Slaying Dragons

Lisa Graham asks Hutch to help her mother understand the events of Nightmare. Hutch and Starsky do their best to come up with a solution.

And we fight the dragons and we storm the castles
And I do the best that I can…
So I’ll fight the dragons
‘Til you can.
–Andrew Lippa (Big Fish)

“Ken?”

Hutch stopped in his tracks while Starsky headed to the car. “Lisa.”

Lisa came closer, holding the puppy they’d gotten her with her mom’s permission. “Can I talk to you?”

“You know you can, sweetheart. You can always talk to me or Dave.”

Lisa nodded. “I know that. But…”

He still hesitated in touching her, had noticed the way she’d sometimes flinch if a hand came too near, too fast. “What do you need to tell me?”

He could see Mitzi through the window, cleaning up from the party, her attention on anything but Lisa.

“Mama likes to pretend.” Lisa followed his gaze and nodded before looking back at him. “She likes to pretend it never happened. But it did, Ken. It did happen. He did a very bad thing to me. And I kept him from doing it again.”

“You did.” Hutch smiled at her. He held out his arms, and she stepped into his embrace. “You were very brave. Not many people would think as quickly as you did.”

“Dave likes to pretend too. He likes fun pretending. But he knows what happened. Mama…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked back through the window and took a deep breath. “I want her to believe.”

Hutch rested his cheek against her hair, words deserting him. “You want me and Starsky to talk to her?”

She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “I don’t want her to be mad at me. I don’t want her to hurt, too.”

“Lisa. Let me talk to Starsky. We’ll figure out what to do.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “Until we do, you keep doing what you’re doing, okay?”

She smiled. “I can do that. And I’ll take real good care of Zebra.”

“Zebra?”

She held up the puppy. “Zebra. For you and Dave.” She laughed as Starsky beeped the horn. “You’d better hurry. Dave wants to go.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hutch turned as he went down the steps and waved. “You’re the bravest girl I know, Lisa.”

She waved back, and he headed towards the Torino.

“What’d Lisa want?” Starsky asked as they pulled away.

Hutch stared out the window thinking of women and children with their lives ripped apart, innocence stolen, trusts broken.

“Hutch!” Starsky broke into the ever-increasing whirlwind of despair.

He shook his head and looked at Starsky, who still had that ridiculous cap perched on his curls. It made him look like a kid, although he was no more a child than Lisa was.

“She, uh…” Hutch rubbed his hands on his thighs. “She knows what happened to her, Starsk.”

“Of course she does. She’s not stu…” Starsky bit off the word.

“Mitzi wants to pretend it didn’t happen. She wants Lisa to stay a little girl forever. As if by not talking about it, it’ll all go away and Lisa will forget about it.”

“How could Lisa forget about it?”

“That’s just it. Lisa knows. Lisa knows we know it, but she doesn’t know what to do about Mitzi knowing it but pretending her r… rape didn’t happen.” Hutch looked out the window and then slammed his hand against the dash in anger. “Fuck it all.”

“She want us to talk to Mitzi?”

Hutch glanced at Starsky, his jaw tight, his eyes squinted at the corners like they did when he held anger in check.

“She doesn’t want to hurt her. Hurt Mitzi.” Hutch sighed. “I don’t know if we can fix this, Starsk.”

Starsky took a sharp right and headed towards the freeway. “We gotta think this out.”

Hutch closed his eyes, put his head back, and wished he had an answer.

The silence stretched between them as Starsky drove north and traffic thinned. They wound up at Point Dume and they got out, still silent, and walked.

Hutch jammed his hands in his jacket pockets and stared out to sea. Beside him, Starsky picked up a pebble and tossed it back and forth in his hand before throwing it back down.

His arm pressed against Hutch’s as he stood by his side—warmth in what felt like a suddenly cold, inhospitable world.

“We gotta get them help,” Hutch finally said. “Mitzi needs to accept Lisa is growing up—is grown up.”

Starsky looked at him, eyes troubled. “You think my playing with her—with those trains is bad?”

Hutch let out a huff of what could have been laughter. “Lisa knows you know what’s important, babe. She knows Doodletown isn’t real, that trains are fun even if you’re a grown-up.” He kicked at the sand. “You know what Mitzi said? She asked me who wouldn’t want a kid who never grew up. That Lisa will always be a little girl.”

“Yeah?”

Hutch took a deeper breath. “I asked her what about two children?”

Starsky stood silent a long time, and Hutch looked away again, watched the waves break.

“You think I’m a kid?”

“Of course not.” Hutch took his hands out of his pockets, used them to cup Starsky’s face after a look around to see no one else nearby. “I think you love life—find the joy in things that most people don’t notice. You never lost that sense of wonder, Starsk. You’re no more a child than Lisa is.”

Starsky turned his head, placed a gentle kiss in Hutch’s palm—a tingle going clear to Hutch’s toes—before he stepped away. “Lisa reads, writes, does math. Hell, she travels around the city on her own. Or at least she did, before. Why can’t Mitzi see that?”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to,” Hutch said. He curled his palm around Starsky’s kiss. “Maybe she feels like she could have prevented it.”

Starsky snapped his fingers. “I got it.”

“Got what?”

“Remember that school Simmons and Babcock did that presentation on home safety at?”

“Marshall Center for Exceptional Children,” Hutch said.

He looked at Starsky, who nodded back. “They’ve got some adult programs too, right? Young adult programs? Lisa could go if she wants.”

“And they probably have a parent group. That’d be good for Mitzi, especially since Frank died,” Starsky said.

Hutch’s shoulders felt looser. The feeling of not being able to help turned to hope and lifted his spirits. “We can go there tomorrow before our shift.”

Starsky smiled and slung his arm over Hutch’s shoulders. “Sounds good. Simmons said one of the teachers there said they’re always looking for volunteers too. Tillie, no Terry Robinson. Rob-something like that.”

Hutch felt warm again with the tingle that went all the way to his toes. “Guess we’ll find her when we get there.”

He smiled at Starsky. “Hey, you remember that seafood shack up the road about an hour?”

Starsky grinned and pulled Hutch close before releasing him. “The one with the fried clam strips?”

“That one.”

“Race you to the car!” Starsky yelled and took off running, joyful, exuberant.

Hutch threw away caution and chased him, wind in his hair. Things weren’t any less horrific, but with Starsky by his side, they would slay the dragons together and make the world into the one they wanted to see.

Author Notes: The episode Nightmare does a great job of showing the injustice of the justice system for victims. Starsky and Hutch do a great job of listening to Lisa Graham and understanding her feelings and trauma. Her mother–not so much.

I wanted to explore that a bit–not a deep dive but rather what would Starsky and Hutch do to help if Lisa asked.