the hunger we felt - kaivevo (2024)

Chapter 1: prologue; the sky and the sea

Chapter Text

Will woke up in the stars.

They were in him and around him, brighter and clearer than they had ever been; he could reach up and pluck one right out of the sky, he knew. Attempted to, even, but was deterred by a pain in his shoulder so intense he nearly blacked out again.

“Don’t move your arm,” a voice said from somewhere near him, the sound sending a sharp pain to his head. The words moved through his mind slow and thick like syrup.

His focus shifted from the field of stars to the clouds forming and disappearing just above him. He watched the clouds for a long time, fascinated, before he realized he was the one making them. Cold. He was cold. “Cold,” he whispered, and then came the pain.

He noticed his cheek first; speaking had drawn attention to the white-hot sting that was so overwhelming it made bile rise to his throat. The intensity was brief, however, and once it settled he noticed everything else. His shoulder throbbed, his throat burned. His head ached so terribly that he could feel his heartbeat in his temples, and it made coherent thought impossible. He wanted to scream. He wanted the stars to take him far away from here.

He must have blacked out again, because when he next opened his eyes, he was wrapped in a blanket and the stars were replaced by the muted orange of sunrise. He winced against the brightness, but noticed that the pain had considerably lessened overall. The fog in his mind remained, however, and everything seemed to move in slow motion as he forced himself into a sitting position with his good arm.

“Water,” he said, his voice hoarse. He hadn’t quite gauged his surroundings, but he felt a presence near him, and knew someone was listening.

“Beside you,” the voice from before said, and now Will recognized it. “Be careful of your stitches.”

He obeyed, resisting the urge to chug the entire bottle in one go. The pain in his cheek was muted, now, so much so that he knew drugs must be involved. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and looked around.

He was sprawled out on the bench seat of a cabin cruiser, bobbing along in what he had to assume was the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Kneeling in front of the bench seat across from him was the person who had been speaking; a face he hadn’t seen in over three years, but was decidedly unsurprised to see nonetheless.

“Chiyoh,” he said, his voice weak. Tried to say more, but forming words suddenly seemed impossible.

“You hit your head,” she said, answering the question he didn’t ask. She was focused on something, but Will struggled to process what it was. “It is likely that you have a concussion. Don’t move too quickly and try to stay awake.”

Will just nodded, looking out over the ocean. It was a beautiful morning.

They sat like that in silence for what felt like minutes but might have been hours, Chiyoh working fervently while Will drifted in his head trauma- and drug-induced haze. He was only pulled back to reality when she spoke again, her voice cutting sharply through the dewy morning.

“Can you walk?” she asked. Will blinked slowly, before throwing his legs over the side of the bench and rising unsteadily. She briefly glanced at him over her shoulder and nodded in approval. “There’s a cooler in the cabin, grab the ice packs out of it.”

Will complied, pulling himself toward the interior section of the boat and opening the large blue cooler tucked in by the door. Inside, along with the ice packs, there was a wide array of perishable foods and beverages. Will wondered how long Chiyoh expected them to be out at sea. The thought made his head throb, so he stopped wondering.

He brought what she’d requested back out onto the deck, approaching Chiyoh and catching a glimpse of what she was working on for the first time. Or who, rather.

“Put one on his forehead and one on the side of his neck,” she demanded, sweat dripping down her temple as she leaned over the wound on his abdomen. “His fever is too high.”

Will kneeled near her, placing the ice packs carefully where she’d indicated and watching blankly as Chiyoh continued to work. He allowed his eyes to drift over the other man’s body, all the way up to his face, where his eyes were moving rapidly behind closed lids and breaths came short through dry, cracked lips.

I did this, Will thought, the first modicum of awareness his brain had afforded him since he’d regained consciousness.

For lack of anything better to do, Will laid his head on Hannibal’s chest and listened to his still-beating heart. They had been in the same position not long ago, on the edge of that cliff. Will tried very hard to remember what he had been thinking then. He kept trying all the way until Chiyoh stood up, swiping an arm across her forehead and leaning against the cabin door in exhaustion.

Will lifted his head again to look at Hannibal’s face. His eyes were no longer moving, his strain no longer apparent. He was very pale and very still.

“Can you save him?” Will asked, and he was startled into clarity by his own words. His head throbbed as the situation truly dawned on him for the first time, as he realized with no small amount of dread that the answer could be no.

Chiyoh gave him a long look, her expression carefully unreadable. “I’m not so sure,” she said distantly.

“What does that mean?” Will snapped, suddenly feeling everything at once. It was incredibly difficult to think, like trying to walk in a straight line drunk, and his baser instincts urged him to stop thinking all together and let the waves lull him back to sleep. But a stronger part of him, a part so desperate that it ached, needed to see Hannibal open his eyes. Needed the man he’d just tried to kill to live.

Chiyoh narrowed her eyes and looked away from him. “He will survive this,” she said. “But the two of you will not survive each other.”

The statement was easy enough to swallow, because he’d already done so, covered in blood and moonlight at the edge of a cliff hours or days or lifetimes ago. But only then, because every moment before that he’d still been arrogantly convinced that they were playing a game that could be lost or won.

He was quiet for several long moments, watching Hannibal, overwhelmed with a feeling he refused to put a name to. “This is cancer,” he finally said, quietly, as if speaking mostly to himself. “Almost impossible to cut it out completely when it’s already spread so far. You can try, go years thinking you’ve beaten it, and then before you know it it’s back and killing you all over again.”

Chiyoh took a moment to consider the words. “Yet the cancer will never win either,” she said. “Cancer and its host die together, at the same time. It’s always a draw.”

“Mutual assured destruction,” Will agreed.

Chiyoh sighed, fixing him with a hardened stare, and Will could feel every inch of resentment she had for him. “You had resigned yourself to that destruction, and yet you are both still here,” she said. “So now you are faced with a choice you did not think you would have to make.”

Will huffed a short laugh. He didn’t have a great track record of premeditation, regardless. “Not much of a choice,” he said. “The remission failed. Now all we can do is make the most of our time before the inevitable.”

“Or,” Chiyoh countered. “We try to cut the cancer out again.”

There was a long, heavy pause. Will weighed the words carefully in his mind, his stomach twisting in knots as he slowly but surely understood.

He let his gaze fall back on Hannibal’s sleeping face. “So only the cancer dies,” he said, soft and raw.

Chiyoh nodded. “Yes. Although,” she said. “I think that you and I might have different ideas of who the cancer is.”

Will brought a hand up to rest gently on Hannibal’s stomach, tracing the bandages with the pads of his fingers. He let his eyes move over his prison-cut hair, and his thin frame, and the fresh cuts and bruises on his face. He thought of the man he’d met all those years ago in Jack Crawford’s office, and tried to amalgamate him with the man lying before him now.

He laid his head on Hannibal’s chest once more, trying to memorize his heartbeat like the notes of a song. “Actually, I think for once we might agree,” he said, and he closed his eyes.

—

Hannibal woke up in the sea.

He could feel the gentle rocking of the current, could smell the salt and feel the spray on his skin. The water muffled all sound, leaving him in a still, quiet solitude as he floated toward the light of the surface.

He broke through, and all at once the ocean fell away like a dream. His vision and hearing slowly came into focus, and the salt he’d smelled strayed from the brine of the ocean and inclined toward blood and IV fluid. He was indoors, that much was clear, and injured. He shifted a bit to test his limitations, hissing through his teeth as he felt a deep ache throughout almost his entire body. Very injured, then.

“Don’t move,” a familiar voice came from near him, though not the one he’d wanted to hear. “You have a broken collarbone, a sprained wrist, a gunshot wound that has become infected, and a fever that has been running off and on for three days.”

Hannibal let out a deep breath through his nose. “On, now, if I had to guess,” he said, closing his eyes against the spinning room. “Sepsis?”

“It did not get to that point, no. You are on antibiotics, the infection should clear,” Chiyoh said clinically, and he listened as she fiddled with his IV drip, perhaps to administer something. He hoped it was morphine. “It is fortunate that you have stocked this house well with medical supplies.”

He knew where they were without asking; he had a house in a remote area near the coast of Rhode Island where Chiyoh had, as far as he was aware, been staying for the past three years. It was far from untraceable and wouldn’t be safe for long, but it would do for the time being. That was currently the least of his concerns.

“Where is Will?” he asked, impatiently shifting the conversation to his true priority.

There was no reply. Hannibal opened his eyes slowly, ignoring the disorientation brought on by his fever, and turned to meet Chiyoh’s eyes. “Where is Will?” he repeated, hoping that his tone was firm enough to make it clear that avoiding the question again was not an option.

She held his eyes firmly, and not for the first time, he admired the nerve she possessed to hold her own against him as much as he deplored it. “He’s dead,” she said.

Hannibal closed his eyes again. “That was not what I asked,” he said calmly.

“He is in the Atlantic Ocean,” she said without missing a beat. “Where I left him.”

“Why.”

He could feel her looking down her nose at him without even opening his eyes, and he briefly wondered how badly he would regret killing her now. As if he possibly could, anyway, in his current condition. It seemed broken collarbones served as effective impulse control.

“So you wouldn’t eat him,” she said, raising her voice only slightly to emphasize her conviction. Just as she had the last time they’d disagreed. “Like Mischa.”

Hannibal was defiantly silent in response, compelling his mind to take him far away from this room, from this moment. The method wasn’t as effective as it had always been in the past. For reasons he couldn’t comprehend, his mind palace suddenly seemed unreachable to him.

Chiyoh, limitless in her audacity, carried on. “When I pulled the two of you from the ocean, he was already dead,” she explained. “And I made the decision, in that moment, to leave him where he’d chosen to die. To let him be at peace.”

Hannibal felt his composure crack for a fraction of a second, just long enough for his eyebrow to twitch in the beginnings of a scowl. He breathed in deeply and the moment passed.

“And my peace?” he asked, petulant.

He felt her hand lie gently on his arm, and just like that, the tension dissipated from the air. Hannibal wished it would come back. He wanted to be angry. Anger was much preferred to whatever was currently storming inside of him.

“You will have to find it elsewhere,” she said.

Chapter 2: verger-bloom

Chapter Text

It had been six months and fourteen days since Will Graham had been seen alive.

He was dead, officially. There was a video recording of the crime scene, conclusive evidence that he had plunged off of a cliff and fallen a hundred feet to the unforgiving waters of the Atlantic. They had found carnage on the rocks below, blood and tissue, enough to suggest severe injuries in addition to those he’d already sustained before the fall. No body, of course. It didn’t matter; no human being could have survived a free fall from that height. Two human beings certainly couldn’t.

It had been four months and six days since Hannibal Lecter had been seen alive, by exactly one witness. One unreliable witness, as far as the FBI was concerned. Officially, he had disappeared at the exact date and time Will Graham had. Officially, he was dead too.

If Margot had to guess when exactly it was that she’d stopped sleeping, it was probably somewhere in between. Around the five-month mark, maybe. After the initial naïve relief, but before all of her greatest fears had abruptly come to pass.

She had fallen into a routine; her nights were spent staring wide-eyed at the ceiling or tossing in restless nightmares, only to rise in the morning to a cold, empty house. She barely remembered her old routine, the routine of motherhood, of making breakfast and picking out clothes and having something to care for and protect. In this new life, she simply poured herself a cup of black coffee, took a Xanax, and started down the beaten road toward the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

She knew the process, by now. Hand over her bag and everything in her pockets, raise her arms to her sides for the handheld metal-detector screening, submit to a pat-down if deemed necessary. Visitor security had heightened in the recent months, for obvious reasons. She’d had to fight to even be allowed daily visits; her family’s massive contributions to the hospital had helped with that, of course, along with a good word or two from Jack Crawford, but even then she’d been limited to only an hour a day.

It was only within that hour that she felt even remotely like herself again. The other twenty-three, she was lost.

Alana had already been brought to the private visiting room when she arrived. Margot took in the sight of her wife, her thin wrists chained to the table in front of her, the dark purple bruises beneath her eyes, and she felt the same anguish she had the very first time she’d walked into this room. The ache in her chest was reassuring, in a way; she hoped it would all be over long before it got easier.

“The trail went cold in Montreal,” Margot said as she took the empty seat at the metal table, skipping formalities entirely. They knew all too well how quickly an hour could pass, and there was much more to cover than they would ever have time for. “Our guy said there were a few other leads he could pursue, but none of them are as promising.”

Alana nodded, her expression cold and detached. Margot couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen light in her eyes. The last time she’d truly felt that Alana was in the room with her, and not somewhere far, far away. “Tell him to pursue them anyway,” she said.

“I did,” Margot replied. “I was also contacted by another private investigator in Philadelphia who said he’d look into the case. He’s supposed to be good. Former CIA, or so he claims.”

Alana just nodded again, her eyes empty as she stared at a point somewhere over Margot’s shoulder. “Okay. Good,” she said. “That’s good.”

Margot sighed. “Alana,” she said. “This isn’t working.”

That brought Alana to attention, her eyes thawing slightly as they met Margot’s. “You’re giving up?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper. She almost sounded scared.

“No,” Margot said sharply. She startled at her own irritation, and felt it pass as quickly as it had come. Alana hadn’t meant to doubt her. Margot couldn’t imagine how terrifying it would be to lack agency completely, to have to entirely depend on another person in order to accomplish something so important. “No,” she repeated, more calmly, and Alana’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “But I am going to propose something that you might not particularly like.”

“There’s not much I would disapprove of at this point,” Alana said, closed off again.

“I want to do an interview,“ Margot said, gauging Alana‘s reaction carefully. “With Freddie Lounds.”

Alana sighed with such exasperation that, in a different situation, Margot might have laughed. She reached for the stack of papers that Margot always brought with her, sifting through it until she pulled out a magazine near the bottom of the pile. She gave Margot a pointed look before flipping through for the right page. “Bloom has recently been moved to BSHCI to await her trial, and there is no doubt that the very hospital where she once served as general administrator is exactly where she belongs. Whether or not she’s guilty of the crime she’s been accused of, there is no question that she is a danger to herself and those around her,” Alana read calmly. “Her insistence that the Chesapeake Ripper stole into her home and kidnapped her son can only be a result of insanity-based hallucination or, dare I say, some heinous agenda at the expense of her child’s life, because if there’s one thing this reporter knows for certain: Hannibal Lecter would not have left her alive.”

Margot grabbed the magazine, unphased. “I’m under no impression that she’s our friend,” she said. “But what’s important is that she seems to be the only news outlet that doesn’t believe the FBI’s version of the story.”

“She thinks I’m hysterical,” Alana said.

“She thinks you’re innocent,” Margot corrected delicately. She turned her gaze down to the article. “She thinks…”

“She thinks that it was Will,” Alana finished, wincing, as if it hurt to even say the name.

Freddie Lounds’s hatred for Will Graham, it turned out, transcended even death. The popular public opinion by far was that Alana was guilty, with the rare contrarian accepting that it could have been Hannibal, but Freddie alone seemed to even think Will was worth mentioning in relation to the case.

It wouldn’t be the first time she’d accused him of filicide. Or so Margot had heard.

“That’s why I want to talk to her,” she said. “She may be a tabloid reporter, but she prints what she believes is true. There has to be a reason she suspects that Will is alive.”

Alana looked away, her expression darkening. “He isn’t,” she said.

“Hannibal told you that?”

“He didn’t have to,” Alana said. “I could see it in his eyes.”

Margot was quiet for a moment, reaching over to rub her thumb over the thin skin of Alana’s wrist. She wished she could change the subject, that they could just for once afford conversation that wasn’t bleak and suffocating. She was so sick of talking about death. She was so sick of talking about Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham. “Maybe he is dead. But I have to know for sure,” she said. “We can keep buying compasses, but they’ll only ever point us in a direction. We need the map.”

Alana shook her head, and although she was looking away, Margot could see that her eyes had become glassy. “If he were alive,” she began, her voice quiet and very sad. “You don’t think he would be with Hannibal?”

Margot paused, letting the implications of the words settle like lead in her chest. She thought of the Will she’d known, of how kind and gentle he’d been with her despite everything, of the look on his face in the hospital when he’d held Morgan for the first time. She wasn’t close with him, not the way Alana had been, but she’d never once regretted choosing him to be the father of her child. Margot knew bad men. Will Graham wasn’t one.

She took a long pull of her coffee, feeling exhaustion begin to set in, “I would like to believe,” she answered slowly. “That he isn’t capable of that kind of evil.”

Alana turned back to face Margot, her eyes burning even as a single wet track shone on her cheek. Margot’s breath caught, taken aback by the life in her gaze. “Go see Freddie Lounds,” she said, and Margot was taken aback by that, too. “But do something for me, please.”

“Anything,” Margot said, fiercely, and she meant it.

Alana wiped away the moisture on her cheek with the orange sleeve of her jumpsuit and took a deep, settling breath. “If you find out that he is alive, and that he had something to do with this,” she said. “Just tell me he’s dead.”

—

It was October in Baltimore.

The ground surrounding the bench where Margot sat was littered with fallen leaves, and every so often the wind would bring along a biting chill that warned of the coming winter. Margot took a long sip of her coffee to counteract the cold, admiring the overlook-view of the skyline. She’d never seen the city like this. Until recently, she’d never seen much outside of Muskrat Farm at all.

There were children playing in the park nearby, and the sight and sound of their merriment tore at an open wound. Morgan had never been to a park. Albeit considerably shorter, he had spent his entire life on the exact same estate that she had. Margot had thought by indulging in their privilege that she could protect him from the horrors of the outside world, but those horrors had found him anyway, just as they’d always managed to find her.

She took another deep drink from her take-out cup, swallowing down the lump that had formed in her throat. She would bring Morgan here soon. She would push him on the swings and teach him to ride a bike and show him there was more to life than fearing the inevitable, the way that no one ever had for her.

“Mrs. Verger, I assume?” a voice suddenly cut through her dreary thoughts. Margot turned to see a shock of red hair, and a face she recognized from the dust jackets of books she’d only read out of desperation for any sort of clue she could find.

“Verger-Bloom,” Margot corrected unhesitantly.

The newcomer smiled, sharp and greedy, and took a seat on the bench beside her. “Of course,” she said, holding out her gloved hand for Margot to shake. “Freddie Lounds. I hope you weren’t waiting long, traffic was a nightmare on the interstate. But rest assured I would have gotten out of my car and walked before I missed this meeting.”

“You don’t have to assure me of that,” Margot said, overly-polite, keeping her own two hands firmly wrapped around her cup off coffee. “I’ve gotten a call from you every day for the past four months, your enthusiasm was clear.”

Freddie retracted her hand, unphased, her head tilting curiously. “I can’t help but wonder why you’ve only now decided to return them,” she pressed.

Margot lifted the corner of her mouth in a sardonic smile. “I guess it’s the same reason you survived every encounter you had with Hannibal Lecter,” she said pleasantly. “I thought you might be more useful than you are annoying.”

Freddie’s eyes sparkled. “The claws are out already, I see,” she said, amused. “And we’ve only just met.”

“I’ve read the things you’ve written about Alana.”

“Considering the circ*mstances, I could have written much worse.” Freddie said, her amusem*nt quickly shifting to exasperation. “Tell me you didn’t call me here for an apology.”

Margot shook her head. “Everyone will be apologizing to my wife soon enough, including you,” she said simply. “I called you here for an interview.”

Freddie grinned, rifling through her bag and producing a voice recorder. She placed it on the bench between them. “And an interview you shall receive,” she said, hitting the record button and settling back to fix Margot with a hungry gaze. “This will be your first time speaking to the press on the issue of your wife’s arrest, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“I find that surprising, considering the only version of the story that’s been made public is what has been released by the FBI,” Freddie prodded. “And mine, of course, which I get the sense you’re equally opposed to.”

Margot shrugged. “We don’t care what the public opinion is,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. The verdict has already been decided.”

“Interesting,” Freddie said, her eyebrows raising slightly in surprise. “Giving up already?”

All at once, Margot’s vague irritation gave way to pulsing outrage. She clenched her teeth together as hard as she could, barricading her thoughts as she willed her heart to stop pounding in her ears long enough to come up with a reasonable response.

“When they’re putting me in the ground,” Margot replied after several moments, her voice low and calm. “That’s when you’ll know I’ve given up.”

Freddie gave her a long look, seemingly sensing her change of mood. “I’ve had that privilege,” she said flippantly, not at all put-off. “It’s not always as permanent as you might think.”

Margot let out a short laugh that shocked even her, bursting through the tension like a popped balloon and immediately settling the storm roaring inside of her. She shook her head, clearing her thoughts. “Alana’s going to lose her trial if I don’t find Morgan,” Margot clarified. “There’s too much evidence against her. But I will find him.”

Freddie hummed in acknowledgement, pausing for a moment just to look at Margot, as if sizing her up. “Like you said,” she continued, a reporter once more. “Based on the irrefutable evidence found on the scene, the obvious conclusion is that your wife murdered your son. How do you manage to convince yourself that isn't what happened?”

Margot took a calm sip of her coffee, emotionally removing herself from the conversation to the best of her ability. She was sure that she and Freddie both understood the game they were playing. They both desperately wanted something from the other, and they both knew they had to draw it out, lest they give too much away and tip the scales in one direction. It was a delicate transaction. Quid pro quo.

“I could ask you the same question,” Margot replied.

Freddie smirked. “I’m not the one being interviewed, Mrs. Verger-Bloom,” she replied.

“Alana saw Hannibal Lecter in our house that night. She spoke to him. He told her the same thing he’d been telling her for years: that he was going to destroy her family,” Margot conceded. She held Freddie’s gaze pointedly. “I believe her. What’s interesting to me is that you don’t. And yet, you don’t believe the FBI either.”

Freddie nodded minutely, satisfied. “I wouldn’t say it’s particularly interesting,” she said, seemingly understanding that it was her turn to give. “I’ve just always trusted myself as a judge of character. And based on my judgment, Hannibal Lecter would have no more inclination to kidnap your son than Alana Bloom would have to kill him.”

“But Will Graham would?” Margot asked.

The wind around them seemed to change at the mention of the name, as if the natural world had been waiting with bated breath for the conversation to arrive at this point. Freddie appeared to feel it as well, her guard visibly rising.

“If you’ve read my articles, you already know my thoughts on that,” Freddie said dismissively. “I’m sure everyone would be much more interested to hear yours.”

Margot dug her nails into the soft cardboard of her coffee cup, willing herself not to become impatient. “If you’re asking whether I consider Will a suspect, the answer is no,” Margot said simply.

“No?” Freddie pressed. “You don’t think there’s even the smallest chance that your deranged baby daddy decided he wanted his kid to himself? Men are often strangely obsessive about their sons and their legacies, as I’m sure you’re very aware.”

Margot pointedly chose to ignore that comment. “It wasn’t Will,” she said, carefully watching Freddie’s face for any kind of reaction. “Because Will is dead.”

Freddie’s expression didn’t slip even a little bit, her sly smile giving absolutely nothing away. “Hannibal is dead, too. According to the FBI,” she pointed out, unyielding.

“Who’s alive according to you?” Margot countered.

Freddie looked pleased, as if she’d just scored a point. Maybe she had. Margot had never been good at these kinds of games, judging by how frequently she’d lost them in the past. “I have all the same information you do,” Freddie said with a shrug.

“And yet,” Margot said. “You were so quick to risk your credibility by accusing a dead man of a crime.”

“Maybe I just have a gut feeling.”

Margot sat back against the bench, observing the woman beside her closely. Freddie’s body language was completely open and comfortable. Her intention wasn’t to conceal anything. Margot sighed, realizing all at once what she had to do. “That’s a shame,” she said. “Because if you had something more substantial than a gut feeling, and it led me to my son, that would be quite a story.”

Just like that, the barrier between them crumbled. Freddie leaned forward, her eyes bright and eager and willing, and Margot knew that the game had come to a draw. “A story I would have full and exclusive rights to, of course,” Freddie said, showing all of her teeth. “Unabridged, uncensored details from beginning to end.”

Margot resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Of course,” she said without enthusiasm.

“That includes an interview with Alana Bloom,” Freddie continued greedily.

“Verger-Bloom,” Margot corrected. “You can talk to her, but only once we have Morgan back and she’s out of incarceration.”

Freddie pursed her lips and leaned back, taking a moment to consider. She narrowed her eyes. “You seem overly confident that what I have to say will lead to that conclusion,” she said. “It could be nothing.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Margot said. She paused, almost unwilling to go on. Afraid of hitting yet another dead end. She took a deep breath, holding Freddie’s gaze with deadly seriousness, leaving no room for any more transgressions. “Is Will alive?”

Freddie smirked, turning off the voice recorder and putting it back into her bag. “I have no idea,” she said. “But if he is, I think I know how to find him.”

Chapter 3: sidebar

Chapter Text

Margot had spent the past four months tracking every possible connection. She’d spoken to every previous patient of Hannibal’s that she could find, dug up his unhelpful and terrified former psychiatrist, even contacted Will’s clueless wife and father. She’d read every book or article that had ever mentioned the name Hannibal Lecter, she’d combed through every inch of that house on the cliff, she’d hired so many private investigators in so many different countries that it had actually left a sizable dent in her inheritance. Anything that could give her even the slightest clue as to where Hannibal, and in turn Morgan, might be, she pursued. With one exception.

It hadn’t even been an oversight on her part, really. She had read his book. She’d considered him a potential source of information, even called the hospital in an attempt to open up a line of communication. But she’d been told at that point that he had already been discharged, and she’d carried on without thinking much of it. The likelihood of a man who had been in the ICU suffering near-fatal injuries having anything to do with her current situation was slim to none, anyway. Tracking down Frederick Chilton would be a waste of time.

Freddie Lounds, it seemed, had disagreed.

The suspicious nature of a patient suffering from full-body third-degree burns in intensive care suddenly disappearing from the hospital he was recovering in may have been lost on Margot, but Freddie hadn’t been quite so dismissive. After all, in his condition he couldn’t have possibly gone anywhere other than another hospital, and seeing as he’d been in the middle of the skin-grafting process, there was no logical reason for him to leave.

“Unless someone whispered sweetly in his ear,” Freddie said, telling her tale with the same enthusiasm with which someone might tell a ghost story around a campfire. “Someone who needed to get far away, quick and unnoticed, and couldn’t risk taking a commercial jet. Someone who could act as his next-of-kin, knowing HIPAA would cover their tracks. Someone who disappeared two days before Chilton did.”

Margot tapped her fingers against the starched sheets below her hand, contemplating. Freddie had convinced her to come back to her downtown hotel room for discretion, and now Margot sat on the edge of the bed and listened dubiously as the other woman launched into what she could only describe as a conspiracy theory. “You think Will used Frederick Chilton’s air ambulance as a getaway car,” Margot concluded.

“If he’s as smart as everyone seems to think he is, yes,” Freddie said confidently. “It’s nearly a perfect plan. Air ambulances are akin to private jets; difficult to track and extremely low security. Not only that, but the only person who would actually be on record for having taken the flight would be the patient. Will would be a ghost.”

Margot sighed, standing up and walking toward the window. It was a cheap hotel, but it still had a decent view of the city’s high-rises and the inner harbor. Will Graham could be two blocks down the street, and she would never know it. Morgan could be in the room right below them. The world was just too big. “That’s not exactly reassuring,” she said tiredly.

“I said nearly,” Freddie said, flashing all of her teeth. “He was almost certainly banking on the fact that, in the midst of everything else going on, no one would pay overly close attention to Frederick Chilton’s whereabouts. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t account for me.”

Freddie folded the laptop on the desk in front of her into a tablet and propped it up, using her stylus to write something out across the screen. Margot turned away from the cityscape to watch curiously.

She had numbered a list from one to six, and next to each numeral written each of the interrogatives: when, what, why, who, how and where.

“Welcome to Investigative Journalism 101,” Freddie said, gesturing to the screen as if it were a chalkboard in a classroom. “To get answers, you have to start with questions.”

She ignored Margot’s lack of reaction to her theatrics, leaning back over the screen and making an addition to the first two numbers on the list.

1. When did Frederick Chilton leave The John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore?

2. What were their limitations?

“We’ll start with what we already know,” Freddie continued. “Like I said, Chilton was discharged two days after Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter pulled their little Thelma and Louise, so he would’ve been transported on April 7th. As for their travel restrictions, I’d guess they stayed stateside. The FBI more than likely flagged Will’s passport, and since we’re operating under the presumption that he needed to use Chilton to get away, we can assume he didn’t have falsified documentation.”

Freddie used her stylus to write 4/7 and USA under the first and second lines, respectively. Then, she moved onto the next number on the list.

3. Why did he transfer hospitals?

Margot stared blankly for several long moments before she realized Freddie was expecting her to respond. “How would I know that?” she asked, a bit irritably. “It’s a personal motivation, not something that can be proven.”

“Think less like an investigator and more like a journalist,” Freddie said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest. “Come up with a story that fits your narrative, whether it’s actually true or not.”

Margot snorted, startled by her own laughter for the second time since meeting Freddie Lounds. “You mean a tabloid journalist,” she said, rolling her eyes slightly. “Okay, fine. He was unsatisfied with his care.”

“The John Hopkins Hospital is world renowned,” Freddie countered immediately, as if she had been anticipating Margot’s response. “Not to mention he was treated there previously for his disembowelment and his gunshot wound without complaint. Try again, you’re losing credibility.”

Margot felt herself become irrationally defensive, as if her career as a reporter was genuinely at stake. She blamed the six non-consecutive hours of sleep she’d gotten in the past two days. “His previous circ*mstances are irrelevant,” she argued stubbornly. “What happened to him this time isn’t comparable.”

“Why?” Freddie asked, her expression thoughtful.

Margot thought back to the only time she’d ever met Frederick Chilton in person. He’d entered the estate with his face carefully reconstructed by his own hand, but left entirely bared, his true visage far different from the one he wanted the world to see. “Appearance is important to him,” she mused. “It’s not just about surviving, this time. His quality of life depends on not being left with horrific physical deformities.”

Freddie blinked, and then all at once her face split into a grin, her eyes glittering as if a lightbulb had lit up behind them. She scrawled a new note onto the tablet beneath the third line.

Cosmetic surgery.

“In that case,” Freddie said, turning back to the list. “The who would be—”

“Who was he going to see?” Margot interrupted, moving to sit on the edge of the bed closest to Freddie’s desk. Freddie looked vaguely impressed, and transcribed Margot’s words onto the list. “John Hopkins has a plastic and reconstructive surgery division, so if he left, it was probably to seek out someone of higher esteem. An expert in the field.”

Freddie tapped the stylus against her lower lip thoughtfully, before leaning over to write research required. “We’ll have to consult a list of top cosmetic surgeons in the U.S. and try to narrow it down,” she said. She paused, before adding to the next line.

5. How did they get there?

“I thought we’d established that,” Margot said. “Wasn’t the air ambulance the whole basis of this theory?”

“Yes, but we’re gonna have to get more specific,” Freddie said. She drew a bracket around numbers four and five. “We need to find the particular air ambulance that flew from BWI to an airport in the vicinity of an acclaimed cosmetic surgeon on April 7th.”

Margot looked at her incredulously. “There must be hundreds of air ambulance services,” she said doubtfully. “And all of them must have dozens of planes.”

“So we collect the tail numbers for as many of those planes as we possibly can, and we trace them all until we find the one we’re looking for,” Freddie said. She paused, eyeing Margot carefully. “We could find it right away, or it could take months. That’s the reality of trying to obtain confidential information without FBI resources I’m afraid.”

Margot sighed, rubbing at her eyes tiredly. Going on like this for even one more day seemed like a monumental task, an impossible thing to ask of her. But she’d felt like that every day, really, since the first morning she’d woken up without Morgan. It had been four months since then. She could keep going, she had to. At least now there was an end in sight. “Let’s get started, then,” she conceded.

“That’s the spirit,” Freddie said cheerfully. “We’ll stay in contact for now, and reconvene once we find something. Trust me, this is my top priority.”

Margot paused, fixing Freddie with a scrutinizing look as a thought occurred to her. “You’ve been sitting on this for months,” she pointed out. “Why are you only now pursuing it?”

Freddie’s countenance quickly became guarded, the enthusiasm she’d had consistently throughout their rendezvous falling away. She pursed her lips. “Last time I pursued Will Graham,” she said, her tone bitter. “He nearly killed me.”

Margot raised an eyebrow, and said, “I’m sure I heard that that was a ploy orchestrated by the FBI.”

“So Jack Crawford always insisted,” Freddie said with a grimace. “But he didn’t see the look in Will’s eyes that night.”

Margot blinked in surprise. “You’re afraid of him,” she said in revelation.

Freddie laughed once, shaking her head and fixing her expression back into its usual confident poise. “Yeah, his twenty-five inch waist puts the fear of God in me,” she said. She sat back, regarding Margot speculatively. “Let me ask you something. If you’re so sure Will Graham had nothing to do with what happened to your son, why are you looking for him?”

Margot hesitated, before speaking into existence the reality she’d been afraid to accept, “Because he's probably the only person who can find Hannibal.”

Freddie fixed her with a dubious look. “And you think that when he has to choose between your family and Hannibal Lecter,” she said hesitantly. “He’ll choose you?”

Margot sighed exasperatedly. “You sound like Alana,” she said. “Yes. I believe that Will will do what’s right.”

Freddie gave her a long, contemplative look, before shrugging. She picked up her stylus once more, moving to her tablet and filling in the last line.

6. Where are Frederick Chilton and Will Graham?

“Let’s find out then, shall we?” she said.

—

It had been nine months and twelve days since Will Graham had been seen alive.

About a month after their initial meeting, Margot received a phone call from Freddie Lounds. “Airmed Emergency Services, tail number N107AC,” she had said, all in one breath. “Departed BWI on April 7th at 8:42am, landed in New Mexico at 3:15pm. Dr. Harold Johns operates out of the Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque. One of the most distinguished facial reconstruction specialists in the United States.”

Margot had nearly dropped her phone, almost unable to believe that progress was being made, that she’d finally, finally been able to do something.

Immediately, she’d sent every private investigator at her disposal to chase the lead in New Mexico. And then it was back to waiting. For two months, it was more of the same: daily visits to BSHCI, sleepless nights, and endless, suspended anticipation for a resolution that seemed like it would never come.

Until the day, deep into the bitter cold of mid-Atlantic January, that Margot’s phone flashed the caller ID of one of her investigators. She hesitated for so long she’d almost missed the call, her heart beating hard in her throat and against her ribs.

“I told you not to call unless you found him,” she finally answered. “This had better be good news.”

The response was a huff of breath that was barely recognizable as a chuckle, and the mannerism was so familiar Margot’s blood went still in her veins.

“Imagine that, someone with the last name Verger sending a bounty hunter to abduct me,” a familiar voice drawled. “I think I’ve heard this one before.”

Chapter 4: blind cast

Chapter Text

Will had always known that he would drown.

He was born eight feet below sea level, surrounded by water that was held at bay only by the most futile defenses. He’d been at the beginning of his police career when the storm had come, and the walls had inevitably come crashing down, sending the raging sea down upon him and pulling him under. He’d made it out, that time, kicking and clawing his way through the waves and surfacing in the relative safety of a classroom in Quantico.

Or, what would have been safety, had he not fed the dull flame within him until it was roaring, burning him from the inside out. Until he’d had to throw himself back into the surf just to quell it.

This time, he wouldn’t resurface. Will Graham had been crushed beneath the pressure of the Atlantic, by his own choice, and for reasons he had yet to fully understand.

The new person who emerged, the one who looked like Will Graham but didn’t quite feel like him, found himself landlocked, nearly nine-thousand feet above sea level. Even then, there were mornings when he would wake up lightheaded and gasping for air, when the altitude pressure and thin oxygen pressed down on his lungs even though he should have been long accustomed to it, when there was suddenly no difference between the top of a mountain and the bottom of the ocean. Even then, he was still drowning.

Luckily, for better or for worse, he’d managed to carry at least one habit with him from his past. On those mornings, he would tighten the snow chains on the wheels of his rusted pickup truck and do what people who suffered from psychological distress were supposed to do. He went to see his psychiatrist.

When the snow no longer stuck to the ground and the dirt roads gave way to pavement, he knew he had crossed the border from the sparsely-populated community of Greer, Arizona back into civilization. It was warmer at this lower elevation, but still far cooler than what he’d expected from the Southwest. The White Mountains were cool and wet, thick with forestation and permeated with lakes and streams. If Will had been asked, years ago, to draw up a picture of what he considered to be paradise, it might have been exactly this. It didn’t quite feel like paradise, now.

The town at the bottom of the mountain was small as well, smaller even than Wolf Trap had been, but was at least populous enough to have a school district and a McDonald’s. It was Saturday, meaning the open-air market would be set up in the town center. Will opted to stop. He’d brought trout in his cooler for dinner, and he figured he might as well buy something to supplement it. He’d taken a liking to cooking, recently.

The market was always crowded; locals bustling about the stands of colorful produce and hand-crafted goods sold by the farmers and craftsmen from the area. He’d been here frequently, but rarely alone. The language barrier that came with the primarily-Hispanic area, as well as the creeping crowd-anxiety he couldn’t quite shake, assured that he avoided going out much at all unaccompanied. Lately, though, he’d been making progress in both areas: he could speak enough Spanish to get through a transaction, and he could occasionally walk through a throng of people without the daunting sense that he was being watched or followed.

He paused on his way past one of the stands, his attention predictably drawn to a dog tied up to a fence post near the vendor who presumably owned her. Will glanced at the owner and back at the dog, asking permission, and leaned down to pet her when he received a nod in return. She looked up at him tiredly. He felt a dull ache in his chest.

Nearly half an hour later, he arrived at his intended destination, shifting the weight of his paper grocery bags to one arm so that he could let himself and his guest in. There was a voice coming from the living room, but only one; a phone call, presumably. Will began unpacking the dinner ingredients, placing them in the fridge for later.

“Es posible mover su cita para el próxim— what the hell—?!” the voice suddenly rose in alarm. Will couldn’t help but grin, despite himself. “L-lo siento, le vuelvo a llamar. Gracias.” Footsteps approached from the adjoining room. “Will.”

Will closed the fridge, turning to see Frederick Chilton standing in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at him in utter disbelief. “Yeah?” Will replied casually.

There was a distinct tapping of nails against linoleum as the cause of Chilton’s ire came back in from the living room, sitting near Will’s feet. Even seated, she was nearly as tall as the kitchen island. Will reached down to pat her on the head fondly.

“What is that?” Chilton asked, scrubbing a hand over his face. “And why is it in my house?”

Will reached above the fridge for the bottle of whiskey he’d stored there, pouring himself a glass unconcernedly. “She’s a dog,” he said dryly. “I didn’t have anything to tie her up outside.”

“That is not a dog,” Chilton said in alarm. “I’m almost certain it’s a bear.”

Will inadvertently let out a snort of laughter, heading toward the sliding door to the back porch. Chilton followed, keeping a wide berth from the dog, who followed as well. “She’s a Saint Bernard,” Will said fondly, sitting in his usual chair and taking a long pull of whiskey. “They’re big. She’ll do well on the mountain.”

“Where did you get it?” Chilton asked, taking the seat beside Will warily.

“She belonged to one of the farmers down at the market,” Will explained. “He told me she was too old to herd anymore, and he was trying to convince his cousin to take her off of his hands. So I said I’d take her.”

Chilton sighed, long-sufferingly. “Of course you did,” he said. He hesitantly reached a hand out toward her, jumping slightly as she moved to smell him. “Does she have a name?”

Will smirked into his whiskey glass. “Osa,” he said.

“Incredible,” Chilton deadpanned. He paused, giving Will a pointed look. The air shifted, and Will sensed the transition from casual to professional. “One might say a dog has a suggestion of permanence, you know.”

Will leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the inevitable psychoanalysis. “Were you expecting me to disappear?” he asked.

“I haven’t discounted the possibility,” Chilton admitted easily. “You do have someone waiting for you, after all.”

For the sake of his own sanity, Will chose to believe he meant Molly. He took another long drink of his whiskey. “I don’t have any plans in particular,” he said with a shrug. His jaw clenched. “But I can’t go home. The FBI will have questions I don’t have answers to.”

Chilton nodded. “Do you feel any particular way about that?” he asked casually.

He tried to think of Molly; not of his guilt, but of the life they’d had together. He’d had what he’d always wanted with her: a normal life with someone who loved him unconditionally, a reprieve from loneliness. And yet. “Do you remember when I was incarcerated,” Will began slowly. “And you helped me recover my memories?”

“Vividly,” Chilton drawled.

“The things I recalled from that time were always… hazy, and abstract. It was like I was watching those events happen from the outside,” Will explained. “And that’s what it feels like when I think about my time with Molly, now. I remember everything, but the memories don’t feel like mine.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “It feels like it happened to someone else.”

Chilton took a thoughtful pause, tapping the end of his cane against his foot. “It appears you’ve cleanly separated yourself from Will Graham the husband,” he mused. “What about Will Graham the father?“

Will laughed once, self-deprecatingly. “Walter hardly thought of me as his father,” he said.

“I wasn’t referring to Walter exclusively.”

Will blinked. Absurdly, the first name that came to mind was Abigail, but he discarded the thought before it could fully take root. “Oh,” he said, as understanding finally caught up to him. “He isn’t— I don’t consider— Margot and Alana invite me to birthdays, but that’s the extent of my relationship with that kid. I just… made a donation.”

“Charming,” Chilton said.

“I’m not a father,” Will continued firmly. “I never was. And clearly, I never should be.”

Chilton narrowed his eyes, as if Will were fine print that he was attempting to read. “What would you say you are, Will?” he asked.

Will exhaled deeply through his nose. “I don’t know,” he replied lowly. “I’m not the person I was before I met— before I started working for Jack Crawford. I’m no longer being manipulated by anyone, or trying to live the life I thought I was supposed to. So I don’t know. I’m trying to figure that out.”

Chilton hummed, seemingly satisfied by the answer. “As good a reason to run away to the secluded mountains of Arizona as any,” he said.

Before he could stop himself, Will asked, “Are you worried about the conclusion I might come to?”

Chilton smiled, a small upturn of the corners of his lips. Will knew he was pleased that Will was the one reaching, as opposed to his normal habit of retreating the moment Chilton made any attempt to see past the surface. Chilton was learning him, and Will was equal parts annoyed and relieved by it.

“That depends, do you find yourself struck by the urge to indulge in serial murder?” Chilton asked dryly.

Will gave him a flat look. “No,” he replied. “But it’s occurred to me lately that I may be too easily influenced in that direction.”

Chilton huffed a laugh. “Well, my professional advice would be to keep company with those less inclined to influence such things,” he said.

Despite himself, Will was somewhat comforted by the other man’s obvious lack of concern. He lifted his whiskey glass back to his lips to hide any trace of amusem*nt. “Thank you, doctor,” he said. “I hadn’t considered that.”

Their conversation continued well into the late afternoon, with strategic avoidance of one name in particular, as usual. Will was open to these informal therapy sessions, had been the one to suggest them, even, but there were certain topics he wasn’t ready to confront in-depth. Not yet. Not while it still felt like a knife in his chest.

“I don’t know if you particularly care,” Chilton said, once they’d retreated back inside. Will had begun to prepare the trout for dinner, while Chilton sat at one of the island barstools, unable to stay standing for long in his condition. Osa laid at his feet, snoring audibly. “But I have my final consultation in Albuquerque next week, so I’ll be gone Monday to Thursday.”

Will didn’t look up, pressing the seasoning into the firm flesh of the fish just how he’d been taught to. He did, in fact, care. “Final?” he asked with deliberately mild interest.

“Final,” Chilton confirmed. “What you see now is the extent of what can be done.”

Will did pause, then, raising his head slightly to appraise the man before him. To say that the operations had successfully restored his appearance to what it had been would be a lie. His skin was put together a bit like a patchwork quilt, rough in some places and discolored in others. His mouth was quite crooked, and his left eyelid hung low over his milky blind eye, giving him an unsettling appearance that often prompted averted gazes when they were out in public. He had severe muscle atrophy from months in a hospital bed, and had developed asthma from carbon monoxide inhalation, both of which made any physical activity a slow and difficult process for him. Despite all of this, though, the surgeons had done better than Will had expected. He was still recognizable as Frederick Chilton. The array of sarcastic and haughty expressions that had irritated Will from the moment they’d met were still very much in his repertoire.

Will turned away to bring the zucchini he’d bought earlier out of the fridge. “You look good,” he said, and he meant it. There was beauty to be found in the discomforting.

He paused with his knife halfway to the cutting board, his ears ringing as he realized that his inner voice had not sounded like him, just then.

“Are you saying that because you mean it, or because you feel guilty?” Chilton asked bluntly, but he looked pleased, regardless.

Will resumed cutting, shutting his mind off as he focused on the task in front of him. “Can’t it be both?” he replied.

Chilton chuckled under his breath. “I’m far past the point of blaming you for my misfortunes by association,” he said with a wave of his hand. “We both have our scars.”

It was true, in every sense. The wound on Will’s cheek had long since closed, but the scar tissue was still tender and angry red, desperately trying to fully recover from the deep tissue damage and the ocean-borne infection that had followed. It joined the visible scars on his forehead and jaw, as well as the gunshot and stab wounds in his shoulder and the largest and most glaring scar on his lower abdomen. There would be no convincing anyone he’d lived even a remotely mundane life, not anymore.

“I suppose that’s what happens,” he said, deciding that in this moment he would indulge a little, that he would twist the knife in his chest just enough to keep the wound open. “When you get in bed with the devil.”

Chilton looked as taken aback as Will expected him to, his eyes wide with surprise at the acknowledgement. His expression quickly became smug, however, which Will had expected as well. He wouldn’t pass up this opportunity. “Well,” Chilton said, barely able to contain his glee. “Only one of us actually got in bed with him.”

Will very briefly considered the knife in his hand. “Neither of us actually got in bed with him,” he deadpanned.

Chilton studied him carefully, as if trying to catch him in a lie. “Hm,” he conceded. “Did you want to?”

“The thought never crossed my mind,” Will said, genuinely. “You read too much TattleCrime.”

Chilton laughed dryly. “I can assure you I’ve never read TattleCrime in my life,” he said. “The assumption is not exclusive to Freddie Lounds.”

“Should I grill or pan-fry the fish?” Will asked, effectively putting an end to the conversation.

They ate dinner amicably, Osa enthusiastically eating the fish skins Will had cooked for her in blissful ignorance of Chilton’s visible disgust. Will somehow found himself in a much better mood than he had woken up with. It was probably the dog.

After they’d finished eating and dishes, Will began to gather his things in preparation for his journey home. Chilton cleared his throat in that way that meant he was going to say something that would make both of them uncomfortable, and Will reluctantly acknowledged him with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“You’re welcome to stay tonight,” Chilton said. When Will didn’t respond, he continued, “Seeing as you very recently had a family, I figured you might be discomforted by the idea of waking up alone tomorrow.”

Will blinked slowly, the meaning of Chilton’s words coming to him through context only. He hadn’t even realized. “Oh,” he said awkwardly. “Um, no, it’s okay. It doesn’t really matter to me. Besides, I should probably get Osa acclimated to the cabin. I’m sure you don’t want her making herself at home here.”

“Certainly not,” Chilton agreed. Will knew he was relieved by his refusal. “Well, I’ll see you when I return from New Mexico, then. I’ll have my cell phone with me.”

“Mm-hm,” Will said, clipping Osa’s collar on and waving over his shoulder. “Drive safely.”

He’d made the right choice. Using companionship as a safety net was exactly what he’d done with Molly, and it was exactly what he wanted to avoid, now. He couldn’t keep making the same mistakes. Something had to change, this time, in a way that mattered.

It took around twenty minutes to get up the mountain and back to his small wooded cabin. The house only had one floor and two rooms, almost too small for a dog as big as Osa, but they would have to make do. He let her sniff around, setting up the food and water bowls he’d bought at the market before going out to sit near the fire pit in the backyard.

He didn’t plan on actually making a fire, so the cold quickly penetrated the flannel of his coat. He didn’t mind. He was used to cold. It was comforting, in a way; the way it stilled the air and numbed his senses.

He closed his eyes. Once the familiar rushing of the stream reached his ears, he let them flutter open again.

“You’ve never invited me here before,” someone spoke. He expected the wound in his chest to throb, but on the contrary, the voice soothed it like ice.

Will shrugged, gesturing for the figure to join him in the middle of the stream. The beckon was promptly obeyed. “I‘ve never wanted you to be here before,” he said. He paused, a smile teasing the edges of his lips. “Also, I had trouble picturing it.”

Hannibal was indeed out of place amongst the scenery. Will was absolutely unable to imagine him in waders and a fishing vest, so he was wearing a sweater and slacks; casual, still, for him. The slacks were rolled up to his knees, though, which was comical in itself. “There is nowhere you could go that I would not follow, Will,” Hannibal assured him. “Be it the middle of a stream or the bottom of the ocean.”

“That isn’t true,” Will said, wishful thinking more than anything. He handed Hannibal the pole, gesturing for him to hold it up while he secured the bait. “You won’t follow me where I am now. Or, where you think I am.”

Hannibal was quiet, and Will felt his heart pound against his ribcage. “Suicide is the enemy,” he eventually agreed. Will let out a deep breath.

He gently instructed Hannibal on how to cast his line, showing him where to position his hands while deliberately avoiding touch. He stepped away toward the bank when he was done, so as to not get caught in the cast. He waited, but Hannibal was only looking at him. “What?” Will asked, put-out.

“Merry Christmas, Will,” he said. When Will didn’t reply, he cast his line.

They waited in silence for several moments, Will debating his next words carefully in his head. He felt a dull thrumming under his skin. “What did you name your lure?” he finally asked, so quietly that his voice was drowned out by rushing water.

“You know the answer to that,” Hannibal replied, because of course he had heard him anyway. He turned his face toward Will. Will tried to focus on his features, but the sun was in his eyes. “Do you think I’ll catch something?”

Will replied, miserably, “I do.”

Chapter 5: morality

Chapter Text

Will had slipped his multi-tool into his pocket before leaving the cabin that morning, and he’d left Osa at home.

He hadn’t put any particular thought into these actions; he didn’t put any particular thought into much, these days. His mind, once sharp and perceptive to a fault, had been lost to a haze of detachment for some time now. Part of it was deliberate: he didn’t have any interest in recalling the things he’d left behind, or the decisions he’d made, or the ones he would have to make later. The other part was probably the painkillers he was taking at a decidedly higher dose than his doctor recommended.

“You know you don’t need these anymore,” Chilton told him, even as he filled out the prescription for his Vicodin refill. “For any reason other than staving off withdrawal, anyway.”

“I have chronic pain,” Will lied. His shoulder was f*cked up beyond repair, and he’d probably never be able to lift his arm more than 90 degrees again, but it had been a while since it had actually caused him discomfort.

Chilton gave him a look. “No, Will, what you have is psychological pain,” he pointed out.

“What kind of psychiatrist would prescribe Vicodin for that?” Will drawled in retort.

Chilton smiled grimly. “A bad one,” he replied, ripping the prescription from his pad and handing it to Will.

Regardless, it was those inconsequential decisions that had brought him to this moment: concealed in an alleyway, chest heaving as he held the knife from his multi-tool to the throat of a man he’d never seen before in his life. A man who had just chased him through the open-air market, something he surely would not have done had Will been accompanied by a one-hundred-and-forty pound dog.

“Jesus,” the man hissed between his teeth, holding his hands up against the brick wall of the alley in surrender as Will pushed the blade threateningly against the soft tissue of his Adam’s apple. “I’m unarmed, man, relax.”

Will barely heard him over the blood pounding in his ears. He stared at the thin edge where his knife met the man’s skin, his eyes blurring as his thoughts raced. It would be so easy. It was self-defense, Will was the one being threatened, the one whose life and comfort was in danger. He could remedy the situation right now. It would be so easy.

He nearly dropped the knife, startled. For the first time in a long time, the haze in his mind cleared. He’d known he was being followed for a few days now, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that why he’d left the dog behind, why he’d brought a knife with him? Hadn’t he been chased because he’d decided to run?

Does the enemy inside you agree with the accusation?

Will pushed himself away from the other man quickly, running a shaky hand through his hair. “f*ck,” he muttered. He hesitated for a moment, considering his options, before pulling his fist back and throwing a punch, hard enough to knock the stranger unconscious at his feet.

He searched the man’s pockets with quick, clinical precision, coming away with nothing but a phone and a wallet. He hadn’t been lying about being unarmed. Not FBI, then, and likely not someone who’d come with the intention to kill or hurt Will. Just find him.

Will’s breath was stuck in his throat as he scrolled through the phone, looking through the recent calls and messages for some indication of an employer. He paused on an unsaved number with a Baltimore area code. He felt overwhelmed, suddenly, by a feeling he wasn’t sure was relief or disappointment.

He knew who would be on the other line before the call even connected.

“Imagine that, someone with the last name Verger sending a bounty hunter to abduct me,” he drawled, leaning against the wall of the alley and shoving his hands in his pockets. “I think I’ve heard this one before.”

“…Will?” Margot replied in disbelief, before quickly collecting herself, as if afraid she’d scare him off. “He’s not a bounty hunter, he’s a private investigator. Is… is he…?”

Will exhaled deeply through his nose. “He’ll be fine,” he said flatly. “Is Jack Crawford listening to this call?”

“No,” Margot replied quickly. “The FBI thinks you’re dead, this isn’t about that. I just… I thought you might be alive, and if you were, I needed to talk to you.”

“You have three minutes,” Will said. It was an empty threat; he’d called her, out of curiosity alone. It didn’t matter, anyway. He’d been caught the moment he decided not to kill the man lying unconscious at his feet.

When Margot replied, her voice was shaking, which only served to peak Will’s curiosity more. “It’s Morgan,” she said, before taking a long, weighted pause. “His birthday is this week. I thought you might want to talk to him.”

Will found himself at a loss for words. He waited, convinced she was going to tell him she was joking. She didn’t. “You somehow managed to track me down, all the way to Arizona, independent of the FBI,” he said in disbelief. “So I could tell your son happy birthday?”

“He misses you,” Margot said simply, as if there was nothing strange about her request.

Will blinked in bewilderment, laughing a bit hysterically. “Fine,” he conceded. “Put him on, then.”

Margot was quiet for several beats. “You really don’t know, do you?” she asked hesitantly.

“Margot,” Will said, losing patience. “What the hell is going on?”

“Sorry. I had to make sure,” she said, lowering her voice. “Will… I need your help. I need you to come back.”

Will nearly laughed. “No,” he said, unhesitantly.

“Then I’m coming there,” Margot retorted sharply.

“No,” Will replied, no longer amused. The thought of her coming and upsetting the fragile peace he’d found in the mountains, of bringing Chilton back into that world, awakened something defensive within him. “Thirty seconds.”

“Alana is in jail,” she said. She took a few more shaky breaths, and Will thought she might be crying, now. “They think she killed Morgan.”

Will lowered himself so that he was sitting against the wall, his mind going terrifyingly blank. “Did she?” was the only reply he could manage.

“f*ck you,” Margot snapped in response. She sniffed, maintaining her composure. “Hannibal framed her, Will. He has him.”

Will nearly hung up. He was sure, for a moment, that he was going to be sick right there in the alley. There was nowhere he could run, it seemed, that the unimaginable horrors wouldn’t reach him.

He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. “I have to go,” he finally said.

“Do not hang up on me,” Margot said, fire burning behind her words. “I swear to god—”

“I’ll call you back,” he said, quickly, desperate to get out of this conversation. “I… have a psychiatrist’s appointment.”

Margot exhaled, long and slow. “Will. Morgan is your son,” she said. “Please.”

Will scrubbed a hand over his face, “I can’t do this right now. I’ll call you back,” he repeated. “Just call off your goddamn bounty hunters.”

He ended the call and threw the phone toward the unconscious body beside him, burying his face in his hands and remaining on the ground until the sun began to set behind the mountains.

—

“Are you ready to talk about it?”

Will’s eyes fluttered open, and met a pair of dark, curious ones directly across from him. It felt like a lifetime had passed since they’d last sat in this position. It was far too comfortable, even now.

He exhaled slowly. “I can’t go back,” he said softly.

“Because of the FBI?” Hannibal asked calmly.

“Because of you,” Will bit back. “This would be much simpler if you weren’t involved. As with most things.”

The corners of Hannibal’s lips twitched. “Are you so determined to never see me again?” he asked. “You might recall how well that went before.”

Will grimaced. “This is nothing like before,” he said.

“No?”

“No,” Will repeated. “I’m not lying to myself anymore. I’m just… trying to keep the match away from the fuse.”

Hannibal hummed. “For the sake of those caught in the crossfire?” he asked.

Will considered that for a moment. “For the sake of the match,” he said.

Hannibal gave him a look that said he found the notion just as absurd as Will did. “Remember what I said, Will,” he said. “Think about me, don’t worry about me.”

Will huffed a laugh through his nose. “You don’t need me to worry about you,” he said. He closed his eyes, unable to meet Hannibal’s gaze as he made his next admission. “That moment on the cliff… I think I had everything I ever wanted.”

Hannibal’s eyes glimmered. “And you are unhappy about that?” he asked.

“Yes,” Will said through his teeth. “Because I tried to kill us anyway.”

Hannibal nodded once, understanding settling over his features. “Your becoming wasn’t as strong as your will to resist,” he said, sadly.

“I’m not sure that it ever will be,” Will said. “And indecision is dangerous.”

“So decide.”

Will sighed, meeting Hannibal’s gaze miserably. “I did,” he said. “I decided to let you be free.”

Hannibal’s mouth twisted into a grim expression. “That is not what either of us wants,” he said. “So why?”

“I’m sure the answer to that is simple,” Will said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “But acknowledging it is the most difficult thing in the world.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Hannibal said. He paused, watching Will searchingly. “You might have felt what you felt on that cliff again, in that alley today. Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want to,” Will said, and he meant it. “That’s what you’ve never understood. I can’t be like you, Hannibal.” He closed his eyes again, tightly. “So I have to let you go.”

When he opened his eyes once more, blinking the spots out of his vision, he was no longer in an office in downtown Baltimore; he was sitting at a small kitchen table, a glass of whiskey in his hands and a view of forested mountains through the window. The face across from him was different, too.

“Okay,” Chilton said with a sigh. “I am loath to say this, considering this is the most you’ve given me in nine months, but perhaps we should move away from the topic of Hannibal Lecter and discuss the more pressing issue.”

Will took a long drink of his whiskey and looked away, no longer so eager to talk. There was only one person he’d ever felt he could truly talk to. “I can’t go back,” he repeated. “But if I don’t, then I can’t stay here, either.”

Chilton raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that what’s bothering you?” he asked in surprise. “Please don’t try to tell me you’re happy here.”

Will frowned. “Is it so hard to believe?” he asked.

“It’s impossible,” Chilton deadpanned. “You’ve been high on hydrocodone almost consistently for nine months. You come to me for therapy. You’re miserable, Will.”

Will laughed humorlessly, taking another drink. “I’m trying,” he said.

“I know,” Chilton said. “And I know you think you’re doing something important. But you should consider that helping the mothers of your biological child get their son back from a serial killer may be more so.”

Will paused for several moments, considering whether it was too cruel to even put his next words out into the world. He exhaled slowly. “I think Morgan is dead,” he said.

Chilton, notoriously passive toward everything Will had thrown his way over the past few months, looked startled. “On what basis?” he asked.

“Vivid imagination,” Will replied bitterly. He pressed his fingers against his eyes until he saw bright spots. “Hannibal would have been upset… that he didn’t get to eat me.”

Chilton winced. “Ah,” he said. They were quiet for a beat. “You could be wrong.”

“I could be,” Will agreed. “God, I hope I am.”

Chilton didn’t respond for a moment, twirling his ring around his finger in thought. Will avoided his scrutinizing gaze pointedly. “Here’s what I think,” Chilton finally spoke. “You’re going back to Baltimore, because you are a good person.”

Will blinked, momentarily stunned, before snorting sardonically. “I think you of all people should be more doubtful of that,” he said.

“And yet, I have no doubt in my mind,” Chilton replied. “You don’t want to hurt people, Will, you want to protect them. That has always been the case.”

For the first time, Will allowed himself to look at the situation outside of the scope of Hannibal Lecter. He thought of Alana, trapped in the same situation he’d once been in himself, and of Margot, sitting on two-thousand acres all alone and desperately trying to salvage the broken shards of her family. He thought of Morgan, potentially alive and under the care of a serial killer, confused and scared and four f*cking years old.

Later, as he drove back up the mountain, he dialed the number he’d memorized from earlier. “I have two conditions,” he said once the call connected.

“Anything,” Margot replied, unhesitantly.

Will took a deep breath. “I’m dead,” he said. “Nobody finds out otherwise. Not even Alana.”

Margot paused for only a brief moment. “Fine,” she replied. “And?”

“And,” Will said. “I will help you find Hannibal, but only for the sake of finding Morgan. We’re not turning him in.”

Margot actually laughed, loud and incredulous. “You’re joking.”

“Not at all,” he said. “You get your son back, and Hannibal and I both walk away. It’s that or nothing.”

“He’s after my family,” she said through clenched teeth. “If we just leave him be, we’ll be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.”

“I don’t care,” Will said simply. He pulled into his driveway, putting the truck into park and making his way up the snow-covered path. “I suggest you find a better place to hide next time.”

“Will,” Margot said, her voice full of quiet disappointment.

“What?” Will said, ignoring Osa’s excited yelping as he walked inside. “You know I’m better than this? You know I’m a good person? Sorry to disappoint, but I’m just a person, I can’t help—” He stopped abruptly, the words sticking in his throat. “It’s yes or no.”

Margot sighed deeply, and Will could feel the weight of her exhaustion through the phone. “Okay,” she agreed. “Yes, whatever. Just find Morgan.”

Will stayed standing in his kitchen long after the call disconnected, his mind torn between thinking far too much and closing off completely. He dry-swallowed four Vicodin, fed Osa, and collapsed exhaustedly onto his bed.

He didn’t visit the stream, that night. He just went to sleep.

—

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Chilton said, walking into his kitchen in the t-shirt and boxers Will assumed he’d been sleeping in.

Will looked up from where he was filling the food bowl he’d set up near the pantry. “It won’t be long,” he said. “I promise.”

Chilton groaned, collapsing into his armchair. Osa ran up to him, and he half-heartedly patted her on the head. “I guess I should have seen this coming,” he muttered. “You know I can’t walk her.”

“That’s fine, just let her run around out back a few times a day,” Will said. “I usually make her food, but I bought a few bags of regular dog food that should be okay until I get back. She eats three cups in the morning and three at dinner time.”

Chilton yawned. “Alright,” he said. “If she bites me you’re paying my medical bills. Again.”

Will grinned, despite himself. “I wouldn’t worry. I doubt you taste very good,” he said.

Chilton deadpanned at him, and Will snorted. “You’re not planning to take that truck all the way to Maryland, are you?” he asked. “It’ll fall apart before you get to New Mexico.”

Will shrugged. “I don’t have a choice,” he said.

“Just take my RX. That way I’ll have the truck if I need to take Osa anywhere,” Chilton said with a sigh. Will blinked and didn’t respond, only stared blankly at Chilton until the other man shifted uncomfortably. “What?”

Will wondered, with sudden, startling clarity, when Frederick Chilton had become his friend. Maybe it was when he’d started giving Will therapy, or when he’d chosen to live twenty minutes away from Will’s cabin in the mountains rather than go back to Baltimore, or when Will had visited him in the hospital almost every day despite his initial intention to leave him in Albuquerque and move on. Maybe it was years ago, in that detention center, when Chilton had been the only one who believed him.

Will shook his head, looking away uncomfortably. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll come back.”

Chilton smiled grimly, and Will knew he didn’t believe it. “I’ll be here,” he said.

He moved his luggage into Chilton’s car, before getting into the driver’s seat and pulling up his GPS. He stared at the small circle indicating the city of Baltimore, and was all at once overwhelmed by the same sense of inevitability he felt when he’d agreed to help with the Red Dragon case, all those months ago. He hoped he was wrong this time.

Chapter 6: binding

Chapter Text

Hannibal always felt closer to Mischa when it snowed.

He’d thought of her often during Baltimore winters, despite the relative mildness of the season compared to those which he remembered from his youth. He’d heard her voice in the whistle of the wind through the trees, felt her soft, youthful skin in the frost on the windowpane. In retaliation, he would often keep his home and office uncomfortably warm, testing the capabilities of his furnace and assuring a fire was always roaring in the hearth. The warmth brought back his sense of control. He would not allow the ghosts of the cold to bring out weakness within him.

There was no snow, here, but Hannibal found himself haunted regardless.

The coast of Spain had not been his intended destination; it was meant to be a stop along the way, an attempt to muddy his trail as he headed further east. But there was something about being so near the ocean, the crash of the surf and the smell of salt-air, that had stilled him.

Hannibal felt closer to Will by the sea. It made him feel terrifyingly, unbearably human, in all the ways he’d spent a lifetime trying to avoid. And yet he stayed. It was terribly unlike him, this new habit of whetting an appetite he knew could never be sated.

If the ocean stoked his hunger, the second of his recent vices made him ravenous.

“Can we go to the park next?” said vice spoke in an impossibly small voice, shaking Hannibal out of his train of thought.

Hannibal moved his attention from the window to the small boy sitting atop a wax paper-covered examination table, calm and patient despite the sweet smell of fever coming off of him in waves. Hannibal was reminded of the last time someone close to him had suffered such an affliction. He had very little interest in handling it in the same manner, this time. “We will go to the park once you’re better,” he said. “For now, we are going to get your medicine, and then go home and rest.”

The boy frowned deeply, but any further protestation was interrupted by a brief tap on the door, followed by the entrance of who was presumably the pediatrician. She was a younger woman, early 30s at the latest, with blonde hair pulled into a sleek bun and an unfriendly expression on her face. Her eyes softened when they landed on her patient, however. “Hello, you must be Morgan. I’m Dr. Clarke,” she said in English, paying Hannibal no mind. He felt the faintest spark of irritation, but made an effort to let it roll off his back. “What brings you in today?”

Hannibal hadn’t been particularly fond of the idea of visiting a clinic, but seeing as it was currently outside of his power to prescribe medication, his options had been limited. The falsified documentation he’d provided for Morgan and himself seemed to be holding up, at least. As far as anyone was concerned, they were Andris and Morgan Novak, father and son. Morgan’s mother had died years ago, whilst they were living in America. She had drowned.

“It’s bacterial tonsillitis,” Hannibal said, pointedly stepping into the doctor’s line of vision. “Nothing that can’t be fixed with penicillin.”

Dr. Clarke finally lifted her eyes to acknowledge him, her expression frosting over once more. “We’ll have to run lab tests before we know anything for sure, of course,” she said dismissively.

Hannibal smiled tightly. “Of course,” he said.

She made quick work of collecting a lab sample. Hannibal watched tears well up in Morgan’s eyes as the swab hit the back of his throat and gagged him, and he allowed himself to briefly imagine grabbing Dr. Clarke by the back of her hair and smashing her lovely face against the edge of the countertop. Instead, he rested a supportive hand on Morgan’s back.

The pediatrician let her gaze linger on Morgan’s face as she finished the procedure, her eyes narrowing as she carefully placed a gloved hand on his right cheek. “What happened here?” she asked, her voice soft for Morgan’s benefit, but a storm in her eyes.

Morgan blinked. “Oh, I got hurt,” he said, shrugging and averting his gaze.

Hannibal knew what she was referring to without looking. Morgan had, a week or so ago, slipped and hit his cheekbone against the hardwood stairs. It had left him with a horrible black eye, which had at this point yellowed and mostly healed; Hannibal had iced the area and applied arnica cream near-obsessively to make sure of it.

He could have easily explained this, but Dr. Clarke, it seemed, had already reached her conclusion. She stood from her stool, eyeing Hannibal as if she were trying to intimidate him despite her much shorter stature. “What happened?” she asked again, accusatory.

Hannibal smiled as pleasantly as he was able. “He tripped and fell,” he said, purposefully vague. “As toddlers often do.”

Dr. Clarke was, as expected, unsatisfied. “You’ll understand my concern. I only have the well-being of children in mind,” she said.

“Of course,” Hannibal agreed. “I am very understanding.”

He asked for her card, before they left.

Hannibal spent the better part of the drive to the pharmacy deep in thought. He would do it in her office, most likely; leave her there for the secretary to discover the next morning. She would wake up strapped to her chair, fully conscious as he cut into her chest with her own scalpel and removed her tender, bleeding heart. It would pair nicely with a red wine reduction.

Hannibal glanced into the rearview mirror to the back seat out of habit, and at the sight of Morgan’s face, all ideas of death and violence drained from Hannibal like a plug had been pulled. The boy was frowning deeply, his eyebrows furrowed as he glared out the window. He looked far more irritable than a four-year-old had any business being.

“Morgan,” Hannibal said, careful to keep his voice calm. “It’s okay. We’re not angry.”

Morgan blinked, his features relaxing almost immediately. He, of course, hadn’t actually been angry in the first place. He had been feeling what Hannibal was feeling. He had been empathizing.

Hannibal shook off all thoughts of the pediatrician, reminding himself to regulate his emotions around the boy. He couldn’t act on his impulses, anyway, not for now. He’d discovered very quickly that caring for such a young child took more time and effort than anything he had ever done. It was more exhausting than medical school, more demanding than open-heart surgery, more difficult than decades of deceiving federal authorities. His usual activities would have to be put on hold, at least until Morgan was a bit older and could be slowly introduced to that world.

“Okay,” Morgan said, as if he’d never been bothered in the first place. “I’m cold.”

“It’s because of your fever,” Hannibal said, removing his peacoat and handing it back to Morgan. The boy quickly took it and pulled it around himself like a blanket. “I can make you warm soup once we get home. I will even let you eat in bed, just this once.”

Morgan’s face lit up immediately. “Can I watch Nemo too?” he asked.

Hannibal exhaled through his nose, long and slow. He could hear the dialogue to that movie even in his sleep, he’d been made to watch it so many times. “If you’d like,” he said, defeated.

The sun was setting by the time they made it home, the warm April air becoming cool in the breeze. Their flat was one Hannibal had owned since his youth in Florence; it was two stories, and much smaller than many of his other properties, but it was plenty of space for just the two of them. Both the inside and outside of the flat were colorfully painted, with a large terrace on the second floor that sat over the busy, palm-lined street below. Hannibal would often sit out there alone after Morgan went to sleep, listening to the distant waves crash against the shore.

Morgan immediately beelined for his bedroom once they entered, bouncing excitedly on the mattress as he impatiently waited for Hannibal to set the movie up. Once he was under the covers and content, Hannibal left for the kitchen to start on the soup.

Another unforeseen challenge of raising a small child was one that was particularly difficult for him: food. Morgan had proven to be stubbornly resistant to Hannibal’s attempts to refine his palette. Hannibal was unfamiliar with the phenomenon of someone refusing to eat his food, and even though that person was four years old, he couldn’t quite stave off the sting of offense he felt each time.

They’d eventually settled on an agreement: if Morgan ate what Hannibal put in front of him six days out of the week, on Sunday he would get to choose what they had. Hannibal couldn’t help but think he had very much gotten the short end of the bargain, however; the food he made ended up being far less complex than he preferred or else Morgan wouldn’t eat it regardless, and he was sure that if he had to eat McDonald’s even one more time it would kill him.

The next time Hannibal entered Morgan’s room, basic bowl of chicken soup in hand, Morgan was asleep sitting up. Hannibal rested the back of his hand against his forehead to check his fever, and the boy stirred at the touch. “Eat a bit, and then you can go back to sleep,” Hannibal said gently.

Morgan nodded, pushing himself up against the headboard and allowing Hannibal to set up the breakfast tray over his lap. “My throat hurts,” he rasped.

“I know,” Hannibal said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and rubbing Morgan’s back with one hand and feeding him a spoonful of soup with the other. “The medicine will work quickly, I promise. You will be feeling much better by tomorrow.”

Morgan looked up at him with the glazed, unfocused eyes of fever. Hannibal forced himself not to look away; sometimes his gaze was too familiar for Hannibal to bear. “Can I see mommy and mama soon?” he asked, his voice very small.

Hannibal sighed. It had been a while since they’d had this conversation, and he had hoped that they would no longer have to. He was well aware, however, of the correlation between illness and longing for loved ones. He himself had even thought of his parents, for the first time in what might have been decades, when he’d been suffering through recovery all those months ago.

“We have talked about this, Morgan,” he said, keeping his voice calm and quiet. Morgan often cried when they reached this topic, something Hannibal would rather avoid. “Your mothers are far away, somewhere we cannot go. I know you miss them, but I am the one who is here to take care of you, now.”

Morgan blinked very quickly, but much to Hannibal’s relief, his eyes didn’t well with tears. “Okay,” he said. He was quiet for a moment, and Hannibal assumed his attention had been recaptured by the movie, until he spoke again. “Will you stay with me forever?”

“I would challenge God himself if he tried to take you from me,” Hannibal said very seriously.

Morgan seemed to consider that, before nodding once, letting his head rest against Hannibal’s side. Hannibal remained with him until he drifted off, making a conscious effort to suppress the fierce possessiveness that had welled within him at the mere thought of being separated from the boy beside him.

Once he made certain that Morgan was properly settled for the night, Hannibal found himself on the terrace, as he often did. He scrolled mindlessly through his tablet, reading local articles to brush up on his unexceptional Spanish skills. It served to help distract him from the unbearable loneliness the nighttime wrought.

One article in particular caught his interest. There had been a homicide, the third in the Valencia region in the past few months. He had been vaguely following the case since the first victim, mostly curious about the modus operandi: all three victims had been burned alive, tied up on altars like ritual sacrifices. Despite this, Hannibal did not believe that the murders were religiously motivated. In a traditional Old Testament animal sacrifice, the lamb’s throat was cut first; it was merciful. To burn someone alive required a remarkable hatred. A profound righteousness.

Hannibal, of course, had no objective when it came to such musings. It was simply nostalgic to profile crimes for the sport of it. It occurred to him, however, that it had perhaps been the company he enjoyed more than the sport itself, back then.

It was closer to morning than evening when his mind finally quieted enough to allow him rest. He checked on Morgan once more before retiring to bed, pulling the blankets over his narrow shoulders and brushing his sweat-soaked hair from his forehead. Not for the first time, Hannibal marveled at how much he looked like his father. The thought filled his mouth with the taste of blood.

Hannibal did not see Will Graham in his dreams that night. As with every night before, he dreamt of nothing at all.

—

Hannibal didn’t remember the day that Mischa died.

It had been winter, obviously, but it could have been late November or early March or anywhere in between; he would never know. He had never had an anniversary to celebrate or mourn, only a vague sense of loss when the air turned cold.

Will had not afforded him any such luxury. On the one-year mark of the day the two of them had fallen from the bluff, Hannibal was aware of it in every cell in his body, every inch of his soul.

One year prior, Hannibal had stood beneath the moonlight and discovered a divinity most would spend their whole life looking for. Blood hot on his skin, he had found something raw and profound and beyond the capability of mundane human emotion, and he’d looked into the face of his God and seen it reflected back. He had transcended humanity, he had incited the rapture. He had won.

Or so it had seemed at the time. He understood only now that perhaps, in truth, he had never been more human than he was in that moment. It was nothing to do with power or conquest, he had simply been very much in love.

“You’re going to spend some time with Ms. Ortiz today,” Hannibal told Morgan at breakfast, coming to the decision after watching the boy prod lethargically at his breakfast for several minutes. Hannibal reached over to grab the fork from his hand gently, cutting him off a piece of his crepe and feeding it to him. “I will be back to pick you up later this evening.”

Morgan frowned deeply, his eyes welling up with tears. Hannibal sighed. He knew the melancholy was not Morgan’s, which was precisely why he’d decided they should spend this particular day apart. “I don’t want to go,” he said, sniffling.

Hannibal moved to the other side of the table and kneeled by Morgan’s side. “I have some things to take care of, Morgan. It won’t be long,” he said reassuringly. “Don’t you like Ms. Ortiz?”

Norma Ortiz lived alone in the flat a few doors down from them; she was a warm, friendly woman, ten years or so younger than Hannibal, who was particularly kind to the two of them. Hannibal paid her to watch Morgan on the rare occasions he needed to be somewhere, as well as tutor him in Spanish, so that he could receive a base knowledge that Hannibal himself was unable to provide. She had a small dog named Teo who Morgan, naturally, was quite fond of.

“She wants to kiss you,” Morgan said bluntly.

Hannibal blinked, caught off guard. Remarkably, he felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards. “She told you this?” he asked, amused.

Morgan shrugged. “I just know,” he said.

Hannibal knew too, of course. There was a time he might have pursued it; it would only benefit their cover to get involved with a civilian. She was conventionally attractive, and the perfect amount of naive, and she and Morgan got along well. But despite the advantages, he could not stomach it. Putting together a family was not an undertaking he was eager to attempt again any time soon.

Once they’d gotten ready for the day, they made their way down the block, Morgan holding onto Hannibal’s hand tightly as he balanced on the curb. The weather was already rapidly progressing from warm to hot despite it only being early April. Hannibal had quickly determined that his suits, and indeed many of his sweaters, would be impractical here; much of his wardrobe now consisted of short-sleeved button-down shirts, including a particularly hideous floral-printed one Morgan had picked him out for Christmas. Hannibal wore it often.

He allowed Morgan to knock on the door. Ms. Ortiz greeted them shortly after with a smile that could eclipse the sun, gathering Morgan tightly into her arms. “There he is!” she said, her speech as heavily accented as Hannibal’s own. “Cómo estás, chiquito?”

“Bien, gracias,” Morgan said softly, but he was smiling already, assimilating her good humor quickly.

“Good boy,” she said proudly, ruffling his curls. She turned her attention to Hannibal, her countenance brightening even further. “Big plans for today, then?”

Hannibal smiled, carefully regulating his expression. “I picked up a few last-minute clients at the studio,” he explained. “Nothing very interesting.”

“Well, Mr. Morgan and I will be sure to have fun on your behalf,” she teased. She ruffled Morgan’s hair again. “Teo has been missing you, chiquito.”

Morgan’s eyes lit up. “Teo?” he said, looking past her legs excitedly.

“Sí, say goodbye to your daddy and we’ll go find him,” Ms. Ortiz said, nodding in Hannibal’s direction.

Morgan turned to Hannibal, but his attention was miles away. “Bye, papa,” he said.

Hannibal felt a wrench in his chest, and he was suddenly reluctant to leave. He let the feeling pass quickly, however, blaming the day for his unnecessary sentimentality. Morgan had been referring to him in such a way since the beginning; Hannibal had required that he do so, in order to corroborate their story. Despite this, being referred to as father by Will’s child still often managed to overwhelm.

It had been all he’d ever wanted, once. He hadn’t quite wanted it this way.

“Goodbye, Morgan,” Hannibal said, kneeling down to his level. “I will see you again very soon.”

Morgan hugged him tightly, nearly knocking Hannibal off balance. “I love you,” he whispered into Hannibal’s shoulder.

“And I love you,” Hannibal replied, as honest as he’d ever been.

He was reminded of a similar embrace he had found himself in a year before, and imagined that it had ended in the same sentiment. He wondered if it would have changed anything at all.

—

Hannibal’s first thought when he regained consciousness was that he did not remember losing it.

He had left Ms. Ortiz’s house and headed straight to the music studio downtown, he knew that much. He spent several evenings a week giving piano lessons; they certainly didn’t need the extra money, but he was a social creature by nature, and he found he couldn’t help but to insert himself into the community in some way. That day, however, he’d simply been looking for a distraction.

After the studio, he vaguely recalled leaving his car behind and making his way to the beach. He thought he might have stood and listened to the waves for a while. He thought he might have felt that itch under his skin, the one that he had felt often for the past week or so. The sensation of being watched.

Something about the prospect had instilled a vain sense of hope in him, so he’d let it be. He’d embraced it rather than taken precautions. Foolishly, he now realized. The eyes he had imagined were on him no longer saw anything.

He had no memory of leaving the beach, but the haze in his mind and lethargy of his body gave him a good indication of what had happened. It would not be the first time that he had been tranquilized, after all.

With significant effort, he forced his heavy eyelids to open. His surroundings were unfamiliar; it appeared to be some sort of shack, weather-beaten and long-abandoned. He could still hear the ocean in the distance. He blinked the remaining fog from his vision, realizing for the first time that he wasn’t alone.

The figure was near his feet, securing the end of a rope that, he now realized, was restraining his entire body. He was lying face-up on some sort of raised surface, completely immobilized. He could smell blood.

Despite his drug-induced disorientation, he understood. He was lying on an altar.

His suspicions were further confirmed when the figure left his side, heading for a canister that rested on the ground near the doorway. Hannibal could smell gasoline before it even left the nozzle. He watched, dazed, as the figure coated the decaying wood around them in the pungent liquid. Their face was concealed by an obsolete, 1920s-style gas mask, and they were dressed entirely in long black clothing, making identification impossible.

It took momentous concentration for Hannibal to convince his mouth to form words. “The fire and wood are here,” he recited, speech slurring slightly. The figure turned to him, as if noticing his consciousness for the first time. “But where is the lamb?”

He could not see the figure’s eyes through the mask, as they lit the match, but he could feel them. To burn someone alive required a remarkable hatred. A profound righteousness.

He was left alone as soon as smoke began to fill the room. He began struggling immediately, his groggy mind attempting to formulate an escape plan. He was bound tightly around his shoulders and legs, and his body was still weak from the drugs, making it impossible for him to break through the ropes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. Perhaps the last he would take before the room was overwhelmed with smoke and fire.

Before he could think too deeply about his actions, Hannibal wedged his right arm between his body and the altar, putting his full weight on it and making sure it was firmly in place. Then, he wrenched his shoulder as hard as he possibly could. Once, twice. On the third time, he heard the audible crack of his arm coming out of his socket. If he yelled, he couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears.

His vision was becoming hazier, and he couldn’t be sure if it was from the lack of oxygen or the rapidly-spreading smoke. His head spun as he eased the rope up and over his dislocated shoulder, made slimmer by the unnatural way it was hanging against his body and leaving room for the binding to loosen. He managed to get it up and over his head, freeing his other arm and allowing him to work on the ropes around his legs.

By the time he was completely free, there were black spots forming in his vision. He noticed for the first time that he was drenched in blood; he reached up and felt a wound, raw and bleeding, just under his neck and above his collarbone. This killer did cut the victim’s throats after all, it seemed, but for effect only. Not deep enough to kill, so they could still feel the agony of the flames licking up their skin.

Hannibal managed two steps away from the altar before he collapsed. His vision and strength were fading fast; it was no use, he couldn’t breathe. He thought of Morgan even as he sucked ash into his lungs. So quickly he had broken his promise.

It was fitting, he mused, that he should die on this day. Almost like fate.

He thought of Will, and then he stopped thinking altogether.