It was a dark and stormy night. No, really, it was. The wind howled and buffeted the world like an angry bellows while the rain, wind's companion in crime, pelted down, soaking everything and making it impossible to see more than a few feet at a time. Nothing moved along the deserted streets save for the occasional piece of wind blown debris and one loan car.

The wipers on the car swished furiously back and forth, failing to make any great impact on the deluge of water that battered the windshield. The headlights, although on, worked as cataracted eyes do, merely greying the surrounding blackness.

Behind the wheel the driver leaned forward, trying desperately to see the road in front of him. Every few feet the wind would rock the car and he would grip the steering wheel tighter, only just managing to keep the car from sliding sideways. The man next to him held on, just hoping that they could make it to someplace, anyplace, before the weather won this particular battle.

They continued their macabre game of giant step, the wind deciding the direction and size of the ‘steps’ as often as the driver did, until finally, miraculously, they reached a safe haven.

Slamming the door shut, the blond-haired man leaned against it and looked over at his partner.

"You had to have pizza. I can't believe that I let you talk me into going out on a night like this. Not even the bad guys are out!"

"Well, at least we have something for dinner."

Hutch walked over to the table where Starsky had placed the pizza. The cardboard disintegrated in his hand as he tried to open the soggy box. "Starsky…"

"Alright, I'm sorry. How about I whip up some spaghetti or something? You could shower and change into some dry clothes. I think there are still some clothes of yours in the bottom drawer in the bedroom. O.K.?"

"Sounds good." There was no point in staying angry with Starsky. Besides, he had to admit that spaghetti sounded better than the pizza did anyway.

Hutch showered and changed. He was just finishing when the lights suddenly went out. He felt his way into the living room. Something was wrong. He could just make out the front door. It was wide open, rain being swept in by the wind.

"Starsky?" Hutch stumbled into the kitchen, a chill making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. A candle on the counter cast an eerie glow over the room. Hutch saw a pot of water on top of the stove. But what alarmed him was the unopened box of spaghetti that lay on the floor along with a broken bottle of sauce.

"Starsky!" Hutch ran back to the door and peered into the blackness.

"Starsky!" Hutch screamed again.

"Yeah, what do you want?"

"Starsky?"

A thin light headed towards him. "Hutch, what are you doing? You're getting all wet." Hutch watched as the flashlight beam drew nearer. "Don't just stand there. Go back in!"

Starsky pushed his partner back through the door.

"What in the world were you doing outside?" Starsky asked as he removed his raincoat and placed a plastic bag on the table.

"I got out of the shower and found the front door open and a broken jar of sauce on the floor. I thought something had happened."

Starsky laughed. "Something had. The electricity went out and as I was looking for a candle I knocked over the jar of sauce. I was going to clean it up after I had gotten some more candles from out in the garage." Starsky dumped the contents of the bag onto the table. "Voila!" he made a flourish with his hand as a dozen or so candles spilled out of the bag.

"So what do you say? Now that I'm back from the dead, how about helping me clean up that sauce and then it's peanut butter and jelly by candlelight."

Hutch, still feeling a bit foolish over what just happened, readily agreed. They quickly had the mess cleared and then set about making sandwiches. They talked easily with one another, laughing about what had just happened and the evening in general.

Later, with 'dinner' finished, Hutch went to the window and looked outside.

"Doesn't show any sign of letting up. I can't remember the last time that we had a storm like this. The electricity will probably be out the rest of the night."

Starsky nodded. "Why not spend the night? No sense in going out and getting wet a third time." Starsky emphasized the word third.

Hutch grabbed a pillow from the couch and threw it at his partner. "That's the last time I worry about you!"

"Sure. So, do we play Monopoly or Scrabble?"

"Scrabble."

The two men set the board up. Starsky was frequently creative when he played Scrabble and Hutch had to challenge several of Starsky's more questionable words.

They continued to play, unaware that they were no longer alone.

He peered into the room, heedless of the rain and wind that whipped about him. The time was near. He watched as his prey glanced up from the game towards the window, almost as if he knew that someone was out there. Perhaps on some subconscious level he did. The man inside shivered, continuing to look hard at the darkness outside, even beginning to rise and move towards the window to get a better look. The other turned and glanced as well, then laughed and said something to his partner. The spell was broken and both men returned to their game. And the one outside waited.

"You take the bed," Starsky said as he went to get linen to make the sofa up.

"Starsky, it's your house. Let me…"

"Listen, I've got to work with you in the morning. If you sleep on the sofa then your back will be sore. And if your back is sore then you’re miserable. And if you're miserable then you are no fun to work with. Please, sleep on the bed."

"Can't argue with that logic!" Hutch said. "Thanks, Starsk. I'll see you in the morning."

"Right. 'Night."

Starsky finished making the sofa up and then went around and blew out the candles that they had placed about the room. He clicked his flashlight on before blowing out the last candle. It wasn't that he was afraid of the dark but rarely was it ever this dark. Usually streetlight filtered through the shades, giving him some light to navigate by. Tonight, with the power outage and the storm, it truly was pitch black.

Once on the sofa he turned the flashlight out and lay listening to the sound of the storm outside. He thought back to when he was a kid and how he use to think that the wind sounded alive. He would lay in bed with his head covered up sure that the forces of evil were out there waiting to get him. Too many Creature Features his mother would say.

The storm continued to rage outside. Starsky, enveloped in his memories, drifted off to sleep.

Hutch too lay in bed listening to the storm. He secretly hated storms. He had always had an irrational fear of them and was glad that he was at Starsky's place rather than alone at his. He listened to the almost animal-like howl of the wind and wished, not for the first time that evening, that the whole thing would blow over. He wasn't really sure why but he felt uneasy, and not merely because of the storm. As he drifted in that twilight between wakefulness and sleep, he thought that he heard a sound not caused by the storm. Consciousness slipped away before he could identify it.

He waited outside. He had been waiting a long time. Years. But tonight his wait would be over. His patience would be rewarded. And the storm, a stroke of luck or fate he wasn't sure but what better ally could there be? It would be the perfect cover. Masking any noise, hiding any telltale traces of his presence. He looked through the window again at the darkness inside. Soon.

Hutch sat bolt upright in bed. For a moment he was disoriented. He looked around but all he could see was inky blackness. Then he remembered. He was at Starsky's. He tried the light next to the bed. Damn. The electricity was still out. He fumbled around on the nightstand until his hands found the candle and matches he had left there. He lit the candle and looked around. Nothing appeared to be wrong. So what had woken him?

He made his way to the living room. The candle flickered as he walked, creating an ever-changing array of shadows that seemed to move in and out of the corners of the room. He looked around. The sofa was empty. For the second time that night he felt chilled.

"Starsky!" he called as he checked the kitchen and then went back to check the bathroom. No answer. No Starsky.

Hutch pulled the front door open and called, hoping that Starsky had just gone to the garage again. But there was no response.

Frantically he turned and looked at the room again. In the glow of the candle something near the sofa caught his eye. Bending down he picked up an empty hypodermic needle. This left no doubts. He looked around the room again, hoping to find any more clues. There was little sign of a struggle. Obviously whoever had been here had surprised Starsky.

Hutch picked up the phone. Dead. He felt hopeless. He was about to go into the bedroom to dress and head down to the station when he remembered something from earlier that evening. Starsky had thought that he saw someone staring in the window. Hutch had laughed at him but maybe…

Grabbing the flashlight that lay next to the sofa Hutch ran outside. The rain soaked his pajama bottoms almost instantly but he hardly noticed. He shown the flashlight beam on the ground near the window. The rain had done a good job of washing away any evidence that may have been there. Soaked to the skin Hutch continued to check the ground near the window, but he found nothing. Finally he rose and turned to go back to the house. As he did he looked in the window, resting his hand on the sill. Had someone been watching them? He pulled his hand away from the sill and as he did so thought that he felt something. He aimed the beam to where his hand had been. There, resting on the sill, was a silver dollar.

God no, Hutch thought. Please god, no!

Starsky came to slowly. His first coherent thought was that his head hurt. His second was that he was no longer home. He remembered falling asleep and then waking up as someone stabbed him with something. He had tried to call to Hutch but he seemed to have lost control of his body. Vaguely he remembered being dragged from the sofa and across the floor but that was all.

He looked around. Oil lamps hung from the walls and he guessed from the dirt floor and cracked cement walls that he was in some kind of a cellar. His upraised arms were shackled to the wall allowing him very little movement. He shivered, clothed only in pajama bottoms and a tee shirt, both wet and dirty from, he guessed, being dragged out of his house.

From somewhere across the room Starsky heard skittering. Out of the corner of his eye he saw what he was sure had to be the biggest rat he had ever seen. I hate rats, he thought to himself.

More movement. At first Starsky thought that it was another rat. Then, from just outside of the light cast by the oil lamps he heard a voice that caused him to shudder.

"Ah, Detective Starsky. I see that you are awake. A pity for you."

Starsky saw the flash of light and heard the explosion a fraction of a second before the bullet hit.

Hutch made his way the station as quickly as the weather permitted. The building was dimly lit, the generator only providing minimal power to most of the offices. Hutch needed to access the files for one of their old cases. He prayed that the information he needed would be there.

William Kissel was a man he had hoped neither he nor Starsky would ever see again but, if he was right, Kissel had Starsky.

Starsky cried out as the bullet struck him. Pain erupted in his shoulder and for a moment he thought that he would pass out.

"No, no, no Detective. Where's the fun in the game if you are not awake to enjoy it?"

Ice water struck Starsky, jarring him back to full consciousness.

Starsky peered into the darkness in front of him. Fighting back pain and nausea he tried to make out the figure standing there. "Kissel?"

"I see that you remember me. And I of course remember you. In fact, you are all that I have thought about for the last seven years."

Starsky tried to clear his head. The pain in his shoulder was intense and he was having trouble focusing.

"You should still be in jail." He finally managed.

"Oh, but that is where you are wrong. It seems that there was a minor technical problem with my trial. My lawyer was able to exploit this error and it seems that they had to set me free."

Kissel moved forward to stare down at Starsky. His face contorted as he gazed at his victim.

"Seven years of my life. Do you know what they do to people like me in prison? Even when I was segregated they still found a way to get to me. You owe me, Detective David Starsky, and I plan on collecting."

Without warning Kissel pushed something into Starsky's wound and suddenly the world exploded.

The squad room was typically deserted during the graveyard shift and so Hutch found himself alone, going through a pile of files that he had pulled from storage.

He remembered William Kissel all too well. He and Starsky had worked on the case together but it had really been his partner who had been instrumental in catching Kissel.

Hutch shuddered as he read through the old file. William Kissel had been, and Hutch had no doubt still was, a sadistic pedophile. He had worked as a park grounds keeper. This had given him relatively easy access to children. Kissel would lure children off into the woods or to an equipment shack by doing simple magic tricks with a silver dollar and then promising to give the child the coin if he or she would come and help him to free a trapped kitten. The details of what happened to the children had made all of the officers and detectives working on the case sick.

Everyone had put in long hours until Kissel had been caught. Starsky, however, had had a personal reason for wanting Kissel stopped. One of the young victims had been the daughter of a woman he had been seeing at the time. He attacked the case with a vengeance, putting in many twenty hour days, tracking down leads, staking Kissel out and generally doing whatever it took to get enough evidence to put Kissel away. Hutch remembered being worried that Starsky would end up in the hospital from pushing himself so hard. He nearly did. But in the end it had paid off. Kissel finally slipped and Starsky was there. Neither detective ever expected to see Kissel leave prison alive.

And yet Hutch was sure that it was Kissel who had been at Starsky's tonight. Hutch remembered Kissel as he was taken from the courtroom at the end of the trial. He stopped as he passed Starsky and said only 'Someday'.

Hutch continued to look through the file. He was looking for something he remembered about a house that Kissel's mother had left to her son when she had died. She had died while her son's trial was still in progress but, sure of her 'Billy's' innocence, she had seen to it that he would have a place to come home to when, as she put it, 'this whole nasty business' was over with. The house had never really been part of the investigation and Hutch could not now remember exactly where it was located.

Hutch was hoping against hope that if Kissel was behind this that he would have nowhere else private enough to take Starsky to. It was a long shot but it was all he had.

There! Hutch almost yelled out loud as he dropped the file and headed sprinted for his car.

Starsky's head jerked up, striking the wall behind him. He groaned and tried to turn away from the smelling salts being held under his nose.

"There's a good Detective. That's right. Wakey, wakey."

Starsky tried to focus on the man in front of him. The pain in his shoulder was almost unbearable, threatening to drag him back to unconsciousness. Kissel realized this and again waved the vial beneath Starsky's nose.

"Did you enjoy the cattle prod? A lovely trick that I learned about during my incarceration." Kissel moved a hand towards Starsky's shoulder, evoking an involuntary flinch from the dark-haired man.

This delighted Kissel. "Are you afraid, Detective?"

"Go to hell!"

Kissel backhanded Starsky across the face with the butt of his gun. "Oh, I'm sure that I will. But I expect that you will be long gone by that time.

Kissel leaned even closer to Starsky.

"Have you ever had any of your bones broken, Detective? I imagine that in your line of work that you probably have. But to be restrained while someone snaps a part of your body truly is an experience. Did you know that they broke three of my fingers while I was in prison?"

Starsky tried to pull away as Kissel lightly touched each of his fingers. He prepared himself for what he thought was about to happen but it was with some surprise that his mind registered the foot that came down full force on his ankle.

Kissel laughed as a scream ripped from Starsky's throat.

Hutch cursed the storm. He cursed his car. The rain-slicked roads caused him to hydroplane more than once. Each time he would have to slow down and then inch his speed back up until the cycle repeated itself.

'I hope I'm right, Starsky', Hutch thought. 'God let me be right. And let me be on time.'

Starsky barely felt the blows that Kissel inflicted on his body. He simply felt wave after wave of agony. At some point he had felt some of his ribs give way. At other times, when he began to slip into merciful blackness, more ice water combined with the cattle prod forced shrieks from him, then left his body twitching.

His mind and body began to shut down. It was too much. But Kissel wasn't quite ready to let him go. As Starsky's head once again sank to his chest, Kissel grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head up so that Starsky was looking him in the eye.

Starsky tried to focus but he couldn't seem to clear his vision. Something sticky was keeping his lids from opening all the way.

"So, Detective, how does it feel?" Spittle flew from Kissel's lips as he spoke, his face just inches from Starsky's. "Was it worth all of the time you spent hunting me down? Would you gladly allow me my usual playthings in order to be free?"

Gathering what little strength he had left, Starsky spat in Kissel's face.

Kissel screamed and jerked Starsky's head back until it hit the wall. His hands then moved to Starsky's throat and squeezed until, finally, Starsky slipped into welcome oblivion.

Hutch pulled up in front of the house. He had already called for back up but, as he had hoped, he was the first to arrive. If Starsky was in there Hutch stood a better chance of getting him out if he was able to take Kissel by surprise.

Hutch entered the house quietly. The flashlight he had brought with him illuminated a house that had obviously not been lived in for sometime. A thick layer of dust coated everything and most of the furniture was covered in sheets.

'Are you here Starsky?' Hutch thought to himself. 'Come on buddy, give me a sign.'

It was then that he heard the scream.

"Kissel!" Hutch leveled his gun at William Kissel. "Back away from him now Kissel!"

"I don't think so." Kissel moved one hand from Starsky's throat and to the gun that he had dropped.

Hutch fired. He didn't miss.

"Starsky, hey Starsk?" Hutch pried Kissel's lifeless hand from his partner's throat and roughly shoved the body aside. He checked Starsky's pulse. Weak, far too weak.

"Hang on buddy. I'm here and it's going to be O.K. Hey, don't give up on me now."

Hutch undid the manacles and cradled Starsky in his arms. "A little longer Starsk. Help will be here any minute. Just don't leave me now." He waited for the ambulance and prayed that it would be on time.

Hutch sat at Starsky's bedside and watched as his partner slept. In the few short hours that Kissel had held Starsky he had inflicted enough damage to nearly kill him. Hutch ran through the litany of injuries in his mind. The gunshot wound, broken ribs, ankle broken in three places, numerous bruises and contusions, burns from the cattle prod and, to top it all off, a concussion. And those were only the physical wounds.

The blond rose and walked to the window. The storm, which had continued to rage all night, had now spent most of its fury. Power was gradually being restored throughout the city and things were returning to normal. Most things.

He looked back at the man sleeping in the bed. 'How many more times can we go through this? How long will it be before one of us doesn't make it on time?'

Hutch sat back down next to his partner and rested a hand on Starsky's arm. It was a long time before his friend's eyes finally opened.

"Hutch." The voice was barely a whisper.

"I'm here."

Starsky, still disoriented, started to breathe heavily. "Kissel, he…he…" Panic began to cloud the blue eyes.

"Shhh, Starsk. It's all right. Kissel is dead. He's gone."

The blue eyes looked hard into the blond's, trying to see the truth. Then, satisfied, he calmed.

"Knew you would make it," he slurred as he drifted off to sleep.

Tears flowed quietly from Hutch's eyes as he thought, 'This time.'

THE END

November 1, 1999