Chapter Text
Don't you know I care
Don't you know that I'll be there
As soft, as wide as air
Climb to the stars
Shine high up there
And fall into your stare
With all the colors I can wear
I'd touch you if I dare
And there'll be angels everywhere
And when our body is bare
And everything is soft and clear
As close as we can bear
And all our love goes everywhere
And I know I could be lost
And always too soon it's over
But there's everything to feel
And there's everything to discover
-Everywhere, Cranes
before
“Going my way?” he had asked, and Will had to admit he wanted to. Or, he had to admit he couldn’t think of enough reasons not to anymore. He knows he used to have several Very Good ones, rational reasons not to purposely forget his phone in the tumbled over transfer van, not to step over the body Hannibal shoves out to make room for him, not to slide into the blood-soaked bucket seat of a stolen cop car. Maybe he does worry too much, but right now, this close to the edge - of the cliff, of the sea, of whatever this is with Hannibal finally being over in a burst of red - this close to so many edges, Will’s mind is blurring, finding it more difficult to hold onto those worries. Those reasons not to climb into a stolen police vehicle with the Chesapeake Ripper.
“A change of clothes, I think, before dinner,” Hannibal smiles at him benignly, and below them the Atlantic roars. “I’ve grown rather tired of this outfit over the past three years.” He plucks at the sleeves of the white jumpsuit with an amused little smirk. “You have a wardrobe here, as well, if you would like to change. I’m afraid the poor officer’s remains have stained your clothes.”
“I have a wardrobe here.” It isn’t a question, is almost sarcasm, harsh, amused.
The older man’s smile never wavers. “I took the liberty of procuring a few pieces I believed fit your taste at the time. It has been some years since, and I admit that some of them may have been bought more for my benefit than for yours, but they are blood free.” His smile widens, eyes bright. “So far.”
It doesn’t truly surprise Will to learn that Hannibal has a room for him in the beach house, complete with a closet containing more than “a few pieces” and a bottle of aftershave that doesn’t have a boat on it. It should surprise him, he reminds himself, this isn’t normal. Keep a hold of yourself, he repeats within his mind, but the voice is far away, muffled, unclear, like someone speaking underwater. Every moment of cogent thought is a triumph.
The room is furnished with a large bed, a desk and chair, an arm chair by the floor to ceiling window. There is a dog bed at the foot of the bed, and Will makes a strangled noise deep in his throat, not sure himself if it connotes heartache or revulsion. Perhaps it is both, or neither, or one in this world and one in another. Will’s worlds are overlapping. Everything that can possibly be, has to be. This has to end well, and it has to end badly, and Will is overcome imagining the many endings but unable to follow one thread of imagination to conclusion. He rifles through the closet Hannibal has prepared for him. There are a great deal more suits than he would have selected for himself, and no flannel, but there are also plenty of inoffensive button downs -compromise items, his inner voice says, from far, far away - and Will finds something to wear easily. He doesn’t feel like a doll, like a doll in a dollhouse, and the thought is ridiculous.
When he’s changed, Will splashes his face with cold water from the bathroom tap. It doesn’t do a lot to clear his mind, but it feels good. He dries his face on one of the impossibly plush towels and heads for the living room. The sun is setting quickly. Outside the expansive windows the sky is turning pink and purple as a fresh wound. Will finds Hannibal, who, having shed prison attire the way a snake sheds skin, appears fresher and younger in a grey sweater and slacks.
“Nice view,” Will understates.
Hannibal turns from contemplating the bruised sky, a smile blossoming on his face at the sight of Will wearing the clothes he’s picked for him. Of course, the sight of his control over you is the view he prefers, that drowning voice within Will intones. “I am happy to share it with you, at last,” Hannibal says, his voice uncharacteristically soft for the moment. “I’d hoped to bring you here, years ago. I often imagined the conversations we would have here, how they would span from sunset to sunrise. Sadly, I fear we will not have long to enjoy the view; the sun sets quickly here, and it is unlikely we will be here to see the sunrise.”
“And what makes you say that?”
“Quite simply,” Hannibal replies, taking a step towards him. Will resists the urge to step backwards. “Either you will watch the Red Dragon kill me, maybe even help him with the task, as I'm certain Jack and Alana have encouraged you to do, or you will find yourself unable to follow through with the plan you and Uncle Jack have put into place, and you will return me to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and our beloved Dr. Bloom’s care. Where you'll always know where to find me.” Hannibal smiles, a hint of melancholy in his voice. "I think this time you'll visit more often, don't you?" He is close enough now to smell, and Will scents him on his next shaky inhalation, a clean, sharp smell of quarantine and captivity, and beneath that, very faintly, the dark, hot aroma of night blooming orchids. “Haven’t you thought ahead, Will? What view do you imagine waking up to?”
His voice is unsteady when he answers. “You’re assuming I imagine waking up again.”
Hannibal’s smile softens. “Do you imagine the Red Dragon will kill you when he’s done with me? Or is it me you are afraid of?”
“I told you once,” Will whispers, “I doubt that either of us could survive separation.” He looks down, unable to meet those flashing eyes any longer. “I’m not sure I survived it last time.”
“Do you feel you’ve been living half a life these past three years, Will? A marriage and a child were not enough to assure you of your own survival?” There’s no malice, only amusement in his voice when he says, “You could have visited sooner, if you missed me so much.”
Will lets his eyes flit back up to Hannibal’s again, and he’s lost, immediately lost. He should have known he would be; it has always been like this. Why should things be any different now? There is amusement in that gaze, but there is pain, too, and longing, and something Will might term regret if he did not know better. It takes an effort to speak his next words, and they are scarcely audible when he does. “I hoped that they would be enough.”
Hannibal steps closer, and Will feels the darkening room spin. “There are other ways forward, Will, other paths you might take. Perhaps you’ve already considered some of them.” Hannibal’s presence is overwhelming, suddenly, like a black hole, drawing Will closer and radiating darkness and thrumming with energy. Just standing this close is making Will’s head spin. It feels like Hannibal is growing, widening, taking up too much space in the room, like he’s bigger than his physical body and there’s no room left over for Will. “You did not survive separation, because you did not experience it.” His fingers spread over the breast pocket of Will’s white dress shirt. Will’s heart beats into his palm, trapped, held. “My hand is always on your heart.”
Later he places his cheek against Hannibal’s breast, hears the heart beating there, slow and regular as a clock as they tip into the sea.
******
after
Strong winds batter the sleek black car as it whips its way up the winding mountain road. It is 9am, bright but cold in the West Virginia morning. In the distance, grey clouds augur coming rain. The car turns off the main road, onto a side road so unused and inconspicuous it is barely visible amongst the trees unless one knows exactly where to look. The car moves quickly through the foliage, traversing the three mile driveway before coming to an abrupt halt in front of the massive lodge hidden within the dense wood.
Jack Crawford steps out of the car and removes his sunglasses, pinching the bridge of his nose to ease a growing headache. He’s been on the move since 4pm the previous evening, and hasn’t slept more than a few stolen minutes at a time in almost 48 hours. When the man serving as both butler and bodyguard greets him at the front door and asks if he wants anything after his journey, Jack says, “Coffee, and a glass of water with an Alka Seltzer.”
“Coffee and Alka Seltzer,” Alana’s voice chimes from the stairway, and Jack steps further into the foyer, removing his hat respectfully as his turns to face her. “Winning combination. What are you doing here, Jack? Is this an emergency, because I thought my request for privacy was clear.”
“I’m not sure what this is,” Jack replies, tone a little harsher than he’d intended it. He takes a breath, reminds himself why she’s out here, why she made him memorize the directions instead of writing them, why she made him promise only to contact her in cases of extreme importance. He speaks again, more gently now, “I thought you would want to know this without delay. I came here as soon as I could be sure there was no one following.”
“Can you be sure?” She lifts a graceful eyebrow. “What’s happened?”
“We’re not sure. They…disappeared.”
“I’m going to need you to be a little less vague about the details, Jack,” Alana says smoothly, accepting a cut glass tumbler of scotch from the guard, who has returned with their drinks on a tray. “My family’s lives are at stake.”
“And your own life,” Jack reminds.
“And that,” Alana agrees, in a voice that makes it clear that she never forgets. “Stop making me ask what’s happened.”
“Dolarhyde intercepted the transfer vehicles. Before we could stage the breakout, he staged one of his own. Overturned the transport, drove off in a police vehicle. We found no survivors. We didn’t find Lecter. Or Will.” Jack drops both white tablets into his glass, waits a moment, then knocks it back in one gulp and replaces the empty glass on the tray. He reaches for his coffee. “The vehicle Dolarhyde stole contained a police tracking device. We were able to monitor his movement. I told them not to close in on him right away. I thought,” Jack sips his coffee. “I thought he might lead us to Will.”
“And did he?” Alana asks, voice low.
“Yes and no. He switched the tracking device off, for a few hours, and then, for some reason, switched it back on just after dark. By then he was miles away, out by the ocean. We assembled a SWAT team and sent them in pursuit.
“When they arrived Dolarhyde was already dead. They found him gutted, with a ragged wound on his neck that Z reckons as a human bite mark. Looks like he was attacked by two people at once. The whole place was covered in blood. Three different types, and only one matches dragon blood.”
“I think I’m getting the picture here,” Alana interrupts. “They worked together. Will’s betrayed you. Again.”
“That’s where things get tricky,” Jack replies. “If they’d fled together, we’d have found blood elsewhere in the house. The amount we found in the backyard, there’s no way they could have left without leaving us some kind of trail. But apart from a splatter in the living room from an apparent gunshot that also broke the windows, the blood bath is located entirely in the backyard. It stretches right up to the cliffside. We think,” Jack swallows, “we think they jumped. Or fell fighting.”
There’s a long silence between them, as the reality of the situation unfolds within Alana’s mind. She feels hope, fear, confusion, and a surprising stab of sorrow she did not guess herself still capable of. At last, she says, “You said they disappeared.”
“We’ve been unable to find their bodies,” Jack replies, swallowing the last of his coffee. “We’re still looking. We have helicopters searching along the cliffside, and a team combing the beach.”
Alana considers this for a moment, then walks to the bar and pours herself another drink. “Hannibal could never let Will go,” her voice is low. “He turned himself in because he thought Will wouldn’t chase him. If he’d kept running I think he would have finally been surprised; Will would have followed him before long. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself. Tell me, Jack, do you think you’ll find their bodies?”
“I’m not sure there are any bodies to find.”
Alana takes a long drink. “Neither am I.” She crosses the room to stare out the window at the rain that’s begun to fall, bringing pine needles with it to the earth. “Thank you for coming, Jack. Please, don’t visit again,” she turns, face drawn. Her eyes focus on the quiet figure sitting at the top of the stairs, eyes wide, child clutched to her chest. “Unless it is absolutely necessary.”
“Don’t come here unless I’m coming to the rescue, you mean,” Jack says. “It’s possible we won’t find bodies because there’s just nothing left of them to find, Alana. The impact, plus their injuries, would almost definitely have rendered them unconscious, at least temporarily. It doesn’t take long for those waves to pulverize a body against the rocks.”
Alana fixes him with a cold stare. Jack can’t help but think of one of their first meetings, when she’d warned him - begged him - not to let Will get too close. It is a different voice than the one he remembers, when she finally speaks again: “Is that what you really believe? Or are you only hoping you’ve lost him to the sea, instead of to Hannibal?”
*******
When Frederick Chilton awakens he experiences the best moment of his day. It is a moment that comes only ever just upon waking - a moment that shortens with each experience, so that he fears the morning when he will wake without it. For that first brief and blessed instant as his brain returns to consciousness, Frederick forgets what’s been done to him.
The doctors have deemed his recovery, such as it is, miraculous. Frederick has heard that exact description before, too often to find any solace in it this time. He does not feel recovered. He feels flayed.
“Mr. Chilton?”
Frederick swivels his eyes to the orderly standing in the doorway. “Doctor,” he corrects.
“Oh, I’m not a doctor,” the idiot says. “There’s someone here to see you.”
Frederick raises what used to be an eyebrow. He’d had a few visitors in the first days after he came blazing like a comet into the parking garage, but not too many came back for a second look. Seeing Frederick was not a wholesome or popular experience.
He is all the more surprised to see who comes walking through the door a moment later. “Miss Lounds,” Frederick greets. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, Dr. Chilton,” the reporter smiles. “I’m sorry, for what’s happened to you.”
“For my accident, Miss Lounds? That’s what one of the surgeons called it. An accident. Like falling down the stairs or being rear ended.”
“Hannibal is an accident,” Freddie replies succinctly.
“Hannibal didn’t do this. Will Graham did.” Frederick can still feel the weight of that hand on his shoulder. On what used to be his shoulder.
“I thought the Red Dragon did this.” It’s not quite a question, but Frederick answers anyway.
“Who do you think gave him the idea? I was set up. Will Graham knew exactly what he was doing. He was curious to see what would happen.” Frederick cannot keep the disgust out of his voice. He pauses to sip from the straw hovering a few inches from his mouth. His throat gets dry so easily; the doctors said he’d inhaled the fire till it scorched his esophagus. “Believe me, Miss Lounds, this is Will Graham’s design.”
“I don’t suppose anyone has told you, yet,” Freddie says, smoothing an imaginary crease from her blazer, “that Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter vanished last night, leaving a blood soaked beach house for the FBI to find?”
Frederick doesn’t bother asking for her source. As preposterous as Freddie Lounds’ little publication is, he has to admit that, when it comes to Tattlecrime leads, Freddie’s intel is usually accurate. He suddenly feels colder than he has since the accident.
Through his fear, Frederick realizes the reporter is still speaking. “The FBI will want to tell its version of this story,” Freddie is saying. “One in which Will Graham is a hero, or a victim. It’s up to the people who know better, who’ve suffered at their hands and because of the callousness, to make sure that’s not the only story being told.”
“People like us,” Frederick says.
Freddie smiles, the first smile Frederick has seen in weeks. It is a luminous, dazzling beacon as she reaches into her purse and extracts a dictaphone.
“Exactly.”
******
The fire is low, crackling coals, a red glow within the iron stove. A child’s pale hand tosses a bundle of sticks into the flicker, and flames rise up, twisting with fragrant smoke. Beyond the sound of the fire devouring its fuel, Will can hear the gentle patter of rain, and although he cannot turn his head, he senses the vastness of the room at his back like a draft. The smoke curls like incense, and his nostrils flare at the aroma of forest and light.
“Apple,” a little voice asserts, somewhere out of sight. It is a child’s voice, a girl’s he thinks, accented and familiar.
“Guess again.”
Will hears a little sigh from the girl. A pause. “Hickory.”
“There are holes in the floor of the mind,” Hannibal says, the whisper warm against Will’s ear, though he cannot turn to face it. Lips brush the shell of his ear, breath hot, breathing hot words that sink into his skull. “All chambers are not lovely, light, and high.”
And then Will can turn his head, and instead of Hannibal he sees a girl kneeling by the fire - an expressionless little preteen with a black bob and a blindfold, and a certain firmness that he recognizes as Chiyoh’s. And to her right, a boy, Wally’s age, Will thinks, whose maroon eyes, drilling into Will with intense curiosity, can only be Hannibal’s.
Will blinks, startled to meet those scrutinizing eyes in so young a face. He searches for anywhere else to look. There is a window behind the boy, Hannibal, and through it Will can see Wolf Trap, covered in snow. Chiyoh and Hannibal appear again, in more familiar visage, standing amongst the trees.
“Between iron and silver,” Hannibal is saying to her. Will feels as if he has crept closer to the window, although he is certain he has not moved - cannot move. “Will you watch over me?”
“I will,” Chiyoh’s voice is only a whisper, as the snow laden trees around her begin to fade, and then she fades, too, and Will is left looking back at those singular red eyes, staring out of a face that darkens like night falling suddenly, like falling suddenly into a pool of ink, like pools of blood suddenly illuminated by moonlight.
“Will you watch over me? Will.”
“Will . . . Will?”
Will is certain he is underwater, but Hannibal’s voice is clear, and lacks the dreamlike quality it had a moment ago, coming out of that angular darkness. Will turns his head and vomits water through his sudden coughing, and knows that he is on something like land.
“Hand me those blankets. Will, do you hear me?”
Will grunts, coughs again, and realizes his entire body is shaking violently. He feels utterly wretched. His lungs burn. His esophagus feels raw and scraped. His limbs ache. His eyes sting when he opens them, pricked by the salt crystals drying in his lashes. The knife wound in his side throbs, red hot beneath the frigid water that has, thankfully, slowed his blood flow. He blinks rapidly, shakes his head to dislodge the water in his ears, and regrets the motion immediately as pain shoots through his jaw.
He’s never felt so alive.
Hannibal is in front of him, accepting coarse wool blankets from Chiyoh’s dark-gloved hands. All Will can see of her is those hands, two dark shapes reaching out of the darkness. This truly is the black of night, Will thinks nonsensically, shivering. He can see Hannibal, though, clearly illumined by the light of the full moon. He looks to be faring little better than Will - he’s just as soaked, just as blanched by cold. Will’s eyes dart to the spot below Hannibal’s ribs, where his shirt is torn and stained red.
Hannibal wraps the blankets around his shoulders, and Will can feel him rubbing warmth back into his arms, pressing hard to still his shivering. Gradually, it subsides, though Will still feels the cold clinging to him like a shroud. He grits his teeth to stop the chattering that ricochets like a bullet around his mouth. The wound in his cheek throbs, oozing blood slowed to sludge by the freezing water.
Will turns to his good side, and vomits onto the heaving deck of the sailboat a second time. Cold water rushes out of him. His mouth tastes of brine. Will retches and spits bile, with only a vague awareness of the hand stroking his back through the heavy blankets. A shudder breathes through him, and he tries to take stock of the situation. It is night, still. He is on a boat. Hannibal is here, and Chiyoh. He is alive. And Hannibal, Hannibal is alive, and they’re still free, and -
“Where are we?” his voice is a raspy whisper, a whistle of air through his torn cheek. “Hannibal-”
“On a boat in the Atlantic, a mile off shore,” Hannibal answers, hand still petting Will’s back. “You swam most of the way.”
Will closes his eyes and focuses on breathing. He feels the weariness in his limbs and remembers kicking relentlessly, one arm under Hannibal’s, Hannibal’s voice in his ear telling him to swim forward, towards nothing he can see, into the dark swells.
Another fit of coughing hits him, and when it’s over, Will laughs brokenly into the wooden deck. “We made it.”
Hannibal pulls him to his feet, leaning into him, equally unsteady on the swaying deck. “It would seem that we, at least, are not to be lost to the roiling Atlantic,” the older man says in a voice that does not betray the pain Will’s certain he must feel. “Let’s get below deck.”
The boat sways, and Will can feel the hum of a motor working as he follows Hannibal down into the cabin. “Do we have a destination?”
“At the moment, Chiyoh is simply taking us someplace we’ll be unlikely to attract attention,” Hannibal answers. He leads them past the kitchenette and dining area, into the mid-cabin sleeping quarters. The wood-paneled walls slope towards each other, so the room gets progressively narrower. There’s a door in the far wall, to an en suite bathroom, Will guesses. It must be truly tiny. Set into either side of the wall is a narrow bed, sheets turned down with military neatness. Will sways on his feet in a way that has nothing to do with the soft swells of the night sea, and Hannibal pushes him down to sit on one of the low twin beds, before before vanishing into what Will has assumed is the adjoining bathroom. He is only out of sight for a minute or two, and realistically Will knows there is no means of escape through a sailboat’s lavatory, but for those minutes Will feels a stab of anxiety which, coupled with the blood loss and the lingering chill of the Atlantic ocean, has him dizzy and faint. He’s thankful he’s no longer standing; he’s certain he would fall.
When Hannibal returns a moment later with the first aid kit, Will sits silently and allows the doctor to tend to his injuries. His cheek hurts the worst. Hannibal saves it for last, pulling his shirt up over his head to patch the cut in his shoulder first. His hands move inquisitively over Will’s chest, arms and legs, checking for broken bones but finding only bruises and shallow cuts, which he treats with antiseptic, applying bandages with quick, efficient fingers. The little sound he makes tells Will there’s no serious damage, despite the pain that only intensifies the more his body thaws. Hannibal finally makes it to his cheek, and holds his chin in place with one hand so he can prod at the gash in Will’s face with the other. Will releases a noisy breath through his nose and the hands retreat. It’s dark in the cabin, the only light a dying bulb in an unshaded lamp. Will thinks the edges of his vision may be getting even darker.
“I’m going to need to reach inside your mouth, Will,” Hannibal tells him, sounding far away. “Will, are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” Will rasps. “Shouldn’t you take care of yourself?”
“I saw to my injuries in the bathroom. The bullet took some flesh, but it did not pierce anything vital.” Oh. Apparently he was gone more than a minute or two. Hannibal lowers his face to peer into Will’s eyes. “Your pupils are dilated. Can you still see?”
“It’s getting darker,” Will admits.
Hannibal stands and walks back towards the kitchenette. Will follows, spurred by a second sudden wave of anxiety. He has to brace himself against the walls to stay upright; room is blurred and spinning around him, but he knows with piercing clarity that he cannot bear to let Hannibal out of his sight. Not yet. Clinging to the doorframe, he finds Hannibal turning towards him from the small refrigerator. “You shouldn’t try to stand.”
“Stay where I can see you.” He knows it must sound pathetic and crazy, but he’s too worn to care. Hannibal just nods, leads him back into the sleeping quarters to his seat on one of the twin beds, and presses a carafe of orange juice into his hands.
The juice stings the inside of his mouth, but Will drinks half of it anyway in one long swig. The citric acid burns his salt-stung throat. Will doesn’t care about the pain, though. It’s tolerable. Or maybe he’s going into shock. He takes another, smaller slug of juice. “Open your mouth,” Hannibal says once he’s swallowed, and Will obeys, closing his eyes against the spreading dark. He feels Hannibal’s fingers pushing against the inside of his cheek, feeling at the edges of the cut with firm but gentle precision. Will fights back a shiver at the intrusive touch. For a moment he envisions snapping his teeth shut, imagines hot blood filling his mouth and soothing the sting in his throat, wonders if he has the strength to bite through bone.
Will remembers, as Hannibal stitches his cheek, the way the knife slid through his face, a sharp kiss, before his hand could commit to grasping his gun. The knife had surprised him, but what surprised him more than the shock of pain was the Red Dragon’s strength. He had known Dolarhyde was physically powerful, more than capable of following through on his promise to sever Will’s spine with his bare hands, but knowing and experiencing were vastly different. Will recalls the fleeting panic he’d experienced at the realization of Dolarhyde’s capabilities, the jolt of fear as he, hooked and dangling like a trout, kicked uselessly at the air. The strength of the Dragon had been astonishing.
So, too, had his own strength.
“Done,” Hannibal murmurs, and Will releases his breath, suddenly aware he’s been holding it. What strength he had seems vanished now, his mind and body heavy with exhaustion. He lets the other man press him back to lie on the bed, feels the blankets pulled up around him, scratching at his bare chest. He keeps his eyes open in small heavy slits, watches as Hannibal moves the medical equipment onto the bedside table and rises. Will’s body tenses as Hannibal walks towards the door, but he stops, one hand on the doorframe, seeming to reconsider, before turning back and climbing into the twin bed on the other side of the mid-cabin. Will lets his eyes close, lets a last rasping relieved breath escape his gritted teeth, before sinking into unconsciousness.
*******
“Something you need to see.”
A little black rectangle thuds onto his desk, and Jack fixes his red rimmed eyes on Zeller. The younger man frowns. “Jesus, Jack, when’s the last time you got any sleep?”
Jack dismisses the question with one of his own. “What is this?”
“VHS tape found at the crime scene,” Z answers. “There was a camcorder, huge, clunky old machine, set up on the bar, pointed out the busted window. I thought you’d want to see this before anyone else got a hold of it.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“I - yeah,” Zeller shuffles, pulling a flash drive from his pocket. “Just me, though. I copied it onto this, to make it easier. This is the only copy.”
Jack takes the flash drive with fingers that feel too big and heavy to operate correctly. Sleep is in his near future, but he owes it to Will not to give in to weakness yet. If there’s any hope of saving his protege, it’s stronger now than it will be in a day or even a few hours. He plugs the flash into his laptop and clicks the icon that pops up. There’s just one file, and he selects it after the briefest hesitation. Zeller coughs, shifts his weight, remains standing where he can’t see what only he has viewed already.
The video opens on Hannibal, crumpled against the bar, one hand cupping what looks like a gunshot wound in his side. The camera is steady, and from the angle Jack thinks it must be resting on the ground. Hannibal is the only person in the frame, and he’s saying something, his eyes on someone behind the camera and to the right. There’s no sound, but Jack can see the man’s chest rising and falling rapidly, his eyes flickering between something directly behind the camera and something slightly to the right. On screen, Hannibal’s eyes widen, as if in surprise. Jack’s not sure he’s ever seen Hannibal surprised before. The man on screen turns his face, intently watching something that is happening behind the camcorder.
Then he rises, with more ease than Jack would have predicted considering the blood weeping through his shirt, and lifts the camera. The room spins for a second, then stabilizes again. A new angle, as Hannibal places the camera on the bar, pointing it towards the darkness beyond the shattered window. Jack can see movement beyond the broken glass, and then Hannibal’s face fills the screen, his lips curled in a crooked smile. Jack jerks backwards in surprise, and Hannibal’s mouth moves, silent but easy to read.
“Hello, Jack.”
Jack can feel his molars grinding so hard he’s certain they'll crack.
“I edited the video,” Z says softly, “so you’ll be able to see better through the dark. It’s not my area of expertise, but…”
“I’ve seen enough,” Jack answers, without moving his eyes from the screen. Hannibal is staggering through the window, and Jack can see Dolarhyde roaring soundlessly over Will’s kneeling form. Their battle is brief. Dolarhyde is strong, but it’s obvious he doesn’t stand a chance once Hannibal enters the fray. Jack watches, mouth dry. Their movements are so coordinated it’s nearly impossible to believe they aren’t planned out, choreographed and practiced. Preordained, Jack thinks deliriously. He’s beginning to question how well he knows Will, has ever known him, and whether the younger man needs saving at all. Jack pushes these traitorous thoughts to the back of his mind the moment they appear. He put Will in this situation; he can get him out again.
The video is short, not even five minutes, and difficult to make out despite Z’s editing tricks. Still, Jack sees the embrace, and the drop off the edge of the cliff, their bodies disappearing mere moments before the scene is illuminated by the SWAT team, wielding flashlights and guns as they sweep the area for survivors and find none. He sees himself rushing into the frame, and he feels like he’s been watching much longer than four and a half minutes.
It’s quiet as he watches the mute home video, and quiet after the video ends. On the other side of the desk, Zeller stands, watching his shoes and waiting.
“These are the only copies.”
Zeller nods.
“Let’s keep it that way. And let’s keep these out of the evidence locker for now.” Jack rises. His body is stiff, his eyes dry. He looks down at his desk, at the black rectangle he’s not sure how to interpret. It’s been a long time since he slept. “I’m going home, Brian,” he says. His voice sounds like it’s a hundred years old. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Zeller nods again. “I’m sorry.”
Not as sorry as I am, Jack thinks, but he just says, “Thank you.”
* * * * * *
Freddie Lounds’ pulls up to the beach house at a quarter past four in the morning. The scene is dark, and Freddie fishes a diminutive flashlight out of her glove box. There are no other car parked outside the house. Freddie bypasses the police-taped front door to walk around back, where, after photographing the mess she finds, it is easy enough to crawl beneath the tarpaulin covering the broken window and into the still house.
* * * * * *
At the top of the cliff, Will is gripping Hannibal so hard his fingers ache. Every part of him aches, every bone, every inch of skin, even his heart. His breath comes faster and faster, and he swallows the sob welling in his throat.
“It’s beautiful.”
Hannibal’s body is firm and human against him, no demon, no beast, just warmth and solidity. It seems strange, in all this time, to never have embraced one another before. They’ve been so close he’s forgotten who is who at times, has seen his own face staring back at him, has heard Hannibal’s voice in his mouth and felt the presence of the other man’s mind like a brand on his own, but they’ve never cuddled. It’s almost a bigger shock than being gutted. It feels like the snap of a taut rubber band. Years of tension break abruptly, like a teacup shattering or a body breaking. And by embracing Hannibal, Will knows, he is choosing at last to embrace himself, to acknowledge and accept those parts of himself he’s so long denied. He could stand like this, thinking this way, for a long time. But then.
The sound of the helicopter, faint over the roar of the sea, and the flash of light reflecting on dimmed headlights. His face pressed against Hannibal’s chest, Will can see the SWAT van jerking to a stop beside their stole police car.
Now he has no trouble imagining what will happen. Hannibal will kneel, like he did on that night three years ago, when Will had walked away, unable or unwilling to watch, disgusted with Hannibal and Jack and with himself, most of all. This time he will watch. Hannibal will allow himself to be led away, back to his cage, where Will can always find him but never touch him. Jack will congratulate him, tell him to go home to Molly, knowing full well he won’t be able to go home. He won’t ask why Will didn’t stick to the plan, and if he happens to see this embrace he’ll pretend he only believes it is Will attempting to apprehend Hannibal and keep him for escaping. Alana won’t mention the plan either, and they’ll all quietly agree to pretend that Will hasn’t crossed any lines, that everything he did was above board, a dangerous and heroic ploy to bring down a violent killer. And in time, there will be another monster like the Dragon, and Will will return, either on his own or because Jack comes for him, and he won’t be able to resist. He’ll spend his life staring through glass, speaking in riddles, stepping on his own throat. They’ll both be in prison, then.
Will has no intention of seeing either of them imprisoned a second time. And he recognizes the sound when the bolt of his fate slides home.
* * * * * * *
Hannibal is not in the room when Will wakes up. Will forces himself up, rolls his shoulder experimentally and then winces in pain. That anxious feeling is back, and Will heads for the door, in search of Hannibal. He’s impatient with his own concern; hadn’t he once professed not to want to know where Hannibal was, or what he was doing, to have no connection whatsoever to the man who’s been omnipresent in his mind for the past five years? Now it seems he can hardly stand to be one room apart. He wishes he had the decency to feel ashamed about it.
He doesn’t have to hunt for long. It’s not a big boat, Will would guess thirty feet at most. He finds Hannibal sitting at the table in the little kitchen and dining area, clean and relaxed and reading a book that looks like it was pillaged from a monastery. Will bets it’s handwritten in some creaky old font, in a language no one’s spoken for a thousand years but that Hannibal undoubtably knows how to speak. It figures that their rescue boat comes equipped with a medieval library. Hannibal looks up in greeting.
“Good morning, Will. There is coffee, if you’d like.”
Will pours himself a mug. He feels steadier than he did last night. His vision has cleared, too. But the lightheaded fainting feeling he’s had since going behind the veil is still there. The elation. The power. Will sits across from Hannibal, and wonders if his nerves will ever stop humming with electricity. He wonders how much longer his body can stand it. His hand on the mug shakes, barely.
“How are you feeling?” Hannibal asks.
Will snorts a laugh, because it’s such an innocuous question - the kind that gets asked a million times in a lifetime - but the way he’s feeling he can’t even begin to describe. “I feel high. I feel like my brain is on fire again.”
“Do you feel powerful?”
Will nods. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
Hannibal smiles. “I am happy you chose a different path for us, Will.”
Will laughs again, feeling it in his stitched up cheek. He must look like Frankenstein’s monster, and in a way he supposes he is. “I don’t know where this path is leading. I keep expecting you to disappear.”
“I assure you, I have no intention of leaving, Will. I’ve waited too long for this not to see it out,” Hannibal’s dark eyes spark redly as he speaks. His voice is steady and calm, but there’s an intensity to his words that Will can feel like a physical caress. “Your path leads wherever you choose it to. Tell me, do you finally know what it is you want?”
Will nods, once. “Revenge,” he breathes. “And… this power. This feeling, this aliveness.” He is practically hissing, unable to contain the words or the desire they signify. “I want this.”
Hannibal exposes his crooked teeth in one of his rare grins. He’s practically beaming. He reaches across the narrow table, and places his hands over Will’s where they clasp the coffee mug. Will’s skin prickles with heat. “We will take your revenges, and let the world tremble to know we walk together at last,” Hannibal promises, voice low, and Will feels the words in his blood and bones more than he hears them with his ears.
All his nerves sing. Will is on fire at a cellular level. He feels reborn, a new being born of blood and salt and moonlight. He swallows, tensing and relaxing his jaw, holding Hannibal’s gaze for impossible long moments. The world will tremble, and he trembles with it, or perhaps it’s a vibration of energy, a blood buzz building in his sinews and marrow. Perhaps it is not fear and anxiety humming within him, but excitement and appetite. The path they’ll take will be of his design.
And Will knows just where to begin.