It got so bad that at one point, he had to pull the Sewing Machine off onto a side street and, his hands clasped like talons around the steering wheel, leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the wheel, closing his eyes and silently letting his shock and disbelief manifest themselves in painful but muted sobs.

After a few moments, he straightened and glanced back around at the rumpled, crumpled figure crowded into the back of the car. This…shell...was Hutch? It was so hard to believe, even now, even when he was this close.

Or maybe especially because he was this close.

He swallowed over the lump that insisted on lodging in the hollow of his throat.

“Oh god, Blintz,” he choked, his voice slightly above a rasp. “What the hell happened to you, buddy? What the hell happened?!”

Shaking his head, he resumed driving, bypassing the route home. Lizzie wouldn’t understand this. He didn’t have to think twice about that. He loved her but she had never seemed to fully grasp the feelings he had for this man, the feelings he’d always have for him. It was more than a friendship, more than a partnership, it was a kinship…

 

“He’s gone,” Dobey stated flatly.

Starsky stared at the Captain, his blue eyes wide with disbelief. “Wh…what?” He managed after a moment, wondering for a moment whether or not he should have sat down after all.

“He’s gone, Starsky. He left this with me this morning.”

With trembling fingers, Starsky accepted the piece of paper from Dobey. Ashe stepped back a couple of steps from the desk, his eyes scanned the contents and quickly absorbed the meaning of Hutch’s familiar handwriting. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. It seemed like something out of a bad dream. Hutch was gone! Not just from the station, not just for a leave of absence or whatever the hell it was those paper pusher bureaucrats called it…but from Bay City entirely!

Slowly, Starsky fell into a nearby chair, his face white with astonishment as he kept reading and rereading the emotionless, incredibly impersonal letter that stated only his intent to resign and leave the city, nothing else. No references to Starsky. No references to anything else.

“I don’t know what else I can say, Starsky,” Dobey went on, his voice low and genuinely compassionate. “I did what I could to keep him from leaving this way, but…”

“I know, Cap,” Starsky managed after a moment, forcing himself to look up and at the Captain’s concerned gaze. “He’s gotta want to help himself. He’s gotta…”Getting to his feet, he tossed the paper onto Dobey’s desk, turned and left the room without another word or look back.

 

He returned to the reality of the moment and found himself pulling the Sewing Machine into the parking lot of a lesser known, lesser reputable motel. As he turned off the engine, he found himself staring at the dilapidated structure in disbelief.

Starsky, what the HELL are you doing?

Answer: The same thing he did for Charmen all those years ago…

Trying to dry out someone he cared about.

“What goes around comes around, eh, Hutch?” He muttered as he opened the door.

Within a matter of minutes he was back at the car, with a set of room keys that, conveniently enough, opened the door to the room directly ahead. He paused, looking around the disturbingly desolate area a moment as he opened the back door of the car. “You know something, pally?” he mused after a moment. “I expect to be paid back for this one. You hear me? Paid back, big time.”

He grimaced as he struggled to heft Hutch’s dead weight out of that damned subcompact car. It’d seemed like a long time since he’d had to do this kind of lifting, and his body was starting to protest in places he’d long ago forgotten even existed on his person. He grunted and groaned, nearly dropping the keys several times and Hutch at least twice as he fumbled toward the motel room door.

When he was finally able to unlock the door and kick it open, he hauled Hutch’s inert form inside and fell beside him onto a nearby bed, gasping for breath as he looked around the room that was lit only by the moonlight spilling in through the open door nearby.

“Oh man,” he breathed, half-laughing as he remained on his back. “I guess I…I guess I shoulda listened to Lizzie and joined that…that health club her parents have got out on Long Island, huh? You think, Hutch? I mean…I used to…I used to be able to run a pretty good clip, but I…I can’t run so good any more, pal.”

He glanced at the figure beside him and sighed, reaching out to touch the man’s arm to make sure that he was real.

Suddenly, a hand seized around his wrist, painfully, like a vise and it was all Starsky could do not to cry out from the pain that suddenly coursed through that joint. He was literally jerked upward to a sitting position and gasped when he found himself staring into eyes that, despite their glassy haze, he knew well.

“Hutch! Hutch! Hey…hey, pal, it’s me! It’s Starsky, man! It’s Starsky! Hey…”

Several tense moments passed as Hutch’s eyes widened, staring at Starsky as if looking at an apparition. “St…Starsky?!” He stammered, his voice choking up into a nearly unintelligible sob that caught midway up his throat. “I’m…I’m hallucinating again. I…”

Starsky’s eyes misted over with tears. “No, pally. No, Hutch. It’s me. I’m here. I’m really here.”

Hutch lapsed into silence again and his surprisingly firm grasp on Starsky’s wrist eased up slightly. He tilted his head slightly and with his free hand, furtively rubbed at his eyes as if to see whether or not the ‘apparition’ would somehow disappear.

It didn’t.

He didn’t.

“Oh my god,” Hutch slurred, releasing Starsky’s arm and falling back slightly in shock. “Oh my god, it can’t…it can’t be…”

“Hutch…Blintz...”

“Don’t call me that!” Hutch wept, crawling backward and fumbling to keep from falling off the side of the bed. “Don’t call me that! I let only one person call me that!” Somehow, in his frenzy, he managed to flick on a bedside lamp that filled the room with a pale orange glow that was just enough light for him to get a better look at the features of the man who painfully watched him just a few feet away.

Starsky watched as something about Hutch, the small shred of composure that the pitiful looking shadow of his friend had managed to construct, now started to crumble before his very eyes. Starsky said nothing as Hutch slowly fell forward, his body convulsing in sobs that had been held inside for years.

With trembling arms, and remaining silent, Starsky held him.

Awkwardly, at first.

But quickly tightening his grasp as Hutch’s body sagged unconscious once again.

********

A voice from the past permeated his burgeoning consciousness with surprising clarity:

Hutch?

He groaned and rolled onto his side, fighting off another wave of nausea as he forced his eyes open.

“Hey there, pal. Take it easy. Don’t rush it, okay? It’s been a helluva night.”

Oh my god, it IS him!

Carefully he tilted his head and saw it was true. The face that now appeared in his field of vision WAS Dave Starsky. Older, definitely. But it was Starsky. No mistaking those eyes or that cockeyed grin. He tried to sit up, but felt a hand on his chest. Where are my clothes?, he thought. Where am I?

“Lay back, buddy. I don’t think you’re gonna be wantin’ to go anywhere in your skivvies. You’ve been having a serious case of the sweats. Looks like you had yourself one helluva fever on top of…well, on top of everything else.”

Yep. That’s Starsk. Reading my mind even now…after all these years. How in the hell does he do that?!

He felt a cool sensation on his forehead and he gasped slightly, then started to cough involuntarily.

“Easy. Easy.”

He felt himself being held as the tremors started again and his reflexes tensed almost immediately even as he looked up into that face that he hadn’t seen in so long. “Starsk…” he managed to utter, between convulsive shivers. “Starsk, I…”

“You don’t have to say anything, Hutch.”

Hutch blinked, the orange glow of the room almost glaring to his ultra sensitive eyes. There was so much he wanted to say. So much he needed to say! He watched, helplessly, weak as a damn kitten, as Starsky, who looked as if he’d been up all night, sat beside him as if gazing down at a miracle.

In a way, he was.

Hutch remained silent, his bare chest covered with perspiration and he fought to keep from coughing as Starsky gently rolled him onto his side.

“There, buddy. Get it out. Get it all out.”

He gave in to the coughing fit. Couldn’t help himself really. His lungs felt as if they were on fire and coughing seemed to be the only way to relieve that in some way. He felt strong hands on his arms and felt safe, secure…for the first time in a long, long time.

As he was eased back onto his back he looked up at the time-worn but still recognizable features and smiled, his lips trembling slightly. “You…you never did…did listen to me…Gordo,” he half-whispered.

Starsky laughed, visibly relieved as he carefully wiped Hutch’s brow and face. “Nope, pally. Never did. Never will. Ain’t it good to know some things don’t change?”

Hutch tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a hacking cough, that wracked him with another spasm. He offered no protest as Starsky helped him sit up carefully, cradling him as one would an infant.

“Now, no need to get choked up on my account,” Starsky attempted to wisecrack as Hutch continued hacking up what felt like a large share of his lungs. His eyes shone with concern as he continued to cradle Hutch protectively.

As his coughing finally subsided, Hutch let himself be eased back onto his back and looked up, smiling sadly. “Don’t flatter yourself, partner,” he rasped.

Starsky remained silent for several moments, sitting back slightly and running a hand over his face for a moment. Hutch watched as Starsky got up and slowly walked over to stand before the motel room window, looking more than a little exhausted as he leaned one elbow against the window pane and slowly tilted his head down until his forehead slightly touched the glass.

Hutch drew in a breath and closed his eyes for a moment.

“How…uh…how did you…” His voice trailed off and he looked up at the ceiling. “Never mind,” he muttered after a couple of moments. “I don’t think I wanna know.”

Another stretch of silence passed.

“Hutch…Hutch, we have to talk…”

Hutch swallowed and closed his eyes again as another wave of nausea began to make slight rumblings within the hollow of his stomach. There was also a sharp throbbing beginning in his temples and a slight tremoring in his arm. Damn. It’s starting already.

He opened his eyes and labored onto his side, using his right hand to try to keep his left arm from trembling. “Starsky, I…I need a drink…”

Slowly Starsky lifted his head, turning his pain-filled eyes at the shadow of his friend. “What?” He exclaimed, his brows furrowing in disbelief as his perspiration beaded brow wrinkled noticeably.

“I need a drink. Just one…just to…”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Numb with disbelief, Starsky semi-staggered toward Hutch, his eyes flashing. He hovered above his friend, hands clenching and unclenching as if to work out some sort of nervous tension.

“Starsk, you don’t understand…”

“Don’t understand…don’t understand?! What the hell is there to understand, Hutch?!”

Hutch swallowed, and forced down the nausea enough to where he could somehow pull himself to his feet, albeit unsteadily. The tremors were now more than a little noticeable and he felt a heated flush of embarrassment stain his face as a pitiful look passed over Starsky’s face as his friend noticed the shakes.

“Starsky, don’t lecture me. I don’t need that right now. What I do need is…”

“What you need is a damn swift kick in the ass! Hutch…have you…have you looked at yourself? I mean, really looked at yourself? You look like hell, man!”

“Great…just great, Starsk. You really know how to make a friend feel better…”

“Don’t start with that, Hutch…we’ve played this scene before…”

“Yeah, I know! I know we have! You think I’m so damn plastered I don’t remember how we left things, pal?!”

“Hutch…for god’s sake, don’t do this. You’re sick, buddy. I wanna help you. I couldn’t…you wouldn’t let me help you last time.” He paused. “I know about Laura, buddy. I know you’re hurting. And I know you’re scared. I know…” He stopped again, watching as Hutch’s thin veil of composure crumbled before his eyes. It was as if Starsky had brought to the fore the very thing that Hutch had been struggling so hard to suppress…

“She’s been kidnapped,” Hutch rasped, slowly seating himself back on the bed and staring ahead at nothing in particular, barely registering Starsky seating himself beside him. The words sounded so hollow, so strange; almost as if they were coming from another person entirely. “I…I haven’t seen her in years. Not since…not since just after the divorce. She, uh…she called me…a couple of weeks ago. To, uh…to see how I was doing.”

Starsky remained quiet, letting Hutch tell this story in his own time and in his own way.

“I, uh…I got into town and, uh…I was gonna go straight over to Cat’s…y’know, to see how she was doing. See what I could do. I…I swear, that’s what I meant to do…” His words trailed off again and he lowered his elbows to his knees and pressed his forehead against the back of his hands, the pain in his temples easily dwarfing the trembling that was still radiating down his left arm. “I never meant to…I never meant to…I just needed one drink, Starsk! That’s all! One drink!“

“That’s the way it goes, isn’t it?” Starsky’s voice was quiet, subdued, free of the sarcasm that would have normally underscored his words and tone. “Just one drink, and another, and one more until you are so drunk you can’t stand and can’t even think. You’ve been there, Pal. We both have, and I can’t let you go there again. Not with this Laura kidnapping hangin’ over your head. I know you’re going to want to go after her, and I can’t let you do it while you’re drunk. It ain’t safe, and it ain’t gonna’ happen. You’re just gonna have to hang in there and go through the hell to get to the heaven.”

“Heaven?”

“Yeah…the way you’re gonna feel when you’ve gone one day, one hour, without actually needing a drink. When you can think, see, and feel everything, without having to have that damned bottle attached to your hand…”

Hutch studied his face for a moment, then looked down at the trembling arm and fingers. He drew in a breath and straightened his back carefully, letting his still partially glassy eyes look toward the tacky orange draperies framing either side of the partially opened window. “I don’t know if I want that, Starsk,” he forced after a moment. “I don’t know if I want to feel, if it hurts worse than it does right now.”

Starsky carefully put a hand on Hutch’s bare shoulder. “Trust me, Hutch. You’ll want to feel. You can only stay numb for so long before you start losing yourself. It’s time to find yourself again, buddy. It’s time to find Laura. Together.”

Slowly Hutch looked up and met Starsky’s gaze and he smiled.

Genuinely.

Gratefully.

********

“Lizzie? Darlin’, it’s me. I know you’re there. Pick up the phone, will ya?”

Glancing over at Hutch who lay curled in a fetal position on the opposite bed, Starsky cradled the telephone between his shoulder and ear. The sun was cresting the horizon outside, but Starsky felt no closer to getting sleep now than he had earlier, helping Hutch through another bout of tremors and nausea, and then another until his friend eventually, finally, mercifully, collapsed.

“Lizzie,” he sighed after a moment. “Lizzie, the machine’s right next to the bed…c’mon, darlin’ and speak to me. Pick up the damn phone, will ya?”

He waited a moment as the other end was picked up abruptly. “Where the hell are you, David?” His wife snapped.

“Listen to me, sweetheart, something’s come up…”

“Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me, David Starsky!” The irate female voice continued. “You take off and stay out all night and expect me to believe that…”

“If you would shut up for five minutes and listen to me, maybe you’ll understand!” He didn’t mean to snap. Really.

She fell silent.

He exhaled carefully, leaning his head back against the garishly designed headboard behind him. “Thank you! Now…what I’m calling to tell you is that I might not be home for a couple of days and…”

“WHAT?!”

He closed his eyes and held the phone away from his ear for a moment. That woman has a helluva voice this early in the day, he thought sarcastically. When his breathing was calmed enough he glanced over at Hutch, who hadn’t moved a muscle in over an hour and a half. (A good sign there.) “How could you not have heard that?” he mumbled before warily returning the phone to his ear and leaning his head back again. “Lizzie….dear….sweetheart…darling…pumpkin…”

“Don’t start with me, David!”

“Wha…”

“If you don’t get home in twenty minutes, don’t come home at all!”

He grimaced and ran a hand over his face. “Lizzie, you know I don’t deal with ultimatums…”

“And I don’t deal with liars.”

The phone clicked loudly.

He held onto the phone and continued to look out the window. The day was progressing at a faster rate than he expected. After a night of caring for Hutch as a parent would a sick child, Starsky found himself less than reassured by the promises awaiting them in this new day. They had yet to even begin to contemplate what to do about finding Hutch’s kid. And after this brief, but no less painful, odyssey into the beginning dark depths of withdrawal, Hutch might not be up to functioning enough to embark on such a demanding task.

Starsky exhaled deeply, looking at his friend who, even in deep slumber, seemed restless as he rolled onto his side, his eyelids fluttering noticeably even as they somehow managed to remain closed. “I wish I could wipe it all away, buddy,” he smiled sadly. “For both of us.” He looked down at the gold band on his finger and leaned his head back again.

The next thing he knew he was opening his eyes, surprised to discover that he had fallen asleep at some point. What was worse, when he rolled over onto his side and looked around the room, he noticed something that immediately struck him with alarm…

Hutch was gone!

“Oh god,” He gasped, hastily scrambling off the bed when he spied the partially open motel room door. With hair and clothes disarrayed, he staggered to the door and threw it open, and stopped abruptly when he was nearly plowed over by a figure that only vaguely looked like…

“Hutch?!” he gasped, his jaw flapping open in astonishment.

The man standing before him was definitely different. He was cleaned up; shaven, showered, and in clothes Starsky couldn’t help but wonder where the hell he’d managed to scavenge from. He looked like an older version of the Hutch he knew and loved so well…not that pathetic, drunken version Starsky had pitifully dragged here nearly twenty four hours earlier. He even managed to scavenge up a handful of bags that looked like he’d been out for some time.

Quite some time.

“G’morning, Sleeping Beauty,” He beamed and Starsky’s eyes teared up at the familiar spark that was back that was Hutch. “Brought you a present.”

Starsky watched in astonishment as Hutch handed him a fairly good size shopping bag and walked right by him into the room as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “Wh…what the hell is this?!”

Throwing the other bags on the nearest bed, Hutch threw him an odd look. “What’s it look like, partner? A change of clothes? Can’t have you going around all day looking like you just got outta bed, can we?”

“What the…”

“Close your mouth, Starsk. You’ll catch flies. Not only that…it’s not exactly the most intelligent expression you’ve ever had.”

Starsky jerked slightly as Hutch walked toward the adjoining bathroom, seemingly without a care in the world. What the hell is THIS now? Last night the man was drunk out of his mind, suffering from severe withdrawal and…

He shook his head, looking down into the bag that Hutch had practically shoved into his hands. Dazed, he extracted what looked to be a very expensive suit of clothes, a suit that definitely wasn’t Starsky. Not in the slightest. He looked toward the bedroom, his eyes darkening with suspicion.

No you don’t, buddy boy. You’re not foolin’ me THAT easy.

Damn.

He put the clothes back in the shopping bag as Hutch exited the bathroom, pausing and throwing him a strange look. “Starsk? You all right?”

“The truth? No. No, I’m not all right!” With a burst of anger that surprised him, he threw the bag to the floor. “I’m not all right, pal, and neither are you!”

“What?!”

“You heard me! Stop the crap, okay, Hutch?! Just…just stop the crap! Those clothes…the real Hutch would know damn well that even if I could afford stuff like that, it’s not me! It’s not my style!” He paused, watching as Hutch paled visibly.

“What the hell are you saying, Starsky?”

“Stay still.”

“What?”

“I said, stay still!”

Hutch stared at him, blue eyes taking on a decidedly glazed appearance the closer Starsky got to him. There was also the distinct aroma of heavy mouthwash and cologne emanating off his friend.

To hide the alcohol, Starsky thought bitterly. To hide the damn alcohol!

“Just as I thought…you’re drunk. You’re goddamn drunk!”

Hutch’s eyes hardened and he tensed visibly. “What are you talking about? Starsky, what the hell is…”

“Damn you!” Grabbing the collar of Hutch’s sports coat, Starsky shoved the man backward against a nearby wall. “I thought you were going to try! I thought…”

“Let go of me, Starsk!”

Trying to yank himself away from Starsky, Hutch inadvertently positioned himself so that the large arm of his sports coat dangled perpendicular to the floor and a small bottle half-filled with an amber-colored fluid fell to the carpet.

The tension between them shot up dramatically.

Hutch watched, his face flushing slightly, as Starsky gingerly knelt down and picked up the object, examining the label as he returned to a full, upright position. “Great. This is just great!” He looked at Hutch, his blue eyes hardened with resolve and tinged with emotional turmoil and angst. “You can’t even keep off this stuff for one day?! How in the hell are you going to even begin to think of finding Laura when you can’t even find your own way out of a damn bottle!” Without thought, he threw the bottle against the nearest wall, watching it shatter but taking no pleasure in watching the amber liquid stream down the tacky orange and green painted wall.

“Don’t lecture me, Starsky! Don’t you dare lecture me!” Now reasonably tired himself, Hutch glared daggers at Starsky. “I don’t…I don’t wanna hear it! You got that…buddy? Pal? Friend? You have absolutely no idea the kind of life I’ve had to lead these past couple of decades. No idea!”

“So TELL me about it, Hutch! Talk to me, already! Please! Tell me what the hell happened to you, man!”

Hutch was silent, his face registering a slow change from anger to reluctant resignation, that he really did want to talk to Starsky.

That he’d wanted to talk to Starsky for years.

“Hutch?”

A slight smile slowly upturned Hutch’s lips. “Why don’t we talk over breakfast, huh? You…uh…you still like eggs? Scrambled?”

A strange shudder passed through Starsky, as if a fleeting memory was running away from his attempt to latch onto it.

He paused, gazing intensely into Hutch’s eyes.

What he saw there frightened him.

But it also comforted him.

Maybe Hutch was ready after all.

Maybe.

Drawing in a deep breath, Starsky smiled slightly, but genuinely. “Yeah,” he replied quietly after a moment. “Sounds good. Sounds real good.”

 

An hour later the two were comfortably ensconced in a back booth in a small diner located a brief car ride from the motel. With the skies outside graying over and darkening heavily, the atmosphere in the smoke-filled diner did little to lift the clouds that time and distance had placed between ‘me’ and ‘thee.’ Starsky watched as Hutch launched into yet another cigarette, the one vice that Starsky just didn’t have the heart to attempt to try to keep from him.

Chain smoking Hutch. Who’da thunk?

Starsky shook his head slightly and took a deep swig from his Coke bottle.

“Coke for breakfast, huh?” Hutch laughed slightly, shifting slightly in place. “Still taking your caffeine carbonated, Starsk?”

“Always, pally. Always. Never could take that tar you call coffee first thing in the morning. Afternoons or evenings, maybe, but not in the morning. Not when I really need it.”

Hutch shook his head slightly, crushing out his cigarette stub in the nearly filled metal ashtray to his right. How to start this? Where to start? How did a person try to summarize almost thirty years of his life in a matter of minutes? Or even, could they?

He coughed briefly. “I suppose you don’t smoke either, huh?”

“Not a puff. Tried once or twice. Never got the hang of it, I guess. Plus, it tasted worse than that crap Abby used to make. You remember that Vitamin E gook…”

Hutch laughed, really laughed, and sat back, feeling more relaxed than he had all day. “The things your mind holds onto…”

“Yeah. It holds onto a lot.”

Once again that heavy blanket of silence fell between them and Hutch averted his eyes from Starsky’s, swallowing slightly. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Starsk,” he began quietly after a moment. “I don’t really have time for any long explanations…”

“You’ll make time, Hutch.” Starsky paused, running a hand over his face briefly. “For Laura, you’ll make the time.”

Hitting below the belt there, Starsk, he told himself.

He couldn’t help it. He had to get Hutch focused.

For Laura, if nothing else.

The name brought an immediate sobriety to Hutch’s countenance and Starsky was surprised to see how much further those blue eyes could darken. “It’s no use, Starsk,” he admitted quietly after a brief pause. He reached for the pack of Marlboros but stopped when Starsky’s hand clamped over his.

“Talk to me, Hutch. You know something about this, don’t you? About this kidnapping? You know something!”

Hutch drew in a carefully measured breath and glanced around the room self-consciously. “Maybe,” he admitted quietly after a moment, his voice gravely and emotional.

“Hutch, no games! What the hell is going on? What are you not telling me here?!”

Hutch glanced out the window a moment, taking time to formulate his tormented thoughts into some semblance of coherent sentences. He’d spent so much of the plane trip bemoaning the fact that Laura’s abduction was, in part, his own fault, that he’d failed to think of a plan to get her back.

Of course…it’s hard to think when your mind is occluded, he thought sarcastically.

“You gonna let go of my hand first?”

Reluctantly, Starsky removed his hand, watching as Hutch reached into an inside jacket pocket and extracted a carefully folded note, which he tossed onto the table. “Read that,” Hutch stated. “That should put things into perspective, I think. Better than I can, if nothing else.”

Starsky frowned and reached for the note as Hutch seized his cigarettes almost ruthlessly. As he read the document, Starsky found his eyes widening in disbelief. “My god,” he gasped after a moment. ” I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it.”

“But how…”

“You’re looking at it, Starsk. You tell me.”

Starsky looked up, jaw open slightly. “You mean to tell me that this bastard has held a grudge against you for thirty years?! Has…has kidnapped and murdered half a dozen teenage girls just to get to you?! Somehow?! Kind of a sick, roundabout way to do that don’t you think?!”

“That’s Solidad.”

Starsky leaned back in his seat, rereading the note. Antonio Solidad had been one of their worst cases to pin down. To this day, Starsky could remember the grisly murders Solidad had conducted over a period of not weeks, not months, but years. Almost three. Hutch stumbling upon Solidad had been a major fluke and earned the blond detective eternal enmity from the Mexican immigrant. Solidad came well connected and had sought to destroy Hutch through those connections for months afterward until the powers that were finally got the brains to transfer the weasel across country to a Federal Pen in upstate New York. Those had been horrible times for the duo. Somewhere between Gunther’s first and second manipulative escapades, Solidad’s men had nearly killed Starsky more than once, beat the crap out of Huggy several times, and had shot, stabbed, and nearly drowned Hutch before finally being apprehended in a shootout of massive proportions.

Starsky thought he’d put that all behind him.

Hell, he thought Hutch had too.

Sighing, he shoved the note across the table and reached for his bottle of Coke, almost violently downing a healthy mouthful.

“So you see why I didn’t contact Cat or anybody? The second I did that, Laura was as good as dead. Hell, she might already be…”

“Don’t say that! How the hell can you say that?! You’re her father for god’s sake! How can you just sit there, drowning your sorrows, and give up like that?! I mean, my god…if I had a kid…I wouldn’t…nothing would keep me from gettin’ to her! I’d soon as die as to…”

“You don’t think I’ve tried?! Starsky, you obviously have a shorter memory than I do when it comes to Antonio Solidad! He’s not some…some two bit punk we scraped off the streets! This guy, he…he got inside my head! Inside your head! Or have you forgotten that, huh?”

Starsky shook his head. “I haven’t forgotten. But I also haven’t forgotten what a damn good cop you were. How you went up against this guy time and again without backing down once. The man shot me…you took him on, all by yourself, and by god, it took you a few times, but you got him, Hutch! You got him! Laura needs you…this isn’t the way it was with Gillian, or with any of the other women you lost…she’s alive, Hutch! Alive! But she won’t be much longer if we don’t do something.”

Taking a deep drag on his cigarette, Hutch ran a hand over his eyes briefly. “What do you suggest we do, Sipowicz? This isn’t Bay City. We’re not employed by the NYPD. In my book, that doesn’t leave a helluva lot of options.”

Starsky leaned forward further. “You must’ve had something in mind, Blintz. Even drunk off your ass you wouldn’t have just hopped a plane to the Big Apple without some reason.”

Hutch stared at Starsky, knowing damn well his friend was right.

Too right.

“I, uh…don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you I wanted to check out the nightlife, huh?”

Starsky grinned slightly. “Not on your life, putz. Out with it. What’ve you got?”

“What? Got? What are you…”

“Don’t pull that innocent act with me, Sherlock. The Alzheimer’s hasn’t kicked in yet, buddy boy. I know that look. It’s the ‘I’ve got myself some evidence‘ look. Now spill it.”

Hutch was silent for a moment, crushing out the rapidly smoked cigarette. “It’s not enough to get us anywhere, Starsk.”

“Lemme be the judge of that. Fork it over. I just got myself a date with divorce court for this, pal, let’s see it.”

Hutch stared at his friend. “What?”

Starsky immediately regretted what he’d said and sat back. “Nothin’. Forget about it.”

“Wait, wait…no, I won’t just forget about it! What are you talking about, Starsk?

Great. Good job, Gordo. You just threw out your problems in the middle of all of HIS!

“Starsk?!”

Starsky swallowed and absently wound his fingers together on the table, drumming slightly. “Nothin’, Hutch. It’s nothin’. Just…Lizzie and I have been…well, it’s been comin’ for a long time…”

His eyes traveled to the gold band on his finger.

A long time.

Hutch understood. Looking up, Starsky saw a hand on his, trembling slightly, but on his nevertheless.

He smiled gratefully.

********

“Hey, it works both ways you know.”

“Huh?”

“This talking jazz. Works both ways. C’mon, Starsk. Out with it.”

Seated behind the wheel of the Sewing Machine, Starsky kept his hands clenched firmly around the object, steering through midtown with a steely determination on his face and in his forcibly compacted posture.

He glanced at Hutch, who was handling things better than he honestly had expected him to after that little scene back at the motel. The tremors were returning, but Hutch seemed to be dealing with them fairly well. He was cold, shivering constantly, but not complaining any more. Instead, he was turning to Starsky’s problems.

Starsky wasn’t sure if he liked that.

“Starsk? You were telling me about you and Lizzie…”

“Me and Lizzie…me and Lizzie. There ain’t much to tell there, partner. Me and Lizzie haven’t been seein’ eye to eye for a long time. Last night, this morning…whatever…was the last straw. I think it’s finally over.” He drew in a breath and straightened his back slightly. Yeah, Dave, finally.

“Sorry.”

“Ahhh…nothin’ to be sorry for. Hell, you know about what happens when two people…” His words trailed off and he shot Hutch a wary glance briefly. “Strike that.”

“No. No, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. You don’t have to sugar coat anything, Starsk. Why start now anyway?” Hutch laughed slightly, and there was a tinge of bitterness to his tone that his friend couldn’t help but detect.

“Next time I need a shrink, I’ll know who not to call.” Starsky turned the wheel hard, then gasped as he slammed on the brakes, so suddenly it sent the two men, both crammed into the front of the compact car, hovering forward and straining the seat belts that kept them from colliding with the dash and windshield.

“What the hell…”

“I see your driving hasn’t improved any,” Hutch quipped edgily as he swallowed and looked out at the reason why Starsky had stopped so suddenly.

A teenaged girl had stumbled out in front of their car, her clothing in tatters and spattered with blood, as was her disheveled, tangled mass of blonde hair, and her expression was that of a deer caught in the headlights…literally.

“Oh my god,” Starsky exclaimed, quickly wrestling with the damn seat belt and extricating himself from the car, not even aware that Hutch was instinctively following suit.

The girl remained in place, almost fixated with the headlights of the Sewing Machine, her face unnatural in pallor. Hutch stopped, blinking in disbelief at the physical resemblance to his own daughter this girl held.

Laura?!

Starsky, meanwhile, approached the girl. “Sweetheart…you okay? You all right?” He glanced at Hutch as he wrapped an arm around the shaking girl. “Take it easy…everything’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be fine.”

Hutch turned away, his expression paling as Starsky watched the girl quickly back away from him and leave.

“I got a bad feeling about that kid,” he muttered.

“‘Course you do,” Hutch swallowed after a moment, forcing himself to swallow some composure. “You nearly ran her over. Of course you feel bad, Starsky.”

Starsky shook his head. “No, no. It’s somethin’ else…I can’t put my finger on it. I’ve got this…this feeling.”

“Oh man, Starsk, don’t tell me you still believe in…”

“Gut instinct?! Hell, yeah. And I remember a time when you did too, pal. Come on…”

“We still going to look into this?” There was a slight glint in Hutch’s blue eyes, a spark of the ‘old’ Hutch that nearly brought a tear to Starsky’s eyes as he nodded and patted his friend’s arm supportively.

“You’re damn right we are, pal. You up for it?”

They remained in place for several moments, and Hutch felt that strange tingling at the back of his neck, a tingling he hadn’t felt, literally, in years, that meant he and Starsky were on the same team. He smiled and swallowed a moment. “Damn right I am, Starsk. Damn right I am.”

********

“Lieutenant, sir, there’s a couple of men here to see you, sir? Say their names are…Starsky and Hutchinson?”

Brenner looked up at the clerk, his eyes widening slightly. “Did you say Starsky and Hutchinson?” He damn near dropped his pen on that one. These night shifts always seemed to find him the butt of some wise-assed practical jokes…

“This I gotta see. Okay, show ’em over.”

He leaned back in his chair and watched in curiosity, then genuine astonishment, as Starsky and a man that looked vaguely familiar approached. At the good-natured request of Starsky’s mother, Brenner had checked up on Kenneth Hutchinson when the two had first been paired up. (Easy enough to do given his connections to several members who kept records for the national law enforcement personnel data banks.) He’d studied the guy’s picture backward and forward and though this figure with Starsky now was older, there were definite similarities in the Hutchinson appearance that Brenner couldn’t help but recognize.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he half-laughed as the two drew near and the clerk excused himself quickly. “Davey, son…I thought you told me that…”

“Forget what I said, George. Forget everything I said. ‘K? This here is Hutch. You, uh…do remember him, right? The drunken bum? The one I didn’t deserve to be partnered with? Hmm?”

Brenner’s face flushed a noticeable shade of crimson as he leaned forward, eyes hardening as he looked up Starsky briefly, then stiffly he extended a hand to Hutch. “Nice to meet you, Hutchinson,” he forced.

Hutch smiled sardonically, returning the handshake with disarming familiarity. “I hope I made great reading material for you, Lieutenant,” he quipped, much to Starsky’s amusement.

Brenner, however, was anything but amused.

“If you’re looking for information, I already told you, Starsky, there’s nothing I can do. Neither one of you are policemen any more, in case you forgotten and while I’m truly sorry about what you must be going through Hutchinson…”

“Bull.” Hutch snapped, sobering immediately, his eyes hardening as his back stiffened tensely.

“What?”

“I said, bull. That’s bull. We all know you don’t give a damn about what I’m going through here, Lieutenant. If that were the case you would have gone out of your way to notify me the second you found out about my daughter’s abduction.”

Brenner slowly got to his feet, hackles raised. “Starsky, I suggest you try and calm your friend down here before he says something he may end up regretting.”

Starsky studied Brenner a moment, looking strangely apathetic to his former mentor’s entreaties. “Y’know, George…I think Hutch is a big boy here. I think he can speak for himself.”

“Thanks, Starsk.” Hutch kept his challenging gaze on Brenner.

“I mean, so what if he knows all about that little arrangement you made with my mother to check up on him from the day we were assigned? I can’t believe Ma had you do that. Worse yet, I can’t believe you actually went along with it! I didn’t think Ma was the kinda lady to check up on me like that…”

“Don’t go putting your Mother down, David,” Brenner retorted quickly. “She didn’t have me do anything. I volunteered to make sure you got a partner worthy of…” His voice trailed off and he shifted in place, visibly uncomfortable. “She worried. The minute you entered the Academy she swore up down and crosswise you were going to end up like your old man because you had that same damn reckless streak he had! She was scared! She wanted to make sure that the guy you were with would be there for you, to back you up, to give you the protection your father didn’t have.”

Starsky swallowed and drew in a breath for a moment. “Look…that…that’s water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned. The fact is, despite you or Ma or anybody else, I got me a damn good partner who did all that and more. Let’s just drop that and find this man’s kid, huh?”

” What he means is, Lieutenant,” Hutch added, his voice thick with forced civility, “…is that we would appreciate any assistance you could give us about this case.”

Brenner stared at them for several moments, looking at the two men in disbelief. “You two are outta your minds, you know that, Davey? You come in here, asking for info, first saying that you wanna help this down on his luck pal of yours, then blow out of here when I tell you there’s nothing I can do. Now, the next morning, you walk in here, cocky as all get out…the two of you looking like something out of fucking GQ no less…and demand that I help you with information! You must think I’m a total moron.”

” If it makes you feel any better, Lieutenant…”

“Hutch,” Starsky warned, throwing his partner a Don’t piss off our only source any more look.

Starsky leaned forward toward Brenner. “George, look I…I know I pissed you off earlier, running out like that and all and the way we came in here wasn’t exactly subtle I guess, but…dammit, it’s been so long! I don’t have many connections left in this town, connections in the Department…connections to Pop. She’s a sixteen year old kid, George. And besides…” He paused and drew in a breath, glancing at Hutch. “We have some information we think might be useful to you.”

The silence that followed was so thick with tension it could have been cut with knife.

“This isn’t something to joke around about, you guys. A kid’s life is at stake.”

“We know.” Hutch stated coldly. “But, unlike you Keystone Kops, we happen to know who who it is that’s behind this and even why they’re behind it.”

Brenner’s expression paled and he slowly rose to his feet, turning his attention on Hutch. “What?!” He exclaimed after a minute, eyes practically bulging from behind his glasses. “What in the hell did you just say?! Did you say you two…”

“You give us carte blanche, George, and we’ll fill you in as needed.” Starsky crossed his arms over his chest, a smug smile slowly upturning his lips. Man, I haven’t done this in years, he chuckled to himself. A part of him regretted doing it to George, of all people, but…well, another part quickly discounted that with the reminder of the part Brenner played in keeping tabs on him during and just after the Academy.

“Now wait a minute here, Davey boy…I don’t appreciate you two comin’ in here and thinkin’ you can just blackmail me like this! Hutchinson, you of all people, shouldn’t be playing games here! Your kid’s life is at stake!”

Hutch leaned forward, and in a voice deadly even, stated, “I know that. Too well. And this is as far from a game as it can get. It’s more than business, Lieutenant. This is personal. Very, very personal. Now I would appreciate it, if you would let us take a look at what you have so far.”

Brenner threw Starsky a hurt look. “You know this is entirely against my better judgment, Davey…”

“David,” Starsky corrected. “The name’s David, George. I ain’t the same kid you remember. And as you yourself said, there’s no time for games. We’re all supposed to be on the same side here. You give a little, we give a little. Works all around.”

Anger flushed Brenner’s face, but Starsky knew he’d give them the information.

He only hoped that it wasn’t too late.

********

Seated side by side in the Sewing Machine as another New York night fell, the two friends studied the dilapidated building across the street. “Figures he’d use a dump like this for his base,” Hutch muttered, checking and rechecking the gun he’d purchased before he’d left Montana.

“You, uh, wanna tell me something?” Starsky asked warily as he watched Hutch’s trembling fingers fumble with the ammunition.

“How long have you owned that?”

“This?”

“Yeah.”

Hutch sighed, carefully closing the barrel and spinning it, taking a familiar sense of security as he returned it to the new shoulder holster he’d picked up along the way. “A couple of months. Not long,” he replied cryptically. He wasn’t about to tell Starsky that he’d gotten it to protect himself from a number of irate bar owners who were fed up with his drunken performances, and uh, other activities. Starsky didn’t need to know that.

Hutch looked at Starsky. “You own one?”

“What? Don’t be…yeah, of course, I do, but I live in New York, Hutch. It’s almost expected ’round here. I just…didn’t think to bring it with me.”

“What?! Oh, Starsky…”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that, buddy boy! I had no idea what I was gettin’ myself into when I went out for a drive last night.” He paused, noticing the strange look in Hutch’s eyes. “Not that I really regret it, okay?”

“We’ll talk about it later, Starsk. Let’s get that bastard.”

“Whoa, Hutch, hey…you’re not Rambo, here, okay? You heard what George said…we could check it out, but not…”

Angrily Hutch leaned forward, his right knee slamming further upward onto the dash. “Starsky, I am not about to sit back and let some 30 year veteran who once, for some reason unknown to man, seemed to have it in for me…I’ll be damned if I sit back and let him tell me what I can or can’t do when it comes to my daughter’s safety! Do you…do you have kids, Starsk? Do you know what that’s like?!”

Pain flickered in Starsky’s eyes briefly. “No. No, I don’t have any kids, Hutch. At least…not that I know of.” He paused, the thin attempt at humor falling flat in the increasing tension that passed between the two men. “But I do have my wits about me. I mean, Hutch…your thoughts aren’t exactly crystal clear right now. You go blasting into that building without thinking and you’re gonna do nothing but add another body to the mess? Kapeesh?!”

Starsky had a point, he had to admit.

Oh god, I need a drink, he thought.

He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “Starsky…”

Starsky patted Hutch’s shoulder briefly, glancing up at the building and freezing when he noticed a sedan emerging from an adjoining alleyway. “Uh oh…”

Hutch followed Starsky’s gaze. “You were saying, partner?” he quipped softly, with a slight lilt of sarcasm. “There might not be time for protocol on this…you realize this, of course.”

The two looked at each other again.

“I haven’t done this in a while, buddy,” Starsky half-laughed, although there was apprehension in his eyes and the tense way his left hand sealed around the door handle.

“And I have?!” Hutch muttered. There was a sobriety to him now that almost chilled Starsky and he swallowed slightly as he watched Hutch start to open his side of the car.

Oh man, what are we doing?!, he thought anxiously. A couple of old guys, one of them a semi-functioning alcoholic, going to take on god only knows how many guys, armed to the teeth, after almost twenty years away from…

Half-assed and half-armed.

It felt good to be back.

He drew in a breath and grabbed Hutch’s arm before he could exit the car. “Um, Hutch?”

“Yeah?”

“Mind if I carry the gun? Uh, no offense, but…your hands aren’t exactly steady right now.”

Hutch stared at him for several moments, obviously not liking facing the fact that Starsky was right. His hands were trembling. He licked his lips and swallowed as he glanced at the building. There’s more than yourself involved here, Hutchinson, he told himself. A helluva lot more!

Reluctantly he handed the gun to Starsky and climbed out of the car.

Starsky exhaled slightly and followed suit, glancing anxiously toward the sedan that seemed devoid of any occupants now. He cursed under his breath as Hutch took off across the street with an agility and speed that Starsky envied. Damn joints…

He was surprised at how easy it was to fall back into old habits, keeping to the corner of the building while his partner kept to the corner of the one opposite, both on either side of the sedan, their backs against the building fronts, both breathing a little heavier than they would have if they were a few years younger.

Like twenty, Starsky thought sarcastically. Hutch, what in the HELL are we doing?!

The gun felt like it weighed a ton in his sweaty hands, sweaty despite the evening chill, and he glanced at Hutch, who looked like he was huddling over, almost on the verge of collapse.

Oh god, Hutch! Not now, buddy! Come on, not NOW! Pull it together…come on!

Almost as if he’d heard , Hutch straightened and, gasping, nodded slightly toward Starsky and the doorway just a few yards behind them.

It was surreal, the way they fell (albeit awkwardly and with a few near fatal missteps) into old patterns so that by the time they were actually in the building, it was almost second nature, again…watching out for each other, keeping to the walls, surveying the territory. It all seemed to be going well.

Too well.

They should have known better…

Suddenly, as they rounded a corner of a long and dimly lit hallway, they found themselves facing Solidad himself, surrounded by a pair of armed guards who looked as if they had ingested steroids for breakfast.

Oh shit!, they thought in unison.

“Well, well, well,” Solidad laughed, his eyes twinkling as he surveyed the two. “If it ain’t Sparsky and Clutch. Right on time, gentlemen. Right on time.” He concentrated his gaze on Hutch, who straightened beneath the glare. “Look a little whipped, Hutchinson, man. Years ain’t been kind to you at all, have they? How about a drink, huh? Or maybe…maybe a shot? Hmm? Got some heroin around here someplace, I think…”

Hutch swallowed as Starsky shot the well-dressed Solidad a withering look. “That’s some sense of humor you got there, pally. Save it for Sing Sing. ‘Cause that’s right where you’re heading as soon as you turn over the Hutchinson girl.”

Solidad chuckled. “Big words for a guy in your position, Starsky. Big words for two guys who are over the hill….” He concentrated his gaze on Hutch again. “And out of luck. You want your girl, Hutchinson? We’ll take you to her. Hell, depending on my mood, I just might let you two say your good-byes before we get rid of the three of you…”

“Oh well, can’t beat that generosity,” Starsky muttered.

“You went to a helluva lot of trouble just to get me here, Solidad,” Hutch stated, his eyes flashing dangerously, yet never wavering from Solidad’s. “It’s me you want, isn’t it? It’s always been me. From the beginning. Well, you got me. No reason to keep Laura…or Starsky for that matter.”

“You let me be the judge of that. Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute…where we goin’?”

Solidad threw Starsky a disdainful look. “You aren’t going anywhere. Your buddy here is going to meet his little girl so she can watch him die.” He nodded toward the men and watched as one seized Starsky and the other Hutch.

“Bastard! You think…you think we came here alone, Solidad?” Desperately, Starsky tried to play for time, watching as Hutch seemed almost resigned to being led away by the goon. Hutch, buddy, do something dammit! Say something! Don’t just…don’t just give UP like this, man! For god’s sake!!

“Give it up, Starsky. You’ve been out of the game way too long to think I’d fall for a childish ruse like that. Take him outside. Make sure he ain’t talking by the time we finish here.” Solidad watched as Starsky was led, struggling, back down the hall, cursing the entire duration. He chuckled and turned to Hutch. “And as for you, Hutchinson…” He stepped closer and grabbed Hutch’s coat, pulling him so their faces were only inches apart. “I have been waiting for this moment for a long, long time, gringo.“

Hutch remained silent, his gaze as resolute as he could make it.

Keep cool, Hutchinson, he told himself. Keep cool and use your head.

But Starsky…

No! Don’t think like that! Believe he’ll find a way out. He has to.

He just HAS to.

He swallowed carefully. “I bet you have,” he managed after a moment, his voice forcibly even as the smell of Solidad’s exotic cologne made him want to retch.

“Si…si. You’ve made my life a living hell for a long time, Hutchinson. And I just wanted to return the favor, though I see that Nature has beaten me to it in large part.” He nodded toward the thug holding Hutch. “Take him in with his daughter. We’ll give them five minutes, then take care of things. I’ve got a shipment coming into port in twenty minutes and I want this part of my past over and done with as soon as possible.” He glanced at Hutch and smirked. “Especially since I really don’t have that much work to do to get rid of it.”

Hutch remained silent and allowed himself to be led back down the hall to a door, which the thug opened and promptly shoved him through, so hard that Hutch literally fell to the floor as the door was locked firmly behind him. He lay there, dazed, for a couple of moments before he heard a familiar voice squeak, “Dad?”

********

He found himself being led into the alley with the car, his assigned thug altogether way too confident that Starsky wasn’t going to try anything with the barrel of a .357 nestled in the hollow of his spine.

Okay, Dave…let’s see if all of those stupid classes Lizzie forced you to go to at the Health Club paid off any.

He drew in a breath and glanced around briefly. “Hey,” he said. “Mind if I tie my shoe?”

“What?”

“Do you mind…if I tie…my shoe? Preferably without being ribbed by the end of that piece, huh? Trust me, big guy. I’m not lookin’ to die earlier than I have to. I just would like to go out with tied shoes, if you don’t mind.”

The thug frowned. “Okay, wise ass. Go ahead.”

“Thanks. You’re all heart.” Smirking, Starsky carefully started to kneel. Noticing the thug’s slackened grip on the gun, he took quick advantage of the situation and thrust his elbow back, full force, into the man’s groin, immediately doubling the muscled man.

Picking up the discarded gun, Starsky, puffing only slightly, stood above the man and noticed a pair of handcuffs, conveniently protruding from the back of the man’s slacks. “Well, well, well, isn’t this swell. Lookee what we’ve got here. Regulation police cuffs. I hate to ponder where you happened to come by these beauties. Come on, Twinkle toes! On your feet!”

With an amount of strength that surprised himself, Starsky somehow managed to haul the groaning man to his feet and shove him against the sedan door nearby. After handcuffing his prize to the car door handle, he leaned forward. “Okay, big guy, keys.”

“What?” The man rasped, still smarting.

“Keys! You know, little metal things that normally open and run cars? Unless of course you’re an expert with wires, but that’s a whole other story. Gimme the keys to this thing. Now.”

“What…what makes you think…I…”

Starsky shoved his face down against the door. “Don’t play games with me. Give me the keys or I give you one helluva headache you won’t forget for a long, long time.”

“Coat pocket.”

“What?”

“I said....I said they’re in the coat pocket. Right hand side.”

Carefully Starsky reached around and into the man’s windbreaker jacket where, sure enough, he latched onto a set of keys. He leaned back. “Good boy,” he quipped as the sound of sirens drew his attention to the end of the alley.

He watched as a trio of police cars arrived on the scene, one unmarked but bearing the unmistakable Mars light gleaming in the windshield. Starsky glanced at the building entrance and blanched as he walked over to them, noticing Lieutenant Brenner as he emerged from the unmarked car.

“George, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I was going to ask you the same question. We got an anonymous tip a deal was going down in this area and someone mentioned this building as a possible location for the hub of the activity.” He glanced at the sedan. “Who the hell is that?”

“No time to explain. Gimme a Kevlar.”

“What?!”

“Hutch and his daughter are in there with Solidad…there’s not much time.” Starsky’s eyes studied the older man intensely.

Reluctantly, Brenner nodded after a moment. “Okay…okay. This is going to get my ass canned for sure, but I was looking to retire anyway. Okay, but you take Vargas and Hamilton with you, you got that?” He nodded toward two uniformed officers, who quickly donned Kevlar vests as Brenner tossed one to Starsky.

“Got it.” Starsky smiled slightly, gratefully, his mind reeling with thoughts of what Solidad was doing to Hutch and the girl.

Keep your mind on getting in there, Dave. Keep the emotion out until later. You can do this! You HAVE to!

As he donned the vest, his heart heavy and thudding madly in his chest, he had a chill run down his spine and a brief recollection of Gunther’s men.

This time, however, he managed to dismiss it as Brenner gave him a sawed off shotgun.

Gotcha you bastard, he thought. Now if Hutch can get HIS demon…

********

“Laura?”

He carefully sat up, blinking in the dim lighting provided by the bare bulb swinging slowly overhead. Less than a foot away, her knees pressed against her chest, arms wrapped protectively about herself and looking as if she had been through one hell of an ordeal, was his daughter.

His heart sank at her appearance, at the torn and blood spattered clothing, the gaunt appearance, and sheer terror in her once vibrantly blue eyes. “Yes, baby,” he whispered, tears springing to his eyes as he carefully started to crawl toward her. “It’s Dad, sweetheart. It’s…it’s me.” He started to reach for her, but winced as she drew back.

Oh god, she doesn’t even recognize me, he thought in anguish.

“Honey…I…I know it’s been awhile, but…but I…it’s me. You gotta…you gotta believe me, sweetheart.“

She studied him for several moments, her eyes welling up slightly as she trembled. “Wh…where have you been?” She stammered after a minute, her voice cracking. “Where have you been all this time?! Where were you when I needed you?! Why couldn’t you stop this from happening to me?!”

His heart broke as she dissolved into tears that wracked her slender frame. No words he could have said to her then would have helped. He knew that. All he could do was try to hold her which, to his relief, she let him do, leaning against him further as he tightened his arms around her and cradled her close.

That is, until the door opened and Solidad appeared. “Isn’t that just sweet,” he leered. “A real Kodak moment. I see you said your good-byes, Hutchinson. That’s good. That’s real good. Might give your girl a little comfort while you rot in the depths of Hell…”

Hutch’s simmering anger and resentment toward Solidad, anger and resentment he’d been successful to suppress (more or less), now exploded to the surface and he couldn’t control his actions. Any thought of ramifications completely exited his mind as he got to his feet and threw himself toward Solidad. He even blocked out his daughter’s terrified screams as the two started to struggle, a violent fight that, at one point, sent Hutch sailing backward against the wall so hard he was dazed and started to slide to the floor.

“You pathetic wretch,” Solidad sneered, hefting him by his collar. “You can’t even fight like a man anymore. You’re worthless. A worthless drunk. You disappoint me, Hutchinson. For all your self-righteousness back in Bay City I never would’ve figured you to turn out to be such a loser. Not even worth my time ending your life. You’ve done it for me.” He threw Hutch backward again and watched as the former detective slunk to the floor, gasping and clasping his trembling left arm and side in pain.

Solidad turned his attention toward Laura. “Looks like Daddy won’t be able to save you, little girl.” His expression darkened. “Let’s see if you can save yourself.” He launched himself toward her, and though she frantically tried to scramble out of reach, he was upon her, crushing her to the floor with his weight, laughing as she screamed.

Hutch managed to lift himself up on one arm and saw what Solidad was doing to Laura.

He saw red.

Thoughtlessly he picked up a jagged piece of wood that lay nearby and launched himself toward Solidad again. As if sensing Hutch’s attack, he rolled off of Laura and shoved her away, so hard that her head connected with the wall and sent her unconscious immediately.

With an almost primal rage, Hutch tried to attack Solidad with the board, but Solidad was far too powerful and easily knocked the potential weapon out of Hutch’s tremoring hands. He soon had Hutch pinned to the floor, the wood poised deliberately over the sweating, panting man’s chest. “It all comes down to this, Hutchinson!” He cackled. “Almost thirty years of hating your guts and seeing you die in my dreams, night after night after night…and at last, it comes true! Let me tell you one last thing before I kill you, eh?” He paused and leaned forward so his face was mere inches from Hutch’s. “I’m going to have a very good time with your daughter when you’re gone.”

With a howl of primal rage, Hutch somehow managed to find the strength to slam a hand upward and bend Solidad’s wrist backward, so much that the man yelped in pain and released his hold on the wooden stick. It was a momentary distraction, but a distraction nevertheless, and gave Hutch an added opportunity to use the other hand to slam a fist as hard as he could across the man’s jaw, taking no pleasure in seeing Solidad fall away to the floor nearby, stunned.

Solidad didn’t remain stunned long enough.

As Hutch labored to get up, Solidad recovered enough to yank a gun from his jacket and aim it at Hutch’s chest. “Enough of this. I’m sick of playing with you, Hutchinson. Time to meet your maker and I sure hope he’s got plenty of Jim Beam on hand…”

Hutch closed his eyes, readying himself for the impact of the bullet.

But strangely enough it didn’t come.

There was a shot, but when he opened his eyes again, Hutch was surprised to see Solidad lying, face down, on the floor of the room, his back covered in blood, and a familiar figure standing in the doorway, holding a sawed off shotgun.

“Starsk?”

Starsky smiled slightly. “Right here, Hutch. Right here.”

Hutch smiled slightly, then remembered his daughter and turned to where she lay unconscious a few yards away. “Oh god…” He gasped, crawling to her and carefully easing her onto her back. “Laura…sweetheart….”

“I’ll get an ambulance,” Starsky nodded. “And be right back. I promise I’ll be back.”

Through tear-misted eyes, Hutch looked up at Starsky, cradling his daughter’s inert form. “I’ll hold you to that, Gordo. I’ll hold you to that.”

********

Somewhere Along Route 66
One Month Later

“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Starsky muttered.

Hutch glanced at his friend and laughed, leaning back in his seat and glancing at the sun dappled scenery that was passing him by. “You know somethin’, Starsk, if you say that one more time…”

“Oh come on, Hutch! You can’t blame me for being just a little in awe here, can you? I mean, for one thing…how in the hell did you ever come by a restored ’74 Torino?! Huh?! It’s perfect! Perfect!” Smiling broadly, Starsky leaned his left elbow on the open window sill, unable to keep the excitement from his face and voice as he piloted the vehicle down the highway.

“Oh well, it wasn’t restored when I got it, believe me.”

Starsky glanced at him, frowning. “When you got it? How the hell long have you had it?”

“A while. Let’s just leave it at that. ” Hutch glanced out the window. “Say, when we hit the next rest area can we stop? I need to call Cassandra.”

Starsky nodded slightly. “Glad to hear Laura’s doing okay.”

“Better than okay. She’s doing super. School’s going well and it’s all set for when I get settled, she’s coming out to visit for a few weeks.”

“Hey, that’s terrific! Cassandra seems to have, uh…mellowed out some.”

A strange expression passed over Hutch’s face for a moment. He kept his gaze out the window. “We, uh…we came to an understanding in the hospital, waiting for Laura.” He glanced at Starsky. “I’m sorry about Lizzie, pal.”

“Don’t be. Truth be told, Hutch, she and I had been going downhill for a long time. ”

“You regret leaving New York again?”

Starsky threw him a wide-eyed look and laughed. “Are you out of your mind?! Hell no! I’ve been wantin’ to leave ever since I moved back! Besides…Lizzie’s parents are back there.” He shuddered. “There’s a part of my life I’d really rather forget. You shoulda seen their faces when I told ’em about that damn Sewing Machine.”

Hutch laughed. “You didn’t really blow it up, did you?”

“Truth? Nah. But it was hard to resist THAT temptation let me tell you!”

“So, uh…what’d you do with it? Give it back to Lizzie?”

Starsky pushed the bridge of his sunglasses further up on his nose. “Nope.”

“Give it to her parents?”

“Nope.”

“I give up. What’d you do with the damn thing?”

“Gave it to George for his retirement.”

Hutch was silent a moment. “Hey, listen, I…I’m sorry they forced him out like that…”

“Hey, don’t be. He told me he’d been itching to leave for years. Truth is, he said, he was glad he could help. He, uh…apparently, he hadn’t been used much in the past few years if you know what I mean.”

Hutch didn’t reply, but he knew what Starsky meant.

He knew exactly what Starsky meant.

“So he’s okay?” he asked after a moment.

“Oh hell yeah. Said he’d send us a postcard from the Bahamas. He and Mildred have enough of their retirement saved up to last ’em a couple of lifetimes.”

“Great, great.”

“Which reminds me, Blondie. You’ve been throwing around a helluva lot of money around I’ve noticed. This car, the duds, the luggage, the wife and kid’s support…you, uh…you’re not, um…I mean, you didn’t do anything…” Starsky’s voice trailed off.

Several moments of silence passed between the two before Hutch chuckled slightly, adjusting his own sunglasses as he looked out the window and reveled in the warm breeze . “Don’t worry, Starsk. In my drunken haze I didn’t go robbing any banks or anything. It’s some of my trust. Dad passed on a few years back.”

“Oh. Hey, I’m sorry, I…”

“Don’t be. We never…we never really saw that much of each other. I didn’t want this money. I told him that. He, uh…he insisted on giving it to me anyway.” Hutch frowned for a moment, then brightened as he turned back to Starsky. “So what better way to use it than to move back to where we both were happy, huh?”

Starsky was silent a moment. “There’s just one thing, Hutch.”

“Yeah?”

“If we’re gonna do this partnership thing…I mean, if we’re gonna go into business for ourselves…you know what we need to do.”

Hutch glanced at his hand, that was still twitching. He reached into the pocket of his suede jacket and pulled out a slightly rumpled pack of Marlboros and started to light one. “You don’t have to say it, Starsk. I’ve gone this long without a drink. I can lick this thing. I can. You’ll see.”

Starsky said nothing, hoping and praying that this was going to be that new beginning they both so desperately needed.

It’s been a long way home, partner, he thought.

A LONG way.

 

THE END