Will Graham didn't do people. The way he was wasn't compatible with other people, and he didn't want to cause a conflict. Besides, it was much easier to interact with animals like his pack. Winston and the others were always there for him, his faithful companions, and the furry family he had made for himself was more than sufficient.

Hannibal had tried to analyze his choice of company more than once, questioning his solitude and his furry family, but no amount of psychoanalysis could ruin the comfort they gave him. It was Winston and the pack in Wolf Trap that kept him together some days. He had picked each of them up –off the highway or otherwise- and coerced them with some lunch leftovers that hadn't appealed to him in the Quantico cafeteria.

He had never imagined picking up Rush the exact same way.

She was small- at least; she looked small in her wet clothes and baggy, sopping sweatshirt. She had obviously been unable to find shelter from the earlier rainstorm, and the slow, plodding foot-after-foot hinted that she had been on the road for a long time.

Gnawing at his lip as he passed, Will made a decision and sighed. He stopped the car.

To his surprise, the wandering girl froze and retraced the step she had been about to take. Her wariness was not unnecessary, as the FBI had put out many warnings to girls such as herself concerning the Chesapeake Ripper, and Will found the similarity to his own manner refreshing. Waiting in his car, Will watched her in his rear-view mirror with growing unease. She just watched him idle there, the empty road making the sounds of his engine a thunderstorm overhead, and he couldn't –for all his empathy- fathom what was going through her head.

He glanced at the clock. Five minutes of idling? Oh God, the world didn't need that useless punishment- checking his mirrors, Will slowly backed up the car.

"Hi." He said shortly, rolling down his window and leaning across the passenger seat a little. "You look..." He strained for a word that didn't make it sound like he wanted to rape her. "rained-on."

"Hn." Quickly picking up her speed, the girl took off running into the sticks, away from him and his horrible attempt to offer her a ride into town, and Will sighed heavily as she disappeared from sight as quickly as a wild deer.

"Way to go, Graham."

Will had continued on his drive, stopping briefly in town to grab some groceries and a few spindles of coloured thread for his lures, and dabbled with the idea of venturing into the diner when he saw the girl again. She came staggering out of the woodlands and plopped herself down on the curb across the street, panting heavily.

There were twigs and leaves stuck in her brilliant red hair –the brown and green easily noticeable against the fire truck hue- and a smear of mud ran across the side of her face like a scratch. When she looked up at him, they locked eyes for a second, and Will flinched when she looked away to eye the pedestrian crossing the street at the corner with a burger in his hand. He knew that look; the desperate gleam in her eyes was hunger, and he had gotten Winston with that same look and a few sausages.

Turning on his heel, Will shook his head and refused to look back at the girl- she was obviously a runaway, and she was very obviously hungry. He knew that if he looked back, he'd have to help her, and if he helped her now he'd want to keep her just like he had his dogs. And her being a human being, that wouldn't be a very respectable thing to do, so Will quickly stuffed his things into the back of his car and skittered into the diner to avoid her.

When he emerged an hour later, his stomach swishing with dark cheap coffee, she was gone like she had never existed, and Will was relieved as he got into his car again. He started his engine and rolled out of the lot, dissatisfied with the setting sun and his decision more and more as he left the stores behind for the last long stretch before the turn of his driveway.

He felt like a bum.

He should have helped her.

The least he could have done was buying her a burger or something.

Suddenly, as Will zoomed along the road in the fading light, a flash of red in his peripheral vision made Will jerk and he slowed down in time to see the vagabond disappear from the reach of his taillights. He stopped sharply, throwing himself between his front seats to ravage through the grocery bag for something edible.

When Will at back up with his prize, he could see the poor girl trudging along with her arms crossed over her chest tightly. She didn't stop for his vehicle this time –if he were the Ripper, she was a prime target now- but she did stop when he rolled her window down and said, "Here."

She caught the bag of beef jerky, fumbling with it, and stared at him suspiciously through the door with the package clutched tightly in her hands. She didn't speak, not a word, and she didn't move a muscle; slowly her eyes dropped to the jerky in her hands, and she glanced at him through the cascade of bangs that fell in her face.

"It's teriyaki beef." Will said lamely, unable to hold her eye-contact. "I, uh... you looked hungry earlier." When he glanced, she looked a little ashamed and wasn't staring back, like him realizing she had been hungry was shameful somehow.

"I'm hungry a lot." She rasped. Obviously she hadn't spoken to anyone in a very long time.

"I've got leftover Chinese two driveways down." Will didn't realize he'd said it until she looked up at him in shock. "I always order extra." He knew it was risky and he could see her playing out the pros and cons of going with him in her eyes, but he had to offer it to her. When she looked back up, a question in her eyes, he shrugged. "I'm used to strays... stray dogs." She glanced down at the beef jerky quietly and Will read her mind. "You can eat it on the way."

She was very quickly in the passenger seat, one hand in the jerky bag and the other clutching her sodden canvas bag close as if he might take it from her. She ate quickly, hardly a breath in between bites, but she was quiet like a rabbit as if she was used to not being allowed to make noise.

Will faintly wondered where she'd come from. She obviously wasn't from around here.

"So..." Will struggled to fill the silence. "uh..."

"I'm not a sex trade worker." She said sternly, eyeing him with severity. "I am not a criminal. I am not homeless." Her hands kept busy with the jerky until it was all gone, stuffing her face with it, and when it ran out she looked into the bag, scandalized.

"Glad to clear that up." Will said dryly, spotting his driveway. "Why are you wandering around Virginia then?" He caught her shrug from the corner of his eye, the nonchalant gesture concerning, but Will had already committed to this stray and he didn't give up easily. He pulled up, put his car in park, and sighed. "Right then."

"Is this it?" The cherry-headed girl was suddenly out of the car, her bag in her arms like a comfort object. Her head whipped around, her bright eyes locking with his intensely, and for a moment she looked ready to bolt again.

"Yeah," Will nodded. "this is home."

Turning back around, she stared at his house critically, her fiery eyes narrowed and distant as she took it all in. "It's nice," She murmured finally, her shoulders dropping a little. "very homey." She looked at him again, a little less carefully, and he took it as the sign to continue; he headed up the worn footpath, hearing her little footsteps following close, and mounted the porch steps slowly.

He was going to let her in.