Chapter Text
Hannibal couldn't remember, and that unsettled him more than anything.
He had no idea where he was nor how he had gotten here. Only wisps of memory floated about him, frustratingly indistinct and just out of reach. He could tell he was likely injured or incapacitated in some way - his limbs were as heavy as lead, and may as well been strapped down to the mattress he was lying on. His breaths came quickly for reasons unknown, the constricting sensation in his chest one he hadn’t felt since he was a mere boy. He was unnerved by his own weakness, and how disoriented and useless his mind was to him right now.
He couldn’t move. He couldn't think.
Hannibal was beginning to panic.
Every instinct told him to flee from this place, to somewhere safe. Where was ‘safe’? He was lost, alone. He forced his eyes open, gasping, and laboured to right his unresponsive body. The IV lines hooked to his arms were pulling at him; he could feel rough bandages lying across his skin everywhere, and dull aches were beginning to prod at him with increasing intensity as he struggled. He could barely take in the details of the room he was in, a heavy fog having settled over the world. The heart rate monitor’s erratic beeping only managed to agitate him further. He couldn’t slow his breathing, the air surrounding him feeling cold, thick, and impenetrable like ice. An overwhelming, almost childlike fear was mounting in his chest, but Hannibal was unable to discern its cause. A sob escaped his raw throat without him noticing.
Then, he thought he saw the shadow of a small girl in the corner of the room, and his mind simply buckled; he screamed out loud, the room careening before him. There was a splitting pain at his side, blurring his vision. The dark figure seemed to flicker in and out of existence, mockingly - he couldn't help but reach out towards it in a final, desperate effort. Mischa, please… stay with me, help me…
Moments later, he had one hand wrapped around the throat of the nurse who had rushed inside to attend to him. With the other, he found, he couldn't command his fingers to move. Half-blinded by a veil of tears, he squeezed and squeezed the air from her trachea. She had gotten between him and his Mischa. Nothing could get in his way, not any more...
Will didn't enjoy hospitals. Of course, one would be hard-pressed to find an individual who claimed otherwise, but Will always found himself especially on edge when surrounded by those awfully sterile white walls. They were exactly opposite of what Will considered to be comforting. He hoped Hannibal was less impartial to hospitals, because he was bound to be residing here for some time. His injuries, although not life-threatening, were not minor. The cumulation of them could have killed him had he not been found when he was. He had been abused in a myriad of ways, and even Will, as much time as he spent in the hospital, didn't know the full catalogue of injuries. There was a gunshot wound which had also cracked a rib, other fractures, lacerations, dozens of cuts and bruises and a minor concussion. It was strange to Will that none of these were fatal. Sheer, incredible luck, perhaps.
No one was sure what exactly had happened to Hannibal. One day, he was running his practice as per usual, seeing all of his regular patients, including Will Graham - the next, he was gone without a trace, vanished. Hannibal was known to honour all of his appointments and was not one to fall ill. Luckily, he was engaged in his social and academic circles and had regular contact with the FBI, so his disappearance was discovered quickly. The search for him began but the efforts were futile, there having been no information or evidence to lead them whatsoever. Will could think of few discernible motives for anyone to take Hannibal - perhaps a disturbed former patient? Or had it been random, a crime of opportunity?
Two days later, Will received a call to his cell phone from an unknown number. There was no speaker on the other line, but only some distorted noises that could have been human voices, or screams. Will’s intuition never failed him in situations like this, and at that moment he was resolutely sure that the call had to be traced.
It indeed led him and Jack Crawford to Hannibal, half-buried in a pile of corpses that were later identified as his captors, whose names Will already could not recall. They were dead and held no more interest for him. Will would never find out why they had taken Hannibal in the first place, and the fact that it was deduced to be Hannibal that had killed them all remained an afterthought for Will. Hannibal was shipped off to a hospital and declared in “serious but stable condition” less than a day later. The staff, however, were concerned about the traces of foreign chemicals found in his system and the needle mark on his forearm. Luckily not opiate, cocaine or any other common hard drug, but they could only speculate on what mental state he would be in upon waking.
Will’s feet carried automatically him to Hannibal’s ward; he lost count how many times he had visited already, only to stare at Hannibal's unconscious form miserably for hours on end. He was surprised to encounter a commotion outside the door; a small huddle of nurses and a doctor blocked the way in. "Er, excuse me?”
“Ah, Mr. Graham.” The doctor nodded and smiled in recognition, but the expression was forced. “I’m very sorry, sir, but this is not a very good time.”
“Did something happen? Is Hannibal -”
“He’s fine. He just tried to strangle one of our nurses, though, so we gave him a sedative. He should be asleep again by now.”
Will blinked, absorbing this. “Why would he…”
“Probably a nightmare or hallucination, something of the sort. Something like that was bound to happen, so we should have taken more precautions. He woke up sooner than we’d expected.” The doctor said something to her colleagues, who dispersed. Distractedly, she looked back at Will, and said, “Mr. Graham, I must apologize again, but if you can perhaps come back in a few days -”
“Yes, of course," said Will. He took his time in leaving.
True to the doctor's ward, Will was able to see Hannibal by the end of the week. He found the him awake, sitting up in bed and reading something, when he visited again two days later. “Will,” he said as Will entered, voice hoarse from disuse.
“Hi, Dr. Lecter.” Will approached the bedside chair. “May I?”
“Of course.” It was jarring to see Hannibal with his hair mussed, only in a hospital gown and looking rather woozy, gaze not fully focusing on any one spot. Taped cuts and bruises were adorning his face, and Will's attention was drawn to a particularly nasty jagged line that was carved in much too close to the left eye. “Thank you for coming. It’s… good to see you.” There was a sincere warmth to the words. Will noticed that he was reading from a clipboard - his patient reports.
“I’m glad you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Drugged,” said Hannibal, “to the eyeballs.” He glanced down at the chart, tapping a space on it and saying, “It’s a lot of morphine…”
Will winced in sympathy, while also being vaguely amused by the psychiatrist speaking so candidly. “I can imagine.”
“I may prefer the pain over this,” Hannibal muttered, then shook his head. “Anyway, never mind that...” A short silence hung between them, laden with a peculiar tension.
“Can… can you remember anything?” Will broke it first, hesitant.
Hannibal stared at Will for several seconds, then the chart in his lap, and then his heavily splinted and bandaged right hand. Will had heard from a doctor that three of those fingers were broken, likely bent back one by one. An involuntary shiver coursed through Will as Hannibal slowly shook his head. “No, I can’t.” He suddenly seemed much younger and smaller than normal, the pillows propping him up dwarfing his presence.
“It’s okay,” said Will hastily, soothing but firm. Hannibal nodded, but something had changed in his face, as if… he did remember. He lay back on his pillows, the clipboard abandoned on his lap, and only then Will detected the faint trembles in his body and the moisture glistening on his skin. His eyes were distant, and suddenly, his breaths were becoming increasingly harsher and more irregular. The heart rate monitor's beeping picked up pace, and a nurse from outside the room was now poking her head through the doorway to survey the situation.
“It looks like a panic attack,” Will called to her, trying to retain his calm.
She scribbled something down on her clipboard and said, "I'll be back with medication, if you can try to keep him still -"
"I will," replied Will, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt, and she went off. Hannibal's good hand was tightly clenched around the metal bedrail, the knuckles white and veins standing out, almost skeletal. "Dr. Lecter, you're safe now, it'll be all right," Will said, but he could hear the desperation seeping into his own voice unconvincingly. "Hold on, okay? The nurse is gonna be back with something that'll help. Please..." Will hovered hesitantly next to the bed, not quite sitting in his chair but not fully standing either. Will didn't wish to touch Hannibal but the man looked so awfully in need of human warmth, and for a moment Will was tempted to give it to him. Hannibal was clearly putting utmost effort into regaining control over himself, but Will could tell he was losing an uphill battle.
"Will, Will.... Mischa," he was mumbling, hardly intelligible.
"Mischa?" Will repeated dumbly, the unfamiliar word foreign on his tongue. Was it a place? A person? An object?
"They took Mischa away, Will..." It almost sounded pleading, and trailed into a string of words that Will realized was not in English. Will had no idea what Hannibal was talking about, but he felt his distress acutely in his own breast nevertheless. It was at this moment he became certain that Hannibal had experienced something truly horrible before they found him in that warehouse.
“I… I’m really sorry, Dr. Lecter. You’ll be all right. You’ll be fine.” Hannibal was sucking in air through his nose, frantic, eyes squeezed shut as if concentrating intensely. It was difficult for Will to watch, because he knew all too well what it was like to fight one’s own mind for dominance over the body. Whenever he empathized with a depraved criminal too deeply, whenever he woke with a nightmare lingering behind his eyelids… it was the same. Hannibal was falling apart before him and he was unable to do anything, even though he was well aware that he should not be faulted. Breathe, breathe, Will urged. Hannibal shuddered, more incoherent sentences escaping his lips; then the nurse hurried back into the room with a needle.
Hannibal recoiled violently from her as she attempted to swab a spot on his arm for the injection. She looked to Will urgently. “Mr. Graham, please - can you hold him down -”
Will did as he was asked, feeling Hannibal straining against his grip, muscles so taut that he was afraid something would simply give way and snap. By the time the medicine took effect and Hannibal’s heart had slowed, Will was just as drained as he must be. Will left shortly afterwards, quite sure that Hannibal hadn't heard his murmured goodbye.
After the incident, Will kept visiting regularly, and Hannibal made no outward objections to this. Over the days, he grew stronger and more lucid, his grip on reality faltering less often. It immensely relieved Will to see him regaining some semblance of the immaculate composure that had become his trademark, at least to Will. He began walking under supervision and staying awake for longer amounts of time, usually reading books brought to him by Will and Alana Bloom. He was getting better.
Still, there were times where he would do nothing but stare into space for minutes on end, his eyes disturbingly hollow and limbs tense as coiled springs. He spoke only sparingly, much less than he used to. Will knew that Hannibal loved to talk - he relished the cadence of words and sharing - showing off, rather - his vast knowledge with others. This much Will had easily surmised after spending so much time with him. It made the profiler uneasy to sit in a void of silence when in the ward, but that was now commonplace. In fact, since Hannibal had regained consciousness, they had yet to hold a conversation that didn’t consist mostly of polite niceties.
Will could also tell that nightmares were a continuous occurrance. Hannibal never awoke with anything more than a deep gasp, but several times Will saw the anguish that etched itself into the lines of his face when his eyes opened. Hannibal refused to tell Will or anyone else about what he encountered in his sleep. He claimed to not remember what it was that had wound him here in the first place.
And, Will could never bring himself to ask Hannibal what ‘Mischa’ was, though the curiosity gnawed at him incessantly. He was afraid of what might happen.
During the long hours he spent lying awake in his bed, Hannibal began the painstaking process of repairing his memory palace. Sections of it lay in shambles, and he could only imagine what could have been done to him to result in such destruction. Layer by layer, brick by brick. He had nothing but time on his hands, and giving himself a mentally taxing task like it did well to keep darker thoughts at bay.
He couldn't stop the memories from trickling back to him with time, however. He felt the drafty warehouse air, the unforgiving concrete scraping against his knees and sides. He saw fragmented glimpses of what punishment they put him through. He remembered what they wanted from him: Will Graham. He was supposedly bait, chosen for his close relationship to the special agent. The bullet brought him down first. The following beatings and torture - and injections - ensured he stayed the same way. They were about to contact Will and demand ransom, most likely. But when they dialed his phone, before they could speak into the receiver…. Hannibal remembered the taste of blood on his teeth, both his own and that of others. All dead, Will had said. Hannibal was not stupid, even when his brain was sluggish from medication. It was obvious that it was he who had slaughtered everyone inside that warehouse, though his visitors neglected to tell him this. Alarmingly, he could recall nothing of the physical act of killing his captors, obviously due to the drugs.
He had been frightened, he realized with disgust. The drugs, whatever they were, demolished his most trusted and powerful line of defense - his mind. He was as vulnerable as anyone without that protection, and the addition of physical agony had laid him bare, ripe for the picking for his tormentors. As his grasp on the world slipped further and further from him, his drug-addled consciousness called forth all that he left tucked away in the darker stretches of his memory palace. Those visions kept haunting him now, disregarding whether or not he was awake.
Hannibal supposed that to an extent, he did fear the notion of a death so inconsequential - in such a state of indignity - discarded like some insignificant animal, after having exposed his innermost demons to undeserving strangers...
Sleep no longer came to him easily. He had been held hostage for most of an afternoon by those same blurry images of the warehouse, complete with a small girl’s cries echoing in his ears - Mischa. To this day Hannibal knew the tone and timbre of her voice exactly. There was a knock at the door, and he collected himself as best as he could. 8:17 p.m. I am in Baltimore, Maryland. My name is Hannibal Lecter. Mischa is dead. I am alive.
He noted the strong scent of food wafting from Will when he came into the room, carrying a Thermos in one hand. Will visited far more often than necessary, though Hannibal tolerated his company. He didn’t particularly enjoy being so exposed to the profiler - or anyone else - but there was little he could do about it. It would be rude to turn him away, and Hannibal appreciated Will's sentiments. The younger man was uttering a greeting, which Hannibal returned before he turned his attention to the container. Will came over to the bedside and set it down on the table before unscrewing the lid; Hannibal took a whiff of the air, deeply through his nose, and asked, “You brought me chicken soup?”
“Yeah,” said Will sheepishly, pulling a bundle of brown paper napkins from his pocket. “I wanted to try making something for you… I thought you might, well…” He busied himself by unfolding the napkins to reveal a spoon wrapped inside. “It’s simple, and I don't know if it's any good, but...”
“I’m sure it is,” Hannibal allowed a hint of a smile. A so-called folk remedy, proclaimed by such a large population to be effective against all sorts of ailments... Hannibal doubted post-traumatic stress disorder was in that list. He spooned a chunk of chicken and some bits of carrot and celery into his mouth. As he had half-expected, the broth was too salty but somehow bland at the same time, the meat rather tough and the vegetables not cooked thoroughly. It still tasted like gourmet food to him after countless mass-produced hospital meals. How his standards had been lowered. He said, “It’s good.”
Will was looking down at his shoes, mumbling something about farmer’s markets and freshly butchered chickens. Hannibal found it endearing enough to overlook the soup’s taste. Clearly, Will had put effort into it. It proved to Hannibal his theory that Will's talents lay elsewhere, but no matter. Hannibal couldn't deny that the broth was hearty and had a strong warming effect, the latter something he found he coveted these days.
Both that warehouse and the final winter he spent with his Mischa had been cold, so bitingly cold.
It was Hannibal’s first time back mingling in Baltimore’s socialite circles since his “unfortunate incident”. He politely refused both Will and Jack Crawford’s invitations to stay at their homes. He wished to be alone - completely alone - for the first time since his hospitalization. No strangers monitoring him, no friends keeping constant vigil at his bedside. At least Will and Jack appeared to respect his sentiments, though they couldn’t keep the concern from their faces. Following the doctor’s suggestions, he had spent his first week after being discharged at home, mostly lying in bed, though hardly sleeping. Whenever he shut his eyes he would see... ugliness. Things he would prefer not to see.
By the eighth day of his self-imposed confinement, Hannibal craved having colour back in his life and felt well enough to be out and about. He had chosen to attend the opening of an art show, though he found himself questioning the soundness of this decision only minutes in. It would have been much less strenuous on his still-healing body to be seated and watching a performance rather than ambling around a gallery. It couldn't be helped, and besides, Hannibal was much more interested in the artwork being exhibited here today than in most of the mediocre symphonies currently on tour.
The gallery had acquired several striking pieces, mostly European Romantic paintings by the likes of Blake, Fuseli and Delacroix, as well as a few German works. Hannibal found Romanticism’s exploration of human emotions and the sublime - awe intermingled with horror - very fascinating. He particularly enjoyed Delacroix; such arresting compositions and dynamism, conveyed through exquisite brushwork. He also loved Friedrich for his melancholy interpretations of nature. It was a pity that this show lacked Turner, whose spontaneous seascapes seemed to be infused with an ethereal magnetism...
“.... what do you think, Hannibal?” Hannibal had been drifting, and a woman nearby was attempting to catch his attention. Her name didn’t come to him at once and he couldn’t be bothered to retrieve it, though she struck him as familiar.
He opened his mouth. “I....”
The woman gave him little chance to continue, and he would have normally noted her rudeness. Tonight, his mind was preoccupied. “But really, the changes in direction the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra took this year were rather appalling, wouldn’t you say…?”
A middle-aged couple joined the circle. Hannibal greeted them and tactfully brushed aside the inquiries about his health. His healing fingers were dressed and the cuts on his face not yet faded, the deep one that just missed his eye in particular, but otherwise he looked relatively normal. Of course, various other unsightly wounds and blemishes belay his fine clothes now, but those were only for him to see.
His thoughts wandered again, and inevitably they came to dwell on what he would rather forget. Too late he tried to turn his focus elsewhere. His chest felt tight, the chatter surrounding him melding into a dull and incomprehensible roar. And for a fleeting moment, he desperately, irrationally wished that Will was with him in this place.
Later, Hannibal would try to pick apart what exactly it was that set him off. Even with his powerful memory, it was impossible to tell. A completely unfounded fear was rushing through him - fear of what? He was not bound and drugged. Mischa was not here. No one could hurt him... or her. He tried to calm himself, inhale more slowly, but the deeper breaths only made his ribs twinge. The sounds and smells of the reception were suddenly overpowering, painful to the senses. He felt trapped.
“Hannibal? You’re awfully quiet.” It was that same woman again, no genuine concern in her voice.
“Excuse me,” he managed to grate out.
Hannibal pushed through the throngs of museumgoers and made it outside, the frigid evening air washing over his damp skin, soothing at first but then freezing. He realized that he was shaking, and it wasn’t because of the cold. Or perhaps it was, but the iciness seemed to come from deep within his gut rather than the Baltimore winter. He was having difficulty breathing evenly again, like a vice was clamped around his lungs. This was a panic attack, Hannibal told himself. There was nothing to be afraid of here, nothing to be worried about. His own words taunted him, as he knew was typical of these sorts of episodes...
He stumbled to his car, parked around the block, wet snow spilling into his shoes. Once in the relative sanctuary of the driver’s seat he allowed a quiet groan to escape him. He rested his forehead against the steering wheel for a long moment, eyes closed - then he made a reckless decision, unlike himself. Though it was already dark, he would be able to get to Wolf Trap before too late. He wondered if Will was home. He hoped so.