Disclaimer: This story is written for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being made from it. No infringement on anyone’s copyright is intended.

A fan suggested this story. She saw a scenario in an episode of another series and wanted to see how it would play out in a Starsky and Hutch story. We were happy to oblige and hope she likes the result. The basic premise and a few of the plot points are the same, but most of the story has been changed.

Cause Unknown

Written by Sue David and Valerie Wells

© August 2002

The soft sound of the Care Flight helicopter’s blades in idling speed carried through the canyon. The crashed out guardrail had alerted an early morning runner, who liked to take the canyon road. He had called the police. Two hours later, the fire department and Care Flight teams had extricated the man from the mangled car.

One of the firemen walked up to Bay City police officer Don Candelario and said, “Um, Officer, I’m afraid he’s one of yours.”

“What?” Candelario asked as he reached to take the car registration from the fireman. He read the name. “Are you sure it was him in the car?”

“Yeah, his ID was on him. We sent it along with him and the medics.”

“You’re sure he was alone?”

The fireman nodded. “We checked in and around the car. Single occupant.”

“Thanks. I’ll hang onto this.” The uniformed officer walked wearily back to his squad car. His partner was filling out some paperwork and waiting to help organize the tow trucks to pull out the car. He looked up when Don opened the driver’s door.

“What’s wrong?” he asked his partner. The look on his face made it obvious that something wasn’t right.

“Better call Captain Dobey,” Don answered as he handed the registration to his partner.

~*~*~*~

The pre-noon sun was warm and Starsky was enjoying washing his car in it. The slight breeze felt good and he was cheerily singing along with the radio. He had finished with the water and opened the windows so he could listen to some tunes. Hutch liked to tease him about his constantly changing car stereo. They almost never got to listen to it, but today they weren’t working. The police band was shut off and an oldies station was cranking. He was wiping dry the inside of the windshield when he noticed in the rear view mirror that Captain Dobey had pulled up behind him. Starsky stopped singing “Yellow Submarine,” turned off the radio, and got out of the car to go and speak with his boss. A typical Sunday morning, the Dobey family must have been on their way to church. The look on Dobey’s face wasn’t doing anything for Starsky’s heart rate.

“Starsky,” the captain greeted him.

“Cap,” Starsky said. He watched as Edith slid across the front seat to take over driving. Now he was beyond worried, all the way to scared.

“Oh, my God,” he said. “Did something happen to Hutch?”

The almost psychic connection his two detectives shared served them well on the street. Still, the captain sometimes found it unnerving. Of course, his appearance in Starsky’s driveway, unannounced and on a Sunday morning when he should be heading for church could have caused Starsky’s quick mind to go into alert. He never tried to soft pedal his men. This would be no exception.

“Yes,” he said. “There’s been an accident. He’s at Bay City General.”

Starsky dropped the wad of paper towels he was using on the Torino’s windows onto the cement and said, “Is it bad?”

“Yes. Edith is going to take the children on to church. I’ll drive you over there.”

Edith called out from the car. “Try not to worry, David. He’ll be all right.”

Dobey said, “Go on upstairs and change.” He turned and waved to his wife, mouthing, “I’ll call you,” to her as she left.

“What?” Starsky asked. “No, I don’t need to, let’s just go.”

“Dave,” Dobey said softly. “You’re soaking wet and wearing cutoffs. We’ll be there for hours. He’s already in surgery.”

“Oh, God,” Starsky said. “Why? Tell me what happened.” Starsky turned and headed up the stairs, Dobey trailing him.

“I don’t know much, yet. They contacted me on the radio when I was on the way to church. I got a patch through to the hospital. All they could tell me was he had been taken to surgery.”

Starsky rushed through throwing on some clothes and was ready to leave in a flash. His active imagination was putting together every possible bad scenario. Fearing the worst, he wanted nothing more than to race to the hospital, but Dobey was insistent. He would drive the Torino.

“One accident at a time, Starsky. I’ll drive,” he said, his eyes full of both compassion and determination.

“Keys are in it,” Starsky said with resignation.

Captain Dobey knew the officers who had worked the accident site were waiting for them at the hospital. He’d decided that he and the other officers would have plenty of time to fill Starsky in on what happened while they waited for news on their friend, so he hadn’t sought too many details over the police radio, in the presence of his family. Hearing from Candelario that Hutch had to be cut out of the car and taken to the hospital via helicopter was enough to tell Dobey that he needed to go and get Starsky, before he heard about it on the radio or by telephone.

While Dobey didn’t drive as fast as Starsky, he made good enough time to keep his passenger from exploding. The hospital wasn’t that far. Starsky didn’t need to ask him to pull over to the emergency entrance before parking the car. Sighing, he watched his detective bolt from the car. He had to get out and shut the passenger door before he could move the Torino to the parking structure.

By the time Dobey got inside, Starsky had already gotten what little he could out of the reception desk. He had Candelario and his partner, Todd Jepson, cornered, anxiously trying to get any information from them they could offer.

“Captain Dobey,” Jepson said. “We were just telling Starsky what we know.”

“Sorry you have to repeat it, but please do.”

“We picked up the call and responded at about seven o’clock.” He consulted a small notebook and continued, “Charlie Coghill was running along the canyon road early, and he saw the busted out guardrail.”

Starsky interrupted, “Was he pushed?” His memories of the time Hutch was pushed into the canyon and left for dead were adding to his distress.

Candelario said, “Didn’t look that way to me. The car went over an embankment and crashed into some boulders below. He’s lucky they didn’t break free, or he’d be dead for sure. The canyon is pretty deep there.” He glanced at his partner again and looked at the floor before he said, “Um, the way the car went over the edge like that, and the angle of the break through the guard rail, well ... it almost looks like he drove off on purpose.”

Starsky’s face turned several shades in rapid succession, but Dobey put a hand on his arm to stop him from screaming at the uniformed officers. They were just doing their job.

“Where’s the car?” he asked as Starsky seethed and muttered, “No way, no way in hell,” almost under his breath.

“We had it hauled out and taken to Metro,” Jepson answered.

Dobey asked, “How’d he look?”

The partners looked at each other and shrugged. Candelario answered, “Not so good. He was unconscious and he looked pretty banged up to me. The medics thought it was bad enough for life flight.”

While Starsky tried again to get some information on Hutch from the young woman in emergency admitting, Dobey walked the other two officers to the door. He wanted to get any additional details on the crash outside of Starsky’s earshot.

“Anything else you need to tell me?” he asked them.

Jepson swallowed nervously and said, “I know it was makin’ Starsky pretty angry, Cap, but we had our reasons for saying that about him running off the road on purpose. There weren’t any skid marks.”

“Thanks. You boys go on back to headquarters and fill out your reports. For now, this crash is listed as ‘cause unknown’ until I get an investigative team on it.”

“Yes, sir.” The two officers nodded respectfully and left.

On the promise that someone would come out and tell them what was happening soon, the men went to the waiting room upstairs on the surgical floor. After watching Starsky pace for two hours, Dobey decided to call Huggy to see if he could come down and help him keep a lid on Starsky’s rising anxiety. Despite the promise, they hadn’t been told anything. The trauma doctors were working on Hutch and couldn’t come out and no one else seemed to have any information to share with them regarding the surgery.

“We were gonna meet for lunch,” Starsky muttered as he paced his way across the waiting room. “I got a new stereo in the Torino. I was going to let him razz me about it.”

“He’ll still do that,” Dobey said. He was glad when he heard the elevator doors open and saw Huggy striding toward them, carrying a bag that the captain hoped didn’t include anything with caffeine.

“Any news?” Huggy asked when he was close enough.

Starsky shook his head and paced away from him. Huggy reached in and grabbed a sandwich and a soda, handing them to Dobey. He could always be counted upon to take care of bringing edible food to the hospital.

“You want a sandwich, Starsky?” he asked.

Starsky turned to answer, but immediately forgot about it when he saw a doctor approaching.

“I’m sorry you’ve been kept waiting,” the man said. “I’m Doctor Edson. You must be here for Kenneth Hutchinson.” They were the only people in the waiting area, so it was a good guess.

Starsky introduced himself as Hutch’s partner, and then he introduced the captain and Huggy. They went through the usual round of questions about next of kin and Medical Power of Attorney. Satisfied with their answers, the doctor invited the men to sit as he explained the situation with Hutch. As the doctor spoke, Dobey was grateful that Starsky was seated.

“Your partner is being treated by several physicians and surgeons, but I’m going to be your primary contact.” The doctor proceeded to deliver his information in a mix of medical and lay terms to the three anxious men staring at him. “First, some good news. Your friend didn’t sustain any injury to his spine or his neck.” At that, his audience sighed with relief. “He has two broken ribs on the right side - blunt trauma probably caused by his steering wheel. One of them did some damage to his liver, which we’ve repaired. The other damaged his lung. We’ve placed some chest tubes and are treating him for hemopneumothorax. That basically means the injuries caused him to have both air and blood in the pleural space. When he got here, he was unconscious and shocky. His blood pressure is too low and he has a fever.”

Starsky was looking pale. The doctor stopped his recitation and asked, “Are you all right?”

“Is he going to be okay?” Starsky asked in a thin voice.

“Let me finish.” That remark caused the remaining color to drain from Starsky’s face. He leaned forward a little and Huggy moved closer to him, hoping to be a steadying presence. The doctor pointed to his right eye and said, “He was probably unconscious for some time at the site and he was in some degree of respiratory distress. He has a blow out orbital fracture. That fracture probably saved his eye, but we’ll be watching that closely. The odd thing is that this type of injury is often accompanied by corneal abrasion, but his cornea is uninjured. When he regains consciousness, we’ll test his visual acuity and neurological responses.”

“Do you think his brain is damaged?” Starsky asked.

“Too soon to tell. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens when he comes around,” Dr. Edson replied.

“Is he going to lose the eye?” Dobey asked.

“Probably not. The thing we most need to watch for is retinal detachment and muscular entrapment. One to two weeks should tell for certain.”

Starsky took a deep breath and asked in a shaky voice, “Is that all? Is he going to be all right?”

The doctor still didn’t directly answer his question. “Both of the bones in his lower left arm are fractured. Those have been taken care of and his arm has been casted. He also has a severe concussion. To answer your question about his prognosis, he’s critical at the moment. He’s on a ventilator for now, but I hope to wean him off that soon. As soon as he regains consciousness, we’ll know more.”

“Is this where you tell me the next 24 - 48 hours are critical?” Starsky asked. He’d been down this road with his partner before ... on both sides of the ICU glass.

“I guess you’ve been through this before, Detective.” Starsky nodded. “You’re correct about the timing. The sooner he regains consciousness, the better. I probably don’t need to tell you that we’ll be monitoring him closely for a variety of complications.”

Dobey said, “No, you don’t. Thank you, Doctor.”

“I like to maintain what I call realistic optimism, gentlemen,” the doctor said. “Despite that, I think you should notify his family and any close friends. Right now, his chances are not that good.”

“We’ll call his parents, but we are his primary family here. I want to see him,” Starsky said.

“He’s in recovery right now. Even when we transfer him to SICU, I doubt he’ll be conscious.”

“I don’t care, Doc. He’ll know I’m there. Please, it’s important.”

Dr. Edson was a firm believer in the value of family in helping trauma patients to improve and recover. He could see how important it was to Starsky. “All right. I’ll leave word with the nurses in the SICU that you’re to be allowed family access. Just be there, but stay out of the way.”

“I understand. Thanks.”

“I’ll send someone to get you when he’s been moved.”

As the doctor walked away, Starsky put his head in his hands. Huggy patted his back and muttered something reassuring. “We were going out for lunch,” Starsky’s muffled voice said.

Dobey decided that he’d better try to get Starsky thinking, rather than dwelling. “When did you see him last?” he asked.

“Last night. He stopped by to borrow a corkscrew. His broke and he had a date. They were going to listen to jazz in the park and have a picnic.”

“Have you met this girl?”

“No. He just met her last week and this was going to be their first date. I do know her name -- Maggie Gregg.”

Since she was possibly the last person to speak with Hutch before his accident, the captain decided to get someone working on finding and interviewing her. He left Starsky in Huggy’s care to go in search of a phone. He also needed to let Edith know what was happening. Starsky wasn’t in a frame of mind to be asking too many questions about the accident ... not until Hutch was out of danger. Knowing that there were no skid marks at the accident site was troubling the captain.

After speaking with Edith, and arranging for Detectives Jack Hill and Sean Cavanaugh to meet him at the accident site in an hour, Dobey went in search of Hutch’s doctor. He wanted to be sure a blood alcohol level and toxicology screen had been ordered when Hutch was admitted. Important as those results were, that was something Starsky didn’t need to know.

~*~*~*~

Dobey took a taxi home to get his car and then drove to the accident site. Hill and Cavanaugh were waiting for him. “How’s Hutch?” Sean asked as the captain walked toward him and his partner.

“Not good. Thanks for coming in on your day off like this. I didn’t want to trust this investigation to just anyone.”

Jack Hill nodded. “Just wish it was under better circumstances, Cap. How’s Starsky takin’ it?”

“He’s hanging on by his fingernails. I left him with Huggy. What have you got here?”

They walked toward the broken area of the guardrail. Unfortunately, rescue personnel and vehicles had damaged the wreck site, but some important clues to what had happened remained. The guardrail wasn’t a metal and wood-beam structure. This was an old style one consisting of a low rock wall topped by a small diameter metal railing that had probably been in service since the days of the Great Depression. Not much of a challenge for a heavy car like Hutch’s, moving with any speed.

The ground was dry. None of Bay City’s average thirteen inches of rainfall per year had fallen in recent weeks. Jack noticed that there was a dug out patch of dirt on the soft shoulder where it appeared the rear tire from a heavy vehicle had spun in place. The guardrail was broken at a slight angle; the car didn’t go directly off the edge. Pale tan paint clung to the sides of a roughly LTD-shaped break in the rock and metal.

The detectives had stopped at Metro to pick up a copy of Candelario and Jepson’s report. Hill said, “Cap, this report says a runner discovered the wreck at approximately seven this morning. No witnesses were located who could pinpoint the time of the accident.” He looked down into the canyon and then up over his shoulder. High in the hills above where they stood, he could see a few houses.

Following his partner’s gaze, Sean said, “When we’re done here, Jack and I will go and see if anyone up there might have heard something.”

The captain nodded. “I’m ordering the car off limits to any investigative teams.” He pointed at each of them as he said, “Other than the three of us, the only people going near that car for now are going to be the lab team and Starsky.”

Sean asked, “Cap, what do you think is going on here?”

“I’m not sure, yet, but my gut is telling me this is a setup. If it is, Hutch may be in danger. Maybe Starsky, too. Could just be an accident, but I’m not buying that. Not yet.”

Sean fidgeted on his feet and nervously said, “Uh ... the uniforms put ‘cause unknown’ on the report, but we talked to them. They don’t know Hutch that well.” He was uncomfortable and he looked to his partner for help.

Jack finished for him. “They thought it looked like one of three things. He fell asleep at the wheel, he was drunk, or he was trying to off himself.”

The captain looked serious. Hutch was a moody man, prone to depressive bouts, but he didn’t believe that last scenario for an instant. If something caused him to feel that despondent, Starsky would already have been all over it. Other than times Hutch was worried about his partner, he was one of the most levelheaded men he’d ever had in his command. He also didn’t believe he would be driving under the influence. They had been working long hours lately, but not enough to make him so tired he’d be dangerous behind the wheel.

“What do you two think about those three scenarios?” he asked.

Sean was quick to say, “I think all three of them are full of shit. Uh, sorry, Cap.” Jack laughed at him as he stood in front of his boss, blushing.

“Don’t worry about it, Sean. I agree. Let’s see if we can find out what really happened.”

They agreed that the detectives would speak with the people in the nearest homes. After that, they would return to the station and start looking into where they could find Maggie Gregg. The captain was headed to Metro to have a look at Hutch’s car.

~*~*~*~

The senior lab team officer handed the captain some evidence bags and a pair of gloves. He understood Dobey’s desire to look at the car himself. Hutch was one of his top detectives. Although an accident investigation would be conducted later, officially, the car wasn’t a crime scene and that was just the way the captain wanted it -- for the moment.

The car was a mess. “Totaled,” Dobey muttered as he walked around it. He could see the scrapes made by the guardrail, matching the paint marks at the accident site. The engine compartment was mangled, shaped roughly like the boulders into which the car had crashed. The windshield was starred and the driver’s area was bloody. The steering wheel was broken both at the top and near the left side on the bottom. Miraculously, the area where the gas and brake pedals were was intact. Hutch was lucky. His legs could have been crushed in an accident like this. The force of the impact seemed to have pushed everything higher, accounting for his chest and head injuries. The driver’s door was twisted, having been pried open by the firefighters to gain access to Hutch.

He noticed the cigarette lighter on the floor on the passenger side. A glance around the floorboard and dashboard revealed two cigarette butts in the ashtray and the tiniest remains of a joint on the floor. In a parody of the dark haired half of the dynamic duo, he muttered, “Terrific.” As he bagged the items, he noticed the cigarettes were an obscure, German brand. Strong cigarettes with small filters. Dobey had gone through what he termed an “eclectic cigarette” phase when he was in college and he’d smoked this brand for a while -- before he met Edith and she got him to quit. He smiled at the memory of his fiancée informing him that he’d better stop smoking if he expected to be kissing her.

He snagged the keys, stood up out of the car, and put the bags in his jacket pocket. He would lock them up in his office until he knew what was next. He checked the trunk, but found nothing enlightening in it, or in the back seat. “I want the car dusted for prints,” he told the supervisor as he left.

~*~*~*~

Starsky had been sitting by Hutch’s side for hours. His best friend made no sign of a return to consciousness. At least the doctor was right about the ventilator. They’d already taken Hutch off of it, leaving just the oxygen tubing, IVs, and monitors. The soft, steady beat of the heart monitor was evidence that Hutch was fighting. Starsky took small comfort in that. He squeezed Hutch’s hand from time-to-time, hoping to get a response. Huggy peered in on them through the glass. Starsky had refused all his attempts to get him to eat or drink something, and he wasn’t looking well. When Hutch was recovering from the car accident he’d had where he’d been pushed into the canyon, he had asked Huggy to make sure Starsky ate and rested. His partner had been running himself ragged for days, and he refused to take care of himself until he was sure Hutch was safe and getting well. That included eating and sleeping.

“You know how he gets, Hug,” Hutch had said. “He won’t eat when he’s worried about me.”

“He’s okay, Blondie,” Huggy replied.

“I know I give him a tough time about his appetite, but he really does need to eat, Huggy. He gets sick and dizzy and--”

“Whoa, I can dig it. Don’t get yourself worked up. I’m s’posed to be watching you for him while he goes to work for a few hours. What’s he gonna say if you get worse while the Bear’s on duty?”

They had a long conversation about friendship and responsibility. The only way Hutch would relax was for Huggy to promise he’d watch out for Starsky whenever Hutch couldn’t. No matter what the reason. Huggy took that promise seriously and he’d vowed to himself he would keep it when the need arose. He never told Hutch that he’d had a similar discussion with his partner on a previous occasion.

Huggy decided enough was enough. He tapped lightly on the window and motioned to Starsky to come out and talk to him. Starsky looked reluctant, but he leaned over to whisper a reassurance to Hutch that he wouldn’t be long and he walked out to the hall.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Starsky looked pale and shaky. “Not you, amigo. Come on, we’re gonna take a break.”

Huggy tugged on Starsky’s arm, but met with resistance. “I can’t leave now, what if he wakes up?”

“He’s got all these people looking after him and all you got is me.” Huggy looked at Starsky with sincere and concerned eyes. “I promised him I’d look out for you, if--”

“Don’t. There’s not gonna be an ‘if’,” Starsky snapped.

“That ain’t what I meant. I just meant, I promised him if he was sick or hurt, I’d keep an eye on you. Just like I promised you when you were hurt that time, you remember?”

Starsky looked a little sheepish. “Sorry, Hug. Yeah, I remember.”

“Then when Curly needs care, the Bear is there,” Huggy replied with forced cheerfulness. He steered Starsky past the nurses’ station, letting them know they’d be back from the cafeteria in a while.

Starsky’s worry about Hutch coming around without him turned out to be justified. The nurses saw the changes on his monitors about twenty minutes after his friends left the floor. His nurse went in to check on things and discovered her patient was stirring. She paged the doctor and encouraged Hutch awake while she waited.

“Mr. Hutchinson,” she said firmly. “Open your eyes for me?”

Hutch turned his head from side to side and slowly opened his eyes. The right one saw only a blur, but he fought to focus with the left. He moaned a little and she brought him a cup of water, after hearing him attempt to rasp out a question.

“I’m Nurse Rogers. Do you know where you are, Mr. Hutchinson?” she asked.

He shook his head and looked around the room, reaching up with his right hand to touch his aching eye. The IV tubing pulled on his skin and the nurse pushed his hand back to the bed. “Just hold still for a minute. You’re in the hospital. Doctor is on his way.”

She jotted his pulse rate and blood pressure on his chart.

Another glance around told Hutch he was in a hospital. He had no recollection as to why or how he got there. He moved his left arm and groaned from the pain. The arm was heavy in its cast. He was confused and knew there was something he should be asking.

Before he had a lot of time to think about it, Dr. Edson arrived. He checked Hutch’s chest tubes and did a complete neurological exam. Although he struggled a little with some of the questions, Hutch knew his name, where he lived, and what he did for a living. He was a little fuzzy on things like his exact age and who the president was, but the doctor wasn’t too concerned about it.

“I don’t understand. How’d I get here and what’s wrong with my eye?” he asked as he reached for it again.

“Don’t,” Edson said. “You’ll wish you didn’t. The eye orbit is fractured and if you touch it, you just might go into orbit yourself,” he joked.

“What happened?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Hutch furrowed his brow and winced from the pain it brought to his throbbing face. “I was at Starky’s....” Suddenly, he knew what it was that was bothering him. The ugly plastic chair beside the bed was unoccupied.

“Doc, what happened to me?” he demanded more forcefully.

“You had a rather serious car accident,” Edson replied, but Hutch instantly interrupted him.

“Where’s my partner?” he asked, becoming agitated. He couldn’t remember being in the car, so he couldn’t remember if Starsky was with him or not.

“I need you to calm down.” Edson had a bad habit of not answering a direct question with a direct answer. That was not a character feature detectives found endearing. Especially not this one, who had just been told he’d been in an accident and had awakened to find that his partner was not holding an anxious vigil beside him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know where he is at the moment,” Dr. Edson said.

Starsky and Huggy had just stepped off the elevator when they heard Hutch’s voice shouting, “Tell me where he is!”

Breaking into a sprint, Starsky came skidding into the room in time to see Hutch struggling to sit up in bed. The tiny amount of color in Hutch’s face faded to a ghastly white as he fell back against the bed.

“Whoa, buddy, I’m right here,” Starsky said, pushing past the nurse, and taking Hutch’s right hand in his.

Dr. Edson wasn’t pleased. “You’ll have to leave if he won’t calm down, Detective Starsky.”

Starsky shot him the look he reserved for the most trying suspects. “He’s not going to calm down if I do leave,” he stated, his tone conveying how obvious this point was. For emphasis, he added, “Seems to me I’M not the one who upset him.”

The two men glared at each other for a few tense moments, before the doctor nodded his capitulation. Hutch was panting and sweaty, his eyes closed almost as tightly as the grip with which he clung to Starsky’s hand. The nurse had some pain medication with her. At a nod from Edson, she emptied it into Hutch’s IV line. Hutch felt the warm rush in his veins and opened panicked eyes.

“No,” he started to say, but the medication was already beginning to work. “Please, Starsk. Don’t let them....” His voice trailed off as his hand went limp in Starsky’s and his eyes closed in medication-induced sleep.

Starsky stroked the back of Hutch’s hand and softly told him he’d be right back as he left the room in Dr. Edson’s wake.

“What the hell was that?” Starsky asked, trying to keep his voice low. Huggy stood next to him in horrified silence.

“Pain medication, Detective. Your partner is in a lot of pain. He needs medication to keep it under control if he is going to heal.”

“No. He doesn’t like to take anything. Don’t give him anything else without asking first.”

The doctor sighed, trying his best to be patient with the situation. “Look. His lung is bruised and he has tubes in it, his ribs are broken, and it hurts like hell. If he hurts too much, he’ll physically guard against that pain and it will affect his breathing. If that happens, complications could result including pneumonia or atelectasis. He has to have pain medication.”

Starsky nodded and said, “I need to explain that to him. He doesn’t take morphine. Make it something else.”

The doctor worriedly searched in Hutch’s chart. “Is he allergic?” He hadn’t seen a notation for allergy to morphine.

“Not exactly. It’s a long story. He just doesn’t take morphine, okay?”

“All right, I’ll order another medication, but I’m ordering it for every few hours. He needs to take it.”

“I’ll see to it that he agrees, until he can control the pain enough himself. Acceptable?”

Dr. Edson smiled. “You’re a good friend. He’s lucky. Yes, that’s acceptable. Just make sure I know about it if he starts to refuse. I know this is pretty frightening. He looks like hell and he’s in a lot of pain right now. I did a neuro check on him while you were gone, though. Everything looks good. His vision isn’t back in the injured eye, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I’ll have an ophthalmologist stop by in the morning, but don’t worry about that yet.”

Starsky smiled and extended his hand to the doctor. “I’m sorry I got a little tense with you in there. Watching out for him is what I do. He’s my partner.”

“No hard feelings. I’ll be back in the morning. Get some sleep tonight.” He turned to Huggy and said, “Is it your job to look after him?”

Huggy answered, “Right on.”

“See that you do. He’s looking a little ragged.”

After the doctor left, Huggy took a firm grip of Starsky's arm. "We are going to your place, and you are going to sleep."

"No, I'm not, I'm staying here --"

"No, you are going home," Huggy said sternly. "I ain't gonna face the Knight tomorrow with an exhausted sidekick and try to explain why I didn't do my job takin' care of ya. Now, move!"

Starsky couldn't recall ever seeing Huggy quite so determined, so he shrugged. He figured once Huggy had him "bedded down" at his place and had left, he could sneak back to the hospital. He hadn't counted on Huggy settling down on his couch and refusing to leave.

"I'm fine," he said for the dozenth time.

"And you're gonna stay fine," Huggy retorted, "because I'm gonna stay here and make sure of it. I know you, Starsk, the second the dust settles behind me you'll be out the damn door and on your way back to Blondie's bedside. Nothing doing. I'm stayin' put."

Starsky frowned in puzzlement. "I don't get it. When did you become Chief Babysitter?"

Huggy grinned. "The Bear keeps his promises. Now get your white ass to bed or the Bear'll have to get ugly."

"You couldn't get any uglier," Starsky informed him.

"Don't tempt me," Huggy said.

~*~*~*~

Drake stared at the TV in dismay. The anchor droned on about a cop found in his wrecked car near death and in intensive care at Bay City General.

"The officer, whose name has not been released, is in grave danger tonight," the anchor went on. "Police would say only that the accident is under investigation."

There was only a few seconds of footage showing the swarming police and rescue personnel, but Drake caught a glimpse of the car and knew it was Hutchinson's. He hadn't expected anyone to find it so soon, while there still might be drugs in his system. And he hadn't expected him to be alive, either. Of course, he had never intended to have to kill Hutchinson.

If Maggie hadn't been so unspeakably stupid and put the Valium in his wine, for crying out loud, Hutchinson wouldn't have reacted to it so badly, he'd have never remembered the beating Drake had given him or even seeing Drake, and everything would have been fine. That was the idea. He only wanted to give the cop enough to make him cooperative and to blot out his memory of what happened. But when Hutchinson had started having trouble breathing, Drake had panicked and on the spot had come up with the plan to wreck Hutchinson's car with Hutchinson in it to hide the evidence.

Now what could he do?

~*~*~*~

He couldn't move. Not at all. He could hear sounds, strange sounds, voices, a door slamming, dishes rattling together. But he couldn't move!

It felt like an elephant was sitting on his chest. He could breathe, but his head swam and ached with the effort. His heart beat too fast. He couldn't draw a deep breath, only shallow, panting, barely-enough-to-stay-conscious breaths.

He wanted to cry out for help, but he couldn't....

~*~*~*~

"Twenty-four's having distress," the duty nurse called to the floor supervisor.

"How much?"

"Can't tell. Increased heart rate and respiration. BP rising."

"I'll go see." The floor supervisor hurried down the hall to the policeman's room. Ken Hutchinson was thrashing in his sleep, his brow furrowed, fear and panic evident on his face. A bad dream, most likely, and no wonder, considering what she'd heard about his accident. She approached the bed and took his hand, sliding her fingers around to check his pulse and murmuring comforting words to him. His pulse was too fast, but when she touched him, it seemed to break whatever hold the dream had on him. He relaxed, though his respiration and heart rate were still too fast. Gradually, those also slowed, until he was again sleeping soundly. She put his hand down and gave it a gentle pat. Going back to the desk, she told the duty nurse, "A nightmare. He seems all right now."

The duty nurse nodded and pulled the chart to make a notation.

~*~*~*~

When Starsky awakened the next morning, he could hear the unmistakable sounds of someone cooking breakfast. Bacon and eggs, from the smell. He gave an affectionate grin. Huggy had definitely decided to take his job as partner in loco parentis very seriously indeed. He was cooking breakfast, for Pete’s sake.

Before he went out the kitchen, Starsky called the hospital to check on Hutch.

"The patient is holding his own," said a bored, official voice on the other end of the line.

"What does that mean?" Starsky asked impatiently. "I'm his partner and I hold power of attorney. I wanna talk to his doctor."

A sigh. "The doctor isn't in yet."

"Then put me through to whoever's in charge on his floor," Starsky commanded.

Another sigh, then a click and a long wait. Finally, a less bored voice came on the line. Starsky explained who he was and what he wanted and there was another pause while the nurse checked the chart. "He's doing fine, considering his injuries," she said. "He's up in X-ray now, but I can give him a message, if you like."

"I do like. Tell him Starsky called and I'll be there as soon as I can get away."

Starsky crawled out of bed and reached for his jeans. Yawning and scratching his stubbly morning whiskers, he wandered out toward the kitchen. "Morning, Hug."

"Starsky," Huggy said, too busy keeping the eggs from burning to turn around.

"You know, I'm not sick or anything," Starsky said.

Huggy deftly slid the eggs onto a plate and added bacon and toast before turning and handing the plate to Starsky. "I know that."

"I coulda cooked my own breakfast."

"Yeah. Bet you could."

"So why did you?" Starsky sat down at the table and started eating, keeping his face straight with an effort. Huggy had drawn his eyebrows down into a stubborn frown and was clearly not going to give an inch on whatever stand he'd decided to take.

"You got enough to worry about," Huggy said, picking up his own plate and taking a seat opposite Starsky. "Between Blondie and the case, you're gonna be busier than a cat on a hot tin roof. Me, all I gotta do is keep you outta trouble. Piece o' cake."

Starsky lost the battle to remain sober and laughed until the tears ran. Letting go of some tension felt good, and having a friend like Huggy felt even better. "Thanks, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart, I really do," he said, grinning across the table.

Huggy gave him a suspicious look, but must have decided to believe him. Finally, he returned the grin. "You're welcome. Eat. Dobey wants you down at headquarters by eight 'cause the toxicology thing is supposed to come in this morning. I promised you'd be on time," he added threateningly.

"Yes, sir," Starsky said, giving a solemn salute and attacking his breakfast again.

When Starsky reached the squad room, he headed straight for Dobey's office without even checking messages and studiously ignored the stack of paperwork waiting on the desk he and Hutch shared. This was more important. When he opened the door to the captain’s office, he noticed the door out to the hallway was just closing. Dobey looked angry, but Starsky didn’t ask him about it.

"It's not here yet," Dobey said in response to his question about the toxicology screen on Hutch. "They said this morning, though, so it should be here any time. But we both know what it'll say."

"Maybe not," Starsky argued. "Maybe somebody slipped him something."

Dobey shrugged one shoulder. "No way to tell who did it, though, unless he can remember what happened before the wreck. Why don't you get busy trying to track down Maggie Gregg? Cavanaugh and Hill already got started on that yesterday. See what they found out."

~*~*~*~

The X-ray department wasn’t fun for Hutch. As the morphine was wearing off, the nursing staff tried to administer additional pain medication, but Hutch was awake enough to fight them. He refused to accept it and they’d had no choice. They paged Dr. Edson, and he told them to allow Hutch to go to X-ray. He would speak with him about his medication regimen first thing in the morning. When he checked on him during early morning rounds, just after Hutch returned from X-ray, Dr. Edson discovered a man in severe pain. He continued to honor Starsky’s wishes about the morphine, but went ahead with his alternate medication, unwilling to let his patient suffer while they waited for Starsky to return to the hospital.

Hutch’s face was pinched with pain when Edson pulled up a chair to speak with him. He hoped to talk the doctor out of his plan, but it wasn’t going to happen. The pain was severe enough to make talking an effort. “No ... drugs ... please,” he said, stopping to catch another too-shallow breath between each word.

Edson shook his head. “I’m sorry about this, but you really need it. I’ve