Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
Summary: He's Schrodinger's Crazy. The kind of crazy that no one can confirm of measure. The cat's neither alive nor dead. Will's brain is stuck in psychiatric limbo.
It's a pretty luxurious way to lose one's mind, all things considered.
Author's Notes: this was written as part of a fic exchange for drewbug (fanficDOTnet)/shyday (AO3). The request was for a follow-up to For Saints Have Hands. The prospect of exchanging fics was incredibly exciting. The act of writing one of my own for Hannibal, two seasons later, for a writer I so ardently admire the hell out of, was like riding a unicycle. I can only hope it sounds better to you, dear readers and, more specifically, drewbug, than it did while I was writing.
The title is taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
I've taken liberties with Will's prognosis and treatment in this fic. I did so to save on time, and, perhaps most importantly, because where Hannibal is concerned, almost all things are possible. I feel like I should confess that I'm not a doctor, but I've watched enough television to know it's possible to lie about modern medicine.
Please, enjoy! Cheers!
Our Thoughts are Ours (Their Ends None of Our Own)
Jack's signature is the readout of a heart monitor, a heartbeat in V-fib trying to squeeze every last precious ounce of blood to the brain before death. He's normally neater; the head of the Behavioural Sciences Unit needs a legible signature. However, he's in a rush today. The Ripper always lights a fire on his heels and sends his signature into overdrive.
"You sure you're up for this?" Jack asks again after the papers are signed. Not before, when Will's depleted reserves might get the better of him. After, when Will's changed out of his pyjamas, when he has a view of the front door. Jack's subtle manipulations scream at Will through his flurried thoughts. He almost says no on the basis of principle, though if he's being totally honest, no, no he is not up for this. He's too damn eager to get out of his own mind.
All the more reason, then, to say, "Yes."
What kind of crazy is he?
The thought nags Will all the way to crime scene. In Jack's brutish tones, it doesn't even sound like a question so much as an accusation. Will is crazy. He looks crazy, sounds crazy, acts crazy. Only the kind of crazy matters.
Encephalitis is a kind of crazy whose dimensions are not easily measured. On advance or in retreat, the symptoms remain the same, they simply reverse. Psychosis is last to arrive and the first to go, but no one can guarantee when that will be. Will won't be sure what side of the scale he's tipped for months.
But that's encephalitis: a forest fire extinguished with hidden flames still burning underground. Emerging eventually and erupting in old symptoms. Will knows it's his imagination (or persistent psychosis), but he can feel tine sparks, little flares of heat, and he occupies his brain with a game where he wonders what parts of his mind he'll lose next.
That's how the answer strikes him. He's Schrodinger's Crazy. The kind of crazy that no one can confirm of measure. The cat's neither alive nor dead. Will's brain is stuck in psychiatric limbo. It's the best and most useful kind of crazy for Jack. Uncertainty liberates the older agent from immediate guilt. He gets to push and push and push without knowing how much damage is being done.
It's a pretty luxurious way to lose one's mind, all things considered.
Cordons of police tape criss-crossing the Virginia wilderness makes Will feel right at home. He exits the vehicle to greet a swarm of law enforcement officials. Their faces appear blurry; he's not really focusing on any of them in particular. Only one face catches his attention.
"What are you doing here?"
Hannibal Lecter manages to look as surprised to see Will as Will is to see him. The comforting blankness of his expression makes that easy. Hannibal looks like he just stumbled across the crime scene on one of his routine walks through Virginia's wilderness. It's the cops that make him look out of place, that cause his mouth to form a thin, tight line on his otherwise impassive face. "I'm here for you. Recovery from anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis requires monitoring from a physician. While your attending was willing, I thought myself to be a more suitable candidate."
He's wearing a scarf over the bandages on his neck, teal paisley, one that sets off the red scratches left by Will's IV needle from days before. If Will didn't know Hannibal better, he would say the colour choice was strategic to call attention to his wounds, but the good doctor isn't petty. Will tries not to stare, makes the mistake of meeting Hannibal's eyes instead for a brief moment. Looks back towards the ground and can't believe his gaze climbed so high. For the first time since leaving the hospital, he's aware of how exhausted he really is. Nausea is starting to assert itself dimly. He rubs the back of his neck, dismissing it and the headache that's returning. "You're not worried about my re-enacting the Ripper?"
Hannibal's mouth curves into a delicate smile and then flattens again, "You weren't re-enacting the Ripper in the hospital, Will. The Ripper would not have let me live."
The Ripper certainly didn't let the nurse live. She is a repository for medical supplies, impaled with needles, scalpels, saws, bolts, staples, and remnants of bed rails. There's a chaotic elegance to her arrangement, but Will isn't fooled by the illusion of disorder. The Ripper always knows the best places to cut. He has an eye for incisions. All the objects are positioned in such a perfect pattern. She is mounted on a wide stump, head slung out of sight on one side, feet on the other.
Prescription pills litter the ground around her: small blue, pink, and white tablets of various shapes and sizes. An empty sack for plasma is pinned to her chest with a bone saw.
Will's exhaustion swallows him up like a tidal wave crashing along the shore. He almost doesn't make it out of his fantasy and back to consciousness, almost lets himself be washed away. Drowning is a welcome alternative to reliving the nurse's last moments, especially since the Ripper has bound her death so nicely to him. Wrapped them both together in IV tubing, tied it into a bow.
"What is it?" Hannibal asks. As usual, he notices Will's distress before Jack does.
"I know those medications," Will sighs. "They're mine. Well…"
He lets the good doctor and Uncle Jack make of that what they will. Hannibal takes the liberty of finishing his sentence for the benefit of the audience, "The treatments for anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis."
"There won't be anything here, Jack," as usual, Will can articulate the conclusions before the connections. "No DNA, no prints, no fibers. The Ripper's not looking to be chased."
"What makes you so sure?"
"He's above repetition, especially since-" Will's tongue falters on the name. He can't quite say it without shaking, "-since Abel Gideon. He's not being interesting here. He's being simple."
"That doesn't sound like the Ripper," Hannibal notes.
"Simplicity has its elegance," in the way she was impaled, especially. The Ripper took his time, let her savour every last moment of life as he slipped needle after bed rail after scalpel through her flesh. Will watches as the horror on her face subsides into shock, then death. "She is a blank canvas. What's inside her isn't as interesting as what she's decorated with."
"Encephalitis medication. Your encephalitis medication," Jack repeats, trying to get his bearings.
Will blinks and returns to the forest, to chills and a migraine, to the frightened feeling that he is not himself at this moment. He brought the Ripper out of his fantasy and into reality, because Will knows this isn't Jack's big break in the case. He knows exactly why this nurse was taken from the hospital and ended up here, in Virginia, another Wound Man for the Evil Minds museum.
"This isn't a calling card," he huffs, walking away from the body as quickly as possible. There's so many people around, and all of them are looking ripe for the gutting.
"What is it then?" Jack calls after him.
Will tries to keep the thought bottled up inside but it tightens on his tongue like barbed wire. He needs to spit it out, "She's a get-well-soon present."
The path back to the vehicle is claustrophobic, but Will doesn't know where else to go. If he follows his feet, he's going to end up walking home. Not an entirely unwelcome prospect, but that kind of thing will get him hospitalized. Best save the crazy impulses for Hannibal, not Jack.
"You alright, Will?"
He answers the question Jack is really asking, "She is going to have just enough evidence to prove it was the Ripper and nothing more. This is smoke and mirrors, Jack. The Ripper is playing with you."
"Sounds like the Ripper is playing with you."
"Well, I'm an easy target."
"How easy?" Jack asks. He takes a step towards Will, and the air gets even harder to breathe. "You say the word, I'll take you back to the hospital."
"I'm fine," Will forces himself to act like it, "but this is pointless."
"We'll see."
They won't, but neither man wants to admit it: Will to spare Jack's pride, Jack to spare Will's stamina.
The autopsy is a flurry of movement in his periphery. "Looks like she might have part of the Ripper under her nails," Zeller says, loud enough for Will to hear.
Price looks at the flecks being collected from under the nurse's nails, "Not enough for DNA. He probably cleaned her before she ended up in the forest."
All this talk of scratching and now there's an itch in Will's hands that only disembowelment can scratch as Zeller and Price dismantle the nurse's body. He folds his hands together, clenches them to fists in a desperate prayer. Those are not his thoughts. They are not even the Ripper's ideas. Disembowelment is too banal for the Ripper.
But then whose thoughts are they?
"Shouldn't you be in the hospital?" Bev asks.
He forgot she was watching, wonders how much she saw. The way her eyebrow's arched tells him she's seen enough to believe the answer is 'yes'.
"I signed out AMA," Will replies, as if that answers her question.
Since it doesn't and Bev's not an idiot, she presses, still performing her tasks as if his presence is nothing out of the ordinary. "Encephalitis can take months to recover from," she searches through the collection of particles and detritus collected from the body. Will gets phantom pangs in his brain as if she's prodding through the lobes of gray matter in search of clues. He stifles a gasp and looks away, towards the floor, but the sensations persist.
Fires are burning again. Or are they? How would he know? Psychosis is borrowing his imagination more readily than Jack and wears all sorts of masks. Will folds his arms to hide his shivering, "Dr. Lecter's overseeing my treatment outside the hospital."
"Did he sign your AMA too?"
"No, Jack did."
Bev still hasn't looked at him. He knows, because he would feel her eyes the way he feels her tweezers teasing his amygdala into a fight-or-flight response. When she finally does, Will tries not to let his posture slump further, "Look, I know that you are the best shot we have at catching the Ripper, but I can't pretend that it doesn't scare the hell out of me seeing you here."
Will doesn't have a good defence. Telling Jack that he wasn't himself in the hospital is enough to convince the older agent that he's okay enough to go to crime scenes. Bev doesn't have the personal stake in the case though. She's not looking for cheap assurances; she wants something real. Will wishes he had that to offer, "I'm not going to hurt anyone."
"That's not what I mean. I'm not scared of you, Will, I'm scared for you. Encephalitis isn't just something you can walk off, no matter what Jack Crawford wants."
"I'm not here for Jack."
"Then who are you here for?"
Will almost says, "The voices in my head." He has the words all lined up in his throat, ready to go, even gets his mouth open before he stops himself. He doesn't have to say them because Bev knows what he means. She gets it immediately. Gets it, has no idea what to do with it since they're still on the case together, can only make it easier to bear by replying, "Just warn me, okay? There's a lot of sharp objects in here."
Will has just enough time to crack a smile before he realizes that he already cased the room. The Ripper inside him knows where all the sharp objects in the room live and where they would look best in the human body.
"Let me know if you find anything," he says as he leaves.
"I was kidding," Bev offers in her defence.
"I know," Will replies. The problem is he's not.
Hannibal is in Jack's office alone as if he's been waiting for Will's retreat from the lab. As if he's known all along that all roads point back to him where Will's feet are concerned.
Dinner is arranged on Jack's desk in ceramic bowls: something rich, meaty, served alongside fresh bread and bottled water. The gesture makes Will ill at ease instead of just ill. He's fresh from an autopsy. Hannibal can probably still smell death on him. A nurse is dead, he tried to kill his psychiatrist, and they're eating dinner.
"Good evening, Will," Hannibal still makes it sound like this is any other session. The red scratches at his neck are clearly visible without his scarf. Only a small swath of bandage continues to cover the worst of them. "How is the search for the Ripper?"
"Fruitless," Will replies. He breathes through a wave of nausea prompted by the warmth in the office. He was cold just a minute ago, hot before that. Fever. It's the fever. The fever's coming back. He reaches for his Aspirin and has two in his hand before he realizes that he can't remember when he took them last. Pops them back into the bottle and decides against them rather than confront a potential blackout today.
Hannibal notices. "I would offer you something stronger from your prescriptions, but you really should eat something first," he gestures towards one of the chairs he's pulled up to Jack's desk. "Shall we?"
Will scrubs his hands over his face. He forces himself to advance on the chair, reassuring himself mentally that his weakening balance is probably just hypoglycemia. That can cause chills and a racing pulse too, not to mention homicidal thoughts. Speaking of homicidal thoughts, "Aren't you worried?" He sinks into the chair; Hannibal does the same opposite him. "Being alone with me?"
"What happened in the hospital was a symptom of your illness, nothing more," Hannibal is entirely focused on the upcoming meal, not so much on Will's fears.
Will decides to derail the doctor's calm, just a little, "A letter opener can do more damage than an IV needle."
"I subdued you once," Hannibal shrugs.
"With a fever."
"Precisely why I am not concerned about having to subdue you now," the doctor's eyes are on him. Will's played his hand too soon. "Unless you are concerned about your temperature?"
The room carries within it all the safety of Hannibal's office. Jack is nowhere nearby. The floor is nearly vacant, with only the teams from the forest cataloguing evidence. Will is free to speak his fears, to identify them, to allow Hannibal insight. "I was struck by the sudden urge to harm Katz earlier in the lab."
"Was this a fantasy or the fear of a fantasy?"
"The last time I had a fantasy about murdering someone, I acted on it."
"Will."
Don't look, don't look, don' t look…yet there his eyes go. Looking. Flitting up to the doctor's for a second before dropping back to Jack's desk. Hannibal continues to keep his stare fixed on Will's, "Your illness has clouded your perceptions of yourself. The psychosis and paranoia persist, but they do not rule you unless you let them."
"Everyone is so eager to believe that I am innocent."
"And you are. Trust in other people's perceptions of you. We are not going to steer you wrong."
"I feel like I'm doing that all on my own."
"Would you rather be back in the hospital?"
Will doesn't answer that: it's a trap.
Sensing this, Hannibal's hand crosses the distance between them, comes to rest against his forehead and stays there for a long moment. He's always so cool. Will relishes the chill long after the hand slips away. "Your temperature is elevated. That explains the return of your fantasies. Eat. Take your medication. The Ripper has your attention. He isn't going to kill again for tonight."
"He isn't going to kill again until I'm well," Will mutters. He pokes at dinner a few times before taking a bite. The meat melts in his mouth and leaves a bloody aftertaste. His mind concocts a series of hurried explanations – it's the fever, it's the paranoia, it's hypoglycemia, it's exhaustion – to overwhelm the nagging thoughts of relapse, relapse, relapse. "This is delicious."
Hannibal smiles.
They're interrupted a second later by Price, who's carrying his findings like a trophy. "As if there was any doubt it's the Ripper," he says hurriedly, "both her kidneys are gone."
Will doesn't know what to say about that, so he takes another bite of stew.
Twenty minutes after the meal ends, Hannibal has a handful of pills at the ready, one Will accepts but doesn't ingest. He stares at them, a small explosion of pink, blue, and white. His former day nurse's last prescription.
"This is not your fault, Will," Hannibal reminds him.
"This is not not my fault either," Will picks through his meds. He wastes enough time to earn a mildly exasperated expression from Hannibal. Only then does he begin swallowing pills one at a time. Most of them are management meds: managing his headaches, his nausea, his temperature, his seizures, his psychosis. The treatments for his encephalitis proper all have to be administered at a hospital.
"Strange that the Ripper chose her," Hannibal goes about cleaning up their dishes.
"She was the rudest of my visitors," Will tosses back the last of the pills. The meds sit in his stomach like stones, refusing to cooperate with his insides, kind of like the sudden rush of ideas Hannibal's sparked. Will has to get up from his seat and pace. The nurse was the rudest, making her a likely victim for the Ripper. But how did the Ripper know to target her?
Will turns to Hannibal, "He was in the hospital."
"The Ripper."
"Yes. He had to have met the nurse, had to have known she was mine…" Will's mind reels. His memory is a mess of blurred images, of fever dreams, of fire and lightning and pain, but the Ripper's in there somewhere. He knows this because he knows the Ripper. Hell, sometimes he is the Ripper. "He visited me."
"What was that?"
"He visited me. While I was in the hospital."
"You remember?"
"Yes, I…" but he doesn't. There is darkness and fog where the nights and days should be. Hands, needles, tests, blood: Will struggles to piece it all together into a knowable whole. Instead, he finds himself staring at Hannibal's bloody neck. "He must have. I feel him there."
"You feel him there because he was there or because you were there?"
Will blinks, comes back to the office. "What?"
"You suggested that one of the killers you were channeling when you attacked me was the Chesapeake Ripper," Hannibal states clinically. "Is it possible you feel his presence because psychologically you had invoked his identity?"
Will doesn't know, and worse, he isn't getting closer to knowing. His head hurts, his mouth is dry, and Jack's office is so warm. "He was there," Will focuses on the one thing he knows to be true. "Out of all the staff, the Ripper chose her. We need footage from the hospital's security cameras. Where's Jack?"
"In the lab. You can call him on the way to the car. Tell him the good news."
"He'll want me here."
"He isn't currently your attending physician," Hannibal points out. He retrieves his coat from the rack along with Will's. "The hospital security footage won't be here for several hours. That's long enough for me to take you home. Let you rest."
"I'm fine," and Will's persistent delusion makes it sound true.
"You understand that encephalitis does not go away after a single treatment."
"I know the risks."
Hannibal doesn't let Will forget them, "Then you also know how likely it is for you to experience a relapse, even with medication and monitoring, especially if you're refusing to take care of yourself."
Will doesn't have a rebuttal at the ready. He's used to Jack, who doesn't encourage sick days. Who favours Will most when his mind is malleable, when his associations come freely. That kind of thinking doesn't come with good night sleeps. Still, he can't concede, "If you take me home, I won't come back tomorrow."
"Planning to walk off the earth?"
"Sleepwalk off the earth: my brain's still burning. The fires have just moved deeper underground."
Hannibal considers this. He hangs his coat back on the hook, leaves Will's where it is. "Then you'll rest here, and I'll make sure you don't go wandering."
"Among other things," Will notes glumly. He has the Ripper for a bedfellow tonight, and a morgue with plenty of room for more bodies. Sleepwalking is truly the least of his concerns.
Will wakes with his heart in his throat and the nurse's kidneys in either hand and Hannibal's voice in his ears, uncharacteristically urgent, "Will, I think you're having an episode. I want you to hand me the gun." He shoots upright and takes stock: on a sweat soaked couch in the BSU break room, empty palms sticky and cold with phantom blood. Weapon, what weapon? His right to carry firearms revoked, not that it matters when he's so quick to use other objects as weapons.
There are pills on the table, neatly organized into categories. Will can't remember which is which, but he takes them all because Hannibal put them there. Because Hannibal wouldn't lead him astray. The bottle of water nearby might as well come with the label "Drink Me". Will is Alice, and the road back to mental health – or whatever passes for that with an empathy disorder – is Wonderland.
The door opens and closes. Hannibal's footsteps barely register to Will's ears. "What time is it?" Will asks.
"It is 9:43 am. You are in the Behavioural Sciences Unit, and your name is Will Graham."
"I know who I am," he drinks the rest of the water. His clothing and the couch are more hydrated than he is. "Do we know who the Chesapeake Ripper is?"
"Miss Katz has been reviewing security footage from the hospital for the better part of the hour," Hannibal comes round to where Will's sitting. He's bearing clean clothes and toiletries, all of them new. He places them on the table beside Will and takes a seat in the chair nearby. "So far, the suspects are Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom, myself, your nurses, and your attending."
"He was there," Will's more convinced now than he was before he slept. "Keep looking."
"He came to visit you."
"Yes," but why? The Ripper's never shown an interest in him before. Jack, definitely, but not him. The answer dawns on Will as it did on the way to the crime scene. Schrodinger's Crazy. A fire neither burning nor smoldered. "My madness interests him. He's seen what I do with other minds; he wants to see what I'll do with his."
"Why emphasize the treatment, then?"
Will envisions the pills floating backwards from the forest floor into his hands, a thousand little picket fences for a thousand different symptoms. "Because he doesn't want me irrevocably damaged," Will looks back at the nurse. She is artfully arranged on the coffee table in front of him. He begins to scatters the pills around her. "He's curious about what I'm going to do, how I'll respond, with just enough fire left to make me interesting."
Hannibal looks on at the scene. He's integrated perfectly into Will's fantasy and stands, impassive, on the fringes of the forest. "Are you channeling the Ripper now?" he asks.
The weight in his hands is not a pair of freshly harvested kidneys. It's a knife and a sack of immunoglobulin. Will places the bag of liquid on her chest and stabs the blade through it.
Blink. Back to the break room. Will's breath comes in shallow gasps. He wipes the perspiration from his face and swallows until the nausea subsides. "There's no one else on my mind right now," he remarks bitterly, then lets out a small laugh because, "I'm simultaneously paranoid about my lingering psychosis and fascinated by it."
"You can always recuse yourself from the case," Hannibal reminds him.
"The Ripper is always at his most exposed when he's interested. I would hate for him to retract his invitation to the chase."
"So long as you remember who you are."
Will takes the stack of clothing, raising it in salute to thank Hannibal. "Remind me if I lose sight of that again."
A shower usually clarifies Will's perception. Instead, he emerges through the fog and heat to more fog and heat. His perception is blunted. Experiences dulled. He dresses in a haze and tries to formulate an explanation beyond an impending blackout, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Everything is the way it should be. The universe is unfolding in a linear, orderly fashion.
Which is obviously why he has to stop in the hallway, lean against the wall, and wait to feel like he's inside his body again.
Hannibal appears out of nowhere. "Talk to me, Will," he urges.
"I'm disassociating," the motion from his jaw sets off a chain reaction in his brain. Will can't describe what the world's doing, only that it doesn't feel like he's a part of it. Not that it feels like the world he was once a part of. Unfamiliarity compels him to distance himself from his body more. He perceives Hannibal's fingers on his wrist distantly, as if they are measuring someone else's pulse.
"You may be about to have a seizure," Hannibal notes. He takes Will by the arm and starts walking him down the hall. "We may be able to arrest it, provided I can give you an injection in time. In the meantime, Will, I need to you to stay calm."
He thinks he is calm, all things considered, but then he hears the sharp intakes of breath, the hammer of his heart in his ears and face. His legs freeze up underneath him so much so that his next step is a quick jerk forward then back.
"Will, I want you to hand me the gun."
Will looks to his hand for the weapon. The lights at the BSU starts to flicker and pulse in front of his eyes. Lights on, he's empty-handed; lights off, his weapon's trained on a blurry figure seated at the head of Hannibal's dining room table.
"I think you're having an episode. I want you to hand me the gun," Hannibal urges him again.
His own voice is unrecognizable, passed through the vice clamp of his own seizing vocal chords. "What's happening to me?!"
Then the world disappears in a great explosion of light and sound.
Electricity leaves the taste of ozone in his mouth and a feeling of such crippling weakness that Will can't get his eyes open. He's aware of consciousness as a sinking feeling, of being sucked under waves of clotted blood and shorn muscles.
"Will? Will, can you hear me?"
His eyelids obey Hannibal's voice; his vision does not. All Will can see is gray. Every heartbeat takes strength he does not have. Every thought passes through his head as if through tar. His limbs have been replaced with stones, so he is sinking into the floor from the weight.
"I need you to repeat after me: my name is Will Graham."
Déjà vu all over again. "We've done this before," Will notes exhaustedly.
"And we will do it again, so long as your seizures persist."
Will's next breath leaves him almost as soon as he finishes inhaling, the muscles in his chest not quite ready to stop seizing. "My name is Will Graham," he replies, then makes a motion to raise his arms without being asked. Hannibal urges him on until he's satisfied that Will still has motor function. Then, again before the good doctor can ask, "Please don't make me smile."
"May I drive you to the hospital, Will, or should I call an ambulance?"
"I'm fine." He's not. The image of Abel Gideon has been replaced with a man-stag, a glossy black beast his mind recognizes as the Chesapeake Ripper.
"You are lying on the floor. You've just had a grand mal seizure."
"Mild seizure," Will corrects him. Frustrated, he contemplates shutting Hannibal up by slashing out the good doctor's tongue. Then he remembers himself, forces the Ripper out of his thoughts, and goes back to being a good patient.
Hannibal gets just as testy, "And you're the best judge of that."
"Getting there. A few seizures more and I'll write a dissertation on the subject," Will tries to sit up. Hannibal uses the weight of his hand to hold Will down.
"I am regretting my endorsement of your checking yourself out of the hospital."
Will ignores him, "Has Bev found anything else on the tape?"
"Not that I've heard, though I admit I've been preoccupied."
"Jack doesn't know, then."
"No."
"Good," he tries to sit up again.
"Will," Hannibal's rare show of force prompts Will to open his eyes again. This time the hallway is in focus – gray and dimly lit. Hannibal's medical bag open, the empty wrapper for a new syringe discarded on the floor nearby. Stoppered tops of medication visible over the top edge of the black leather bag. The good doctor has come prepared. "It is imperative that Jack knows your symptoms are returning."
"My symptoms never left."
"But they are advancing. You're still feverish."
"And I'll still be feverish weeks from now," Will admits bitterly. Encephalitis found the best of all possible brains to start burning. "I need to know who else visited my hospital room."
Hannibal sighs, "And if your condition deteriorates? You are channeling the Ripper, Will…"
How does he always know? "I need to do this. I need to catch him this time."
"You said yourself this was a futile effort."
"The nurse, yes, but the Ripper is…"
Footsteps. Will knows who it is. He pushes himself into a sitting position just in time for Jack to round the corner towards them. The world spins nauseatingly fast, and Will's aware of just how sick he feels from his admittedly low altitude. Still, he holds himself together, not looking to hear from Jack how poorly timed his seizure is.
Hannibal's hand on his bicep registers dully, along with the understanding that it's there to keep him from falling over.
"Will," Jack doesn't even know what question to ask. He looks between the two men for an explanation.
Hannibal confesses immediately, "He had a seizure."
"A mild seizure," Will corrects him.
When Jack doesn't respond immediately with, "Take him back to the hospital," Will knows he's at the BSU to stay for the foreseeable future. They've found something. Jack looks to Hannibal for back-up, "How is he, Doctor?"
"As well as can be expected, but his temperature is elevated again, Jack. He could be experiencing a complete relapse of his symptoms," Hannibal's neck need not even be mentioned. Jack's expression holds enough horror to communicate that possibility and more.
Still, the older agent looks to Will for the answer he wants, yet another indication that Bev's found something on the security footage, "You alright, Will?"
"I'm fine," he ignores the klaxons going off in his brain that no, he's not, "What did you find?"
Jack hides his alarm well, "You did have one visitor we didn't expect during your stay at the hospital, and he did have an encounter with your dead nurse."
"Who?" Will asks.
To Hannibal: "Is he alright?"
Not before he's told Will they've found something. Not when there's still a chance he'll leave. After, when Will's already got the hook in his mouth and is thrashing just to get reeled in faster. If Hannibal sees it too, he doesn't say anything, "I have to advise against it, Jack. Will needs greater service than I can provide here."
Jack's attention drifts back to Will, "I helped you get out of the hospital, Will. Am I going to regret doing that now?"
"Who did you see on the tape, Jack?"
"This is not the time to be acting against medical advice, Will," Hannibal asserts.
Torn between two masters. Will has to wonder if this is what recovery has in store for him. One pushing him forward, the other pulling him back. Jack and Hannibal are the perfect expressions of his illness, both operating in opposition: one in the belief that he's absolutely fine now that treatment's started, the other believing that he won't be fine for a long while.
Frankly, Will's just happy that Jack's not treating him like he's broken anymore. Fragile teacup reborn through the power of illness. "Show me the tape," he urges.
Hannibal doesn't help him up from the floor. Will has to stagger his way to his feet. The walk down the hallway is a brutal, agonizing exercise in endurance. With every step, he can hear Hannibal's voice chiding, "I told you so," and, oddly, at one point, "You'll be sorry."
Frederick Chilton bumped into the nurse on the way out the door of Will's hospital room. There's no sound to accompany the recording, but she says something that makes Chilton's face twist into a snarl as he walks away from the room.
"Chilton isn't the Chesapeake Ripper," Will laments. He's irritated that his remaining resource, pithy as they might be, are wasted on this ridiculous line of thought. He wants to remind Jack that he's feigning recovery from a grand mal seizure for this, but he doubts Jack will care.
"He has the ego for it," Bev points out. She pauses the recording to hold Chilton in the frame, giving everyone in Jack's office a good, long look at him.
"He doesn't have the subtlety," Will notes, gripping the bridge of his nose. The seizure's shuffled things around his brain. He doesn't know where his vocabulary went. The words take longer than usual to find. "…or the artistic prowess. The Ripper is sophisticated and theatrical; Chilton is obtuse and dull."
Jack doesn't seem quite so convinced, "You did say the Ripper came to visit you in the hospital, but you couldn't remember when. You have no recollection of Dr. Chilton's visit."
"I'm sure there are lots of things I don't have recollections of, Jack," Will grits his teeth from the line of questioning, not to mention the growing urge to curl up on the floor and die. His legs feel like broken twigs about to snap at the knee. "The Chesapeake Ripper wouldn't leave a trace of his resentment on a security camera though. He's practiced in the art of looking normal. Check the expressions of everyone else the nurse had contact with."
"She had contact with each of your visitors," Bev points out. "None of them seemed to like her very much."
"And none of them are the Chesapeake Ripper," Will notes. "At least, not any more than Chilton is."
He gazes wearily between Jack and Hannibal. The expressions he finds are supposed be blank, but there's a whole lot hidden in each man's eyes. Will doesn't bother seeking out what it is. He's too busy watching the grainy shadows in the corners of the room, the ones concealing antlers and an inky black face.
"We'll keep watching," Bev offers. "Maybe he shows up later."
"He doesn't," Will assures her. He rubs at his temples. If the Ripper's not on the security feed, he's not at the hospital. The only place he exists at the moment is in Will's mind.
Which prompts Will's imagination, immolating as it is, to wonder how he can best conjure the Ripper.
"In the meantime, Jack, I think it prudent for Will to be resting," Hannibal interjects.
"You do what you think is best, Doctor."
Which is code for: make the decision that is most beneficial for me.
Will waits to be shown back to the lab or given another minute of security footage. He braces himself against Jack's authority. Hannibal, however, has other plans. He marches over to the coat rack and gathers his things. He brings Will his jacket.
"Where are you taking him, Doctor?" Jack asks.
"I'm taking him home," Hannibal replies.
Will accepts his coat. The weight of it nearly carries him into the floor.
Home sounds wonderful.
"Will?"
His skull is swirling thickly and his muscles have atrophied, but Will's aware that the window he's using as a pillow has stopped shaking. The car's stopped, and when he finally gets his eyes open, there's a gray sky, an open field, and an empty house waiting.
"Will?" Hannibal asks again, more forcefully this time. "Will, can you hear me?"
Will eases his head off the window – no easy feat. Seems the aftershocks from his mild seizure have struck with a vengeance. There's no strength left in his body, and he feels the strain and pull of every twitch or shift right down to the bone. Hannibal eventually has to open the door for him when his fingers refuse to grip the handle.
He falls against Hannibal's hands, feet crumpling up underneath him. One stubbornly hooks itself in the car while the other hits the ground and stops, has no idea what to do next. His jaw is slack.
"Uncle Jack's influence seems to have worn off," Hannibal observes, gripping Will by the arms to keep him upright. "Unless that seizure was not so mild after all."
"The symptoms are always worse than the causes," Will manages to get both his feet on solid ground. Finding his balance is the next challenge, since the spinning hasn't stopped and his headache is making up for lost time by exponentially growing more and more painful. The thought that he should be back in the hospital registers and then vanishes to dust beneath on upcoming migraine.
With enough time, Will walks without assistance slowly, painfully; he has to relearn all the muscles in his body from how different he feels, how disconnected he's becoming from the headache. He anticipated feeling relief by coming home, but looking at the house now, he's filled with an eerie sense of the uncanny. The house looks the same, and yet it doesn't. The dark, vacant windows, the chipped paint, and the gray sky make it just unfamiliar enough to disquiet him further.
A symphony of crickets play through the fields, announcing rain. Will hopes it comes before he reaches the porch steps. The temperature change will bring clarity, which he could desperately use, not to mention stifle the heat he's starting to notice building under his skin.
Briefly, Will wonders what he will do with his thoughts when he's no longer evaluating and cataloguing symptoms. What did his brain do before the fire? What sorts of ideas did he have when he wasn't burning?
He enters. The house seems even more surreal. "Where are the dogs?"
"Alana has them," Hannibal replies from the kitchen. He runs water from the sink and organizes items on the counter. Will is afraid to enter, feeling like a strange in his own house, at least in his own mind. His body is too exhausted to care, or maybe his body just knows better than his brain at the moment. He kicks off his boots automatically and staggers towards his bed.
The world fizzles out of focus for an eternity. When it returns, Will is miles away, dodging spikes of pain shooting out of his skull. "Will, I need to sit up," Hannibal's voice warbles as if through water. His grip is like ice on Will's bare forearms. "Are you present? Will, can you hear me?"
He doesn't want to, but yes, Will can hear him. Trying to communicate that hurts more than sitting up though. His mouth won't move, and his tongue is little better than dead muscle. Hannibal is nothing if not persistent though. He moves one icy hand to Will's forehead. "You're fever's back. Am I right in assuming your headache has as well?"
Will finds the strength to nod and not much else. He doesn't even want to open his eyes from the promise of agony pulsing within his skull. No, best to keep them shut, let Hannibal work around him.
Hannibal does. He places a collection of pills into Will's hand and guides him in taking them. Does the same with a glass of ice cold water to help Will swallow. Then Will is gently eased back like a supplicant at a baptism. He's plunged into murky depths of Louisiana swamp water and held there as the Holy Spirit fills him with fire.
Gradually, the pills take hold. Will feels his headache lesson. He feels his muscles start to loosen. His eyes open, revealing the expanse of a pillow under his cheek. Connections start getting drawn again: the house, the pills, Lecter, the Ripper, his symptoms, his nurse, his brain…
"This can't be what the Ripper had in mind," he mumbles to the bed sheets.
"Why do you say that?" Hannibal's proximity surprises him. The good doctor is at the foot of the bed, gently maneuvering his feet under the blankets.
Will is too tired to get uncomfortable. He lets Hannibal help him and focuses on the Ripper to distract him from being cared for. "The Ripper's curious about my madness. I don't feel particularly mad right now."
"Encephalitis is a tricky illness," Hannibal tucks the blanket around Will's shoulders. "Madness ebbs and flows like a tide to a burning moon. The cycles are sure to be even more erratic as the medication comes to manage your symptoms. Do not be afraid if it is difficult to find yourself at times. Rest assured, you will have people searching for you."
"Jack Crawford doesn't want me," Will doesn't mean that, but he says it anyways, relishing the opportunity to say the bitterest version of the truth.
"Who does he want, Will?" Hannibal asks.
A hand in his hair, brushing back his curls. Will's eyes close again. He can't help but say it, "The Chesapeake Ripper…"
Hannibal's hand disappears, but his voice rises like smoke from the inferno inside Will's head, "Then why don't you give the Ripper to him?"
Burning alive from the inside out, Will's last thought is that might not be such a bad idea.
The charred forest speaks in thin whispers and flutters. No leaves to shuffle on the wind, just hollow branches creaking. Ash flutters around Will in clouds. Snow cushions his footfalls, but in the distance, he can hear twigs cracking. He is not alone. Someone is watching him through the trees, following his tracks.
He is dreaming; at least, he thinks he's dreaming. There is a dreamy quality to the nighttime in Wolf Trap even when he's awake, so it's hard to tell. The cold has little bite against his skin, but the shadows move in impossible ways. Stretching beyond the limitations of their subjects into menacing forms.
Then again, hallucinations are not uncommon with encephalitis, neither is confusion. Will may very well be awake, in the forest, alone, having wandered here from…
He should be able to see his house from here. Instead, there's an oppressive blackness covering the edges of the forest. Nothing beyond. Another trick of his mind, perhaps, or this is just dream.
"It is…" Will isn't wearing a watch. In fact, for a second, his arm looks completely bare. Blinking, he finds his coat sleeve, pulls it back, and looks into the watch face. The damn thing looks like a Dali clock, numbers congregating in the bottom right corner while two hands point towards the mess of time. An encephalitis clock. Will looks for the moon instead and can't find it. Doesn't bother with time then. "I'm in Wolf Trap, West Virginia," he doubts himself. "I could be anywhere. It could be anytime. My name is Will Graham."
But that doesn't mean he is Will Graham, does it? His mind is just as changeable as the forest. Burnt to ashes. Levelled earth. What grows back after a forest fire is lusher than what grew before. Geography and biology shifted into something new, foreign, uncharted.
What if the Ripper doesn't go away with the encephalitis? What if the need to cut is taking root inside him? What if it's the only instinct that survives the fire?
"My name is Will Graham," he mutters again defensively. The name carries little might against the shadows. More twigs break behind him. "My name is…"
He doesn't know. He thought he was hunting the Ripper, but if there are footsteps in the trees, than he's the one being hunted. Which makes him the Ripper.
Which could just be a fantasy.
But might not be.
He staggers back through the trees. This is a dream. This isn't a dream. He isn't the Ripper, but he feels the Ripper and he's the only one there and the Ripper isn't hunting him. The Ripper doesn't want to hunt him. Because he's already the Ripper. Or is he? Who is he? Will Graham doesn't stab people in the neck. He doesn't shoot to kill. He's on fire, he's burning, and whatever emerges from the fire is going to be clearer and more realized than anything that came before.
A blade folded and reforged. Stronger than before and sharper.
Will finally starts to feel the snap of chill against the soles of his feet through his boots, up his legs, through his arms. He is being watched. Whoever has been hunting him is close. He turns to meet his pursuer and can only make out a pair of glossy black orbs in the shadows.
As his eyes adjust, more details become clear: antlers, talons, and jet black skin pulled taut over a jagged skeleton.
"This isn't real," it's the only thing he knows is true. "This is delusion. This is imagination. This is psychosis. This isn't real."
But recognizing the unreality of the world doesn't make it go away. It doesn't clear up his confusion about who's hunting whom or give him a better idea about what to do.
Will fumbles for his gun: can't find it. An IV needle? Hannibal would never let him have one of those. Will Graham has already used an IV needle to try and end a life; he's actually taken one with a gun. The only weapon he has left is a knife, and it's already in his hands. He pulled it from the nurse after he pinned his little present to Will Graham, who he is. Was. Never will be again.
He moves towards the creature, knife in hand. "Will," he doesn't recognize the name. "Will, you're not yourself."
"No," he agrees and does not know much more than that. It is not so much about who he is as what he's about to do. "But I don't need to be."
One way or another, Jack is getting the Ripper. If it's him or whatever this thing is or…
This can't be real. None of this is real. And for a moment, Will's crippled by that thought. He can't move, can't breathe, can't think. He considers turning back or calling for someone. But reality or not, the only direction he can move is forward, towards that thing, into a fight for his own life. This is the moment of truth. The lifting of the box. Schrodinger's Crazy revealed.
He attacks.
There's mud in the water, lots of foliage, and sunshine cutting through the ribbons of murk swirling around him. The water's warm around his face and burning his feet, but he doesn't mind so much. He'll surface soon.
"WILL!"
The shouting takes a long time to reach his ears. Will lets it go.
Then his legs start burning.
He gasps involuntarily, but his throat snaps shut before the water can get in. He can't breathe.
Will's eyes spring open. Still in the forest. Still no idea where he is or who he is. He knows exactly what he's doing though: he's caught in a stranglehold. His fists are pounding for release against the arm locked against his windpipe.
"Will? Will, are you with me?"
He doesn't even know who this is, let alone whether he's with them, though the voice does sound familiar. He wills his hands to stop flailing long enough that the grip on his neck loosens. He's able to draw small sips of air, enough for his senses to return.
"Will, are you with me?"
Jack's voice. Jack's arm. Jack's there. Will can't form words without being able to move his jaw, but he forces out something that sounds like, "Yes."
The arm disappears. He crashes to his knees against the frigid earth, hacking and spluttering, drawing himself back into the world with every awful breath.
Jack hovers in a slow orbit around him. Will can't stand it: the hard stare, the recent asphyxiation. "I wasn't…myself…" he offers as a pithy explanation, hoping that will be that.
"I know," there's no trace of guile in Jack's voice, only frustration. Hopelessness. "I'm sorry that you weren't."
Breathing helps him become aware of things like the numbness of his bare feet, the pain in his legs, the persistent throb in his skull. The bruise developing on his hand. The knife lying several feet from him where Jack kicked it away. Will can't bear to look at Jack, but he has to know, "Did I…did I hurt you?"
"Not for lack of trying," Jack replies.
He draws his arms close to his body; chills and fever are a wretched combination, but they feel right given how many contradictions he's plagued by. "What time is it?"
Jack shuffles. Will doesn't watch, but a second later, he's being given Jack's coat. "Thank you," he eases it over his shoulders, wincing as it touches his abraded neck. "What time is it?"
"Just before midnight. You've been out here wandering a long time. Looking for me?"
Will rises back to his feet. His knees don't seem like they'll hold his weight at first, which prompts Jack to linger a little closer. However, Will manages. He always does, "Looking for the Chesapeake Ripper."
"Did you find him?"
"I thought I did," Will replies. He buries himself into the warmth of Jack's coat.
"But you found me instead."
"Evidently."
"Do you have any idea what happened just now?"
"I was confused."
Jack shakes his head. "Not good enough, Will. I just had to restrain you to keep you from killing me."
"What do you want me to say, Jack? That I'm sick? That psychosis doesn't just go away three days of treatment?"
"I know all that! What I didn't know was how this psychosis was affecting you. I thought you would say something if you felt like killing someone again."
"I didn't feel like killing someone," Will huddles up. The soles of his feet are numb too. "At least not…consciously."
Jack sighs. His frustration is making way for something much more dangerous. It's not often that the Guru admits that he's wrong, but Will's not the only one experiencing self-doubt. "In a few months, with treatment, you'll be back to stable."
He feels his fear like a living, breathing thing inside him, like a snake in his chest uncoiling and slithering up his throat. "How do you know, Jack? I could have been ill when you met me. Everything you know about me could be a symptom of the encephalitis."
"I don't believe that."
"Just because you don't believe it doesn't make it true," Will chides him. He has firsthand experience.
"Do you want to kill me, Will? Right now."
Will doesn't answer that. More word traps. He's not in the mood. All this conversation just serves to make him feel sicker. Besides, he's not sure Jack will like his answer.
"I want to go home," he replies.
Jack huffs, "Should I take that as a yes?"
"No," Will can't help but wince, "but you shouldn't take it as a no either."
The house feels, impossibly, even less like home when they arrive. Not even Hannibal Lecter can give Will a sense that he's reached a port of call. Instead, he very nearly walks back out into the snow, back to…
His mind goes immediately to Virginia, to a police taped part of the forest.
He can't deal with this right now: Jack and Hannibal in his house (distant as it feels), wielding concerned expressions, warm blankets, and questions, so many questions. None of which he has answers for. Will limps past Hannibal and heads straight for the washroom, where he locks himself inside.
The water filling the tub promises to drown out the sounds of their voices. Will drops Jack's coat and eases his feet into the water, wincing in pain. Frostbitten, definitely, but like all his other symptoms, the feeling is one of fire.
Taps off, Jack and Hannibal are audible again. They quiet when they realize he's able to hear, but Will catches snippets of the conversation. Hannibal only left him for a moment; when he returned to the bedroom, Will was gone. He's sorry, not just about having lost Will but also for what happened in the forest.
Will wraps his arms around his chest and sinks onto the edge of the tub. He's ambivalent about the forest. He knows how he should feel, but he can't bring himself to be sorry. There's so many other emotions - elation, satisfaction, pride – that he connects to faster than guilt. He's a walking, talking Evil Minds museum, and the rogues gallery of killers are want Jack's suffering. They want his blood.
There's an electronic thermometer sitting on the edge of the sink. Will grabs it, shoves it under his tongue so hard he nearly draws blood. As he waits, he notices all of his medications lined up along the counter. Everything he needs after his walk in the woods, all ready for him.
The thermometer beeps. He's an even 102 degrees. Nowhere near high enough to justify wanting to kill Jack Crawford.
He replaces the thermometer and can't help but examine all the pills on the counter. The way they line up, one after another, carry an expectation that Hannibal can't have predicted would be realized. Will fingers a few of them. They're just as uncanny as the house, familiar and not at the same time, because some of them don't look right. The white ones seemed bigger this morning, the blues seemed bluer. Hannibal didn't have time to play with his prescriptions that he recalls.
But what he recalls is in suspect and has been for a long time. He doesn't recall attacking Jack, but he still did it.
He doesn't remember the last time he felt like himself either, but he knows there was a time when he could perceive himself clearly. When he knew who he was. That the impulses to rip were not his own. It's entirely possible that he's never been himself. Never had a self to be. The cat was dead to begin with.
Will waits long enough to conclude that Jack isn't leaving the property, though he traces his boss's footsteps out the front door and onto the porch. That's when he leaves the bathroom and walks into the kitchen.
Hannibal's making tea. The look of disappointment at finding only bagged tea in Will's cupboards is stifled only by it meeting his lowly expectations for the profiler's kitchen.
"I tried to kill Jack Crawford."
"The way Jack tells it, you were trying to kill the Chesapeake Ripper," the kettle whistles; Hannibal warms the pot, then sets the bag to steeping. His face is taut from the uncouthness of a tea bag, but he relaxes when he looks at Will. "It's an improvement from your actions in the hospital when you tried to kill me."
Will sees the slashes across Hannibal's neck. The bandage is gone, revealing an open wound that looks more like a fingernail than a needle scratch. Will doesn't remember using his nails, but he doesn't remember a lot of things. "This might be who I am now," he notes sadly. "A person who tries to kill other people."
"How does that make you feel?"
"Not great," Will feels a tearful smirk coming on, "Not only am I failing at being me, I'm failing at whoever I'm becoming."
"You are still yourself, Will."
"I don't…feel like me. I can't feel like me."
"Because you're attacking people."
Will feels it unfold before him at last, an explanation, "Because I'm not killing them."
Hannibal looks back at the tea. The expression on his face is one of mild disappointment. He is not happy to be complicit in such a substandard brew. "You're psychology's final recourse: attempt murder on those who can overpower you, because there is a fundamental part of yourself that refuses to kill. Even with your illness."
It sounds crazy when Hannibal puts it like that, but Will's in a crazy kind of mindset at the moment. The explanation fits with just how unstable he feels. "That is my best case scenario," he admits.
A look of amusement crosses Hannibal's face. Will doesn't blame him. "What's your worst case scenario then?"
Will sighs, eyes the good doctor's neck, and says, "If at first you don't succeed…"
Hannibal's smile crosses his face like a fugitive on the run, then vanishes just as Jack re-enters the house. "I hope for the best," he replies, filling mugs with the tea he so clearly despises, "but I will stay prepared for the worst."
Jack enters the kitchen just in time for Will to muse, "What are friends for?"
Happy reading!