She'd been worried about nightmares. Not without reason: they're there every time she closes her eyes, even in the brief snatches of sleep she manages in the milky half-light of dawn, before the nurses wake her. She's tired all the time, now. The dark circles beneath her eyes make her face look hollow, skull-like.
It's one of the first things Will notices when he picks her up. He doesn't say anything about it directly, of course – but she can see him glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as they drive to Wolf Trap, concern etched in the particular way he holds his mouth, the furrow in his brows.
She knows she must look like a walking corpse. Her whole body is site of carnage, lately—all twisted scars and purple bruises. She thumbs over the fringe of the scarf knotted around her throat, keeps her eyes on the road. It's snowing again, the dense gray clouds heralding premature darkness. Will is quiet as he drives, and she's grateful for it, relieved that he spares her the small talk that everyone else inflicts on her. There's nothing much to say. After the incessant questions-the syrupy sympathy of the hospital staff, of the doctors, of Alana Bloom—the gentle hum of the car engine is almost musical. Silence curls around them both, wraps them up.
Weekends out of the hospital are a recent luxury, a privilege afforded her mostly because the staff at Port Haven realized she was just going to sneak out anyway. If they find it strange that she wants to spend her free time with a middle-aged psychiatrist and a middle-aged FBI consultant, they don't say. And why should they, she supposes. Hannibal and Will are mature. Responsible. Good role models. Hell, they'd saved her life.
And Abigail plays her cards close to her chest. She knows exactly the right words to say, in therapy, when the hospital psych steeples his fingers, asks her seriously how she feels about Will Graham.
"He killed your father, Abigail—it would be understandable, if you felt…"
"My father was going to kill me," she allows a small tremor in her voice, her fingers knotting into the sleeves of her sweater. "I can't blame Will Graham, for what he did. I'm alive because he shot my dad".
"He obviously cares about you—he visits often, doesn't he? Do you think he feels—"
And only then does the mask slip, just for a moment. A twinge of cold flooding her veins, tightening in the back of her throat.
"Yes," she answers, cutting the doctor off, trying to wrangle a smile onto her lips. "He's like a father to me. He…he wants to protect me, I guess…"
Will's house in Wolf Trap is usually well lit and bright, the large windows greedily absorbing the sunlight. But the overcast day and the gathering clouds have thrown soft shadows over the living room, little flurries of snow forming patterns on the window panes. Abigail traces patterns in the fogged up glass, writes her name. Writes another name.
She quickly presses her palm to the window and wipes it clean as Will comes up behind her, hands her a cup of tea.
"It's just regular tea, right?"
He raises an eyebrow at her, "…were you expecting something stronger?"
She laughs. Takes a sip. She's not fond of tea usually, but there's something about the way Will makes it. She can feel it warming her from the inside, thawing her out.
They spend most of their time in companionable silence. Will makes dinner, feeds the dogs, busies himself with his fishing lures. Abigail sits curled up on the couch, legs tucked under her, reading. The fire in the grate crackles, the snowstorm whirls outside, and for a moment Abigail can see what everyone else sees—the two of them, weirdly domestic, comfortable with one another. So content to just exist in each other's orbits.
She can see why it might read as familial, even fatherly: his affection for her is muted by the need for distance, by his guilt and his awkwardness and what he probably perceives as vulnerability, on her part. Innocence. And it's undeniable that something happened that day in the kitchen, some secret transference between Will and her real dad, while she lay bleeding out on the floor. Maybe he feels obligated. Like this is his job, now. His duty.
She can't let herself hope for more, can't allow herself to believe that he might feel as trapped by the limits of their dynamic as she does.
"Guess it's about that time…"
They've been watching a movie, some stupid 1970s horror film with a terrible script and more gratuitous nudity than is strictly necessary.
She'd watched him out of the corner of her eye as the two leads got it on in the graveyard, and to his credit Will had barely reacted, had continued to sip his whiskey, eyes on the screen. If he'd felt awkward, it hadn't been obvious—and she'd been surprised to find herself looking away, fiddling with the hem of her sweater, calling Winston over for pets.
It's only when the heroine is hunted down, when she's pushed backwards out of a third story window, the delicate soft spot at the nape of her neck punctured by a shard of glass, that Will shows any signs of discomfort. Buckets of B-grade blood wash over the screen, fountaining from the gash in the leading lady's neck as her head is severed from her shoulders, and Will glances at Abigail. She catches him looking at her, his eyebrows furrowed, leaning forward on his knees, arms braced, fingers knotted together. When she turns her head just a fraction towards him, he drops his gaze to the floor.
She wonders if she should feel something about the on screen carnage. She keeps her eyes on the TV, tries to imagine herself in the heroine's gore-spattered shoes. It should be so easy, to put herself in that position. To feel again the indentation in her flesh, the moment when the skin split open like an overripe peach, when breathing became suddenly impossibly difficult, when all she could taste was iron and bile. But her scar doesn't so much as itch. The blood is rich and bright, and she's sure there must have been enough corn syrup in it give the entire cast diabetes. Her body feels cold and distant, and she keeps her hands folded inside the ends of her dog-eared sweater sleeves, watches with a wide and blank expression until Will gets up, turns off the TV with a particularly emphatic and audible click.
"It's late," Will hovers awkwardly by the television, hand on the back of his neck, eyes fixed on Stella, the possibly-a-maltese-cross-I'm-not-really-sure mutt he'd found wandering around in busy interstate traffic a year or so ago. The way he's positioned, shoulders hunched, eyes downcast, you could be forgiven for thinking he was addressing the dog.
And that's what she is, really, Abigail knows. Another stray, pulled off a dangerous road. Dog or daughter. Pick one.
He'd shown her the spare room when she first arrived, put her things down on the bed for her. It's up the stairs to the second story of the house, which Will himself seems to rarely use. He doesn't offer to walk her there, makes only momentary eye contact when he wishes her a good night, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
Abigail is not particularly fond of human contact. It's hard to trust touch, these days—hard even for her to allow the nurses at Port Haven the reassuring pats on the arm and shoulders that they so enjoy distributing. It's the one memory from the kitchen that is the most vivid: that feeling of being held. Of being compressed, restricted.
But there's something here, hanging in the air between them. Some unspoken, perhaps even unspeakable, energy. It makes her hesitate a little too long before leaving the room, long enough that Will wrests his eyes up from the floor and looks at her, just for a second.
She holds his gaze, and the impulse grows stronger. How easy it would be, to cross the room, to slip her arms around his waist and feel, just for a brief moment, the slow beat of his pulse.
"Sleep well, Abigail" he's already stooped to scratch Stella behind the ears, and the dismissal is clear. Abigail's own pulse pumps ice through her veins, into the cold recesses of her heart.
She wonders what he sees, when he looks at her. A woman? A girl? A corpse?
The upper floor of Will Graham's house is almost untouched-sparse and empty, as if occupied by a completely different person. Downstairs, Will's clutter—the fishing gear, the outboard motors and pliers and oil cans and miscellaneous mechanical shit, the bait in the fridge and the feathers and baubles he uses for making lures (and everything covered in a fine layer of dog hair)—give the house a warm, lived-in feeling. The dogs sleep with him in the living room, all of them huddled in the corner together on his mattress-and-boxspring-on-wheels.
When she'd asked him why he didn't use the upstairs much, he'd shrugged, given her a tight smile.
"Didn't have much money, growing up. My dad and I, we lived in small spaces. Apartments. Trailers," he had shrugged, evidently loathe to reveal too many details about his past and his upbringing. "So I suppose I feel more comfortable, when I have all my things around me. But it's nice to have the extra room…" he had paused, smiled at the floor "for the dogs. And for…visitors".
Abigail is fairly certain that she is the first visitor Will has hosted in years. It's evident that he's attempted to clean, but there's still a fine layer of dust on the windowsill of the spare room, and the sheets and pillows smell a little musty; not from dirt, but from the chill and damp that come from a room seldom heated, never used. The bed is made, covered in a patchwork quilt of the kind that grandmother's like to purchase at craft fairs and pretend to have sewed themselves. She fingers over one of the squares: a white stag stitched in bright red onto a navy background.
She thinks of her father, about the analogy he'd told her: that blood spoils faster than cream on a hot day. She'd been a great shot, but a poor tracker—so hard to tell paunch blood from arterial spray, so hard to know when to leave the beast in the woods and come back later, and when to go to it, to do the merciful thing and take a blade to its strong, furred throat.
Her own blood quickens in her veins as she thinks about it, about how warm the liquid felt spilling over her shaking hands. A baptism. A becoming.
Had Will known, when he'd watched her father coat the linoleum in crimson? Could he have tracked her through the forest, figured out whether to finish her off quick, or to let the blood rot in the cavity of her dying body? And was it bad blood, now? Was she decaying from the inside out?
There are no mirrors in the bedroom. Unwinding the ever-present scarf from her neck, Abigail is glad of this small mercy.
Falling asleep is easy. The mere act of existence tires her, these days, the simple task of remembering to breathe. Despite the unfamiliar room, despite the scratch and patter of tree limbs against the bedroom window, Abigail slips quickly into a deep sleep.
And the dream comes, as it always does—a variation on a common theme. There are always woods. Always the last glow of a fading autumn sun. Always her father's voice in the distance, calling to her through the trees.
Abigail makes her way through the underbrush, golden leaves crunched to mud beneath her feet. The forest is empty, not even birdsong, not even the rustle of wind through branches to break the silence. She is drawn forward by instinct only. She cannot see her father, but she knows he is there somewhere, just out of sight, beyond the dip in the horizon. She feels his presence, can almost taste it in the air—tang of sweat and the acrid burn of gunpowder, old leather and arterial blood.
For the first time, it occurs to her that she isn't sure whether she's hunting with him, or hunting him.
As she walks, the wood grows progressively darker, though the trees are no more dense, the canopy overhead no thicker. Its as if the hand of God has closed its fist around the sun.
And all of a sudden, she is on the brink of a body of water. Her father's voice is audible again, a subdued echo that seems to be coming from beneath the murky surface of the lake. She bows her head, stares into the unbroken surface.
There in the water, her reflection distorts. There's a pain either side of her head, just above her temples, and as she watches the reflected girl, the nubs of horns begin to grow. They're small at first, tiny calcified knobs that poke through her dark hair. But as she watches they grow, a few inches, a few more, branching out at intervals like the limbs and twigs of branches. Antlers. She's growing antlers. Her head feels heavy, almost impossible to raise it, and in the water her face is white as the glow of the moon.
A shadow appears behind her—broad shouldered and indistinct. Her father's voice, from beneath the water, whispers in burbles and drips:
See? See?
And she can't move. Can't turn around. The thing behind her wraps one arm tight around her waist, the other moving to her throat, and it's then that she realizes the figure is holding a knife. The blade glints in the slight light cast by the moon, presses hard to her throat, and she knows, then.
She knows that she figure behind her is not her father. It smells of dust and river water, the subtle scent of fabric detergent and soft cotton. Hint of aftershave.
The reflection in the pool clears, sharpens. And it's Will, behind her. Will, with the knife to her neck.
He doesn't speak, but she can feel his breath on her, hot and urgent, and the knife presses deeper into her flesh, parts the skin with a wet shlick.
And she doesn't struggle. Doesn't move at all. An eerie sense of calm steals over her, though she knows she ought to be scared, ought to be terrified. She can feel how warm he is, feel the reassuring thump of his heart in his chest.
Her body relaxes into his as she surrenders to the sacrifice. The surface of the river ripples with the first fresh drops of her blood.
She wakes with a start, pulse racing in her neck, her chest, beneath the thin cotton between her legs. She reaches her fingers up to run through her hair, feeling for horns, and finding nothing.
"How did you sleep?" Will is leaning against the kitchen counter, chipped mug of coffee in hand. He takes a sip, makes a face. Bitter.
"Oh, okay…" Abigail's own coffee sits untouched in front of her. The dream has left her scattered, confused, and it's difficult to look at Will without it all coming back: how it felt, to have his forearm flat against her stomach. How it felt, to feel the blood flowing down her chest.
He tips the remainder of his drink down the drain, turns on the tap and sluices out the cup. He doesn't look like he's slept all that well, himself. His hair is messier than usual, flat on one side and sticking out in a tangled mess on the other. He's dressed already, in his standard plaid button up and jeans, and Abigail wonders whether he made the effort for her. It's pretty early—surely he doesn't usually take his morning coffee fully clothed?
She wonders what Will sleeps in. Whether he sleeps in anything at all.
Her cheeks flush. Maybe she needs the coffee after all. She lifts the cup to her lips, swallows.
"Sorry your room isn't…cozier," he's looking out the window now, out into the woods. It's bright out, today, some sky visible through the low cloud cover, and it's not snowing anymore. The outside world seems lighter, somehow more alive. "If you want to stay more often, we fix it up. Maybe put up some pictures, or something. Whatever you'd like."
"I like the bedspread," she tells him, arms folded on the tabletop, watching him closely now that his back is turned. She studies him, the way his shirt is half-untucked at the back, the way his waist tapers very slightly.
"It was mine, when I was a kid. My mamaw made it—my grandmother," he slips into Southern slang, then corrects himself. "Found it while I was looking up in the attic for extra blankets. It's been so cold, lately…" he turns back to her, with a small smile. "Hope you were warm enough".
Abigail nods, glancing back down at her cup. The blackness of the coffee reminds her of the dream, of the still, murky river water.
"Yeah, I was. Thanks".
A silence falls across the kitchen, punctuated only by the pad of paws over linoleum as Buster trots up, nuzzles into Abigail's lap. She scritches his head, glad of a reason to look away from Will. Everything is too vivid. She's sure he'll be able to see it in her eyes, when she looks at him. How she feels. What she wants.
"The dogs need walking," the 'w' word summons the others from the living room, four furry bodies writhing around Will's legs, licking at his outstretched palm. "What do you think? Want to get some fresh air?"
Though the snow has let up, the air is still chill, cold on her face and hands. Abigail shoves her fists into her pockets, glad of the scarf wrapped tight around her neck, covering the ugly scar and protecting her from the biting wind.
Beside her, Will trudges through the slush and ice, no longer a thick layer of snow but enough to make their passage slow and slippery. The dogs gamble ahead, bounding playfully through the thicker drifts, yapping in excitement.
The trees close around them, shielding them from the worst of the wind. Abigail likes how Will's house is so close to the woods. It reminds her of her own home—when she'd had a home—how it was only a few short steps to the edges of the forest, to the labyrinth of muddy paths that cut through acres of parkland, where foxes curled in their dens, where deer scattered at the crack of buckshot.
The dogs are barking in the distance, and Will outstrips her, hunches his shoulders against the cold and heads deeper into the trees.
There's a stillness, here in the woods. An insulation from the outside world that's eerie and comforting all at once, and Abigail is jarred back to the dream again-the press of foliage and the filtered light. The creak and groan of branches, the rustle of threadbare tree limbs seem to whisper, seem to call her name…
"Abigail?" Will has stopped by a fallen log, head tilted. "You alright?"
"Sorry," she smiles, crunches through the fine layer of snow to catch up to him "I was just thinking…"
He says nothing, but his eyebrows raise. He's never pushed her for answers, not of his own accord, anyway—never forced her to reveal herself to him. It's made lying to him simultaneously easier, and more difficult.
She wishes she could tell him everything. About her father. About Nick Boyle. About the girls.
Would he hate her?
"You said you're scared of nightmares…" she removes her hand from her pocket, sweeps the hair out of her eyes and looks at him—really looks. "What do you dream about, when you dream?"
Will looks back at her, but only for a fleeting moment—meets her inquisitive gaze with his own blue-green eyes, then looks away, rubs a hand over the back of his neck. He smiles, shrugs his shoulders.
"I don't know. I don't really remember my dreams…"
He's lying. She can tell by the way he holds himself, the tension in his shoulders and the way he toes away a bit of frozen moss from the edge of the log. He's keeping something from her.
In the distance, the dogs yip and whine.
Abigail has always been gifted at reading people. Years of accompanying her father on hunting trips has given her keen observational skills; she knows the secret language of limbs and ligaments, how a body held at a certain angle articulates discomfort or distress. She knows what is said in the silence of the forest, what the stir of leaves and the howl of the wind can telegraph. She knows eyes.
And she knows what it means when somebody won't look at you.
Granted, Will has trouble with eye contact at the best of times. But this is different—the way he's staring fixedly at the ground, the way he doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands. He folds his arms. Unfolds them. Runs a hand through his curly hair.
Is he embarrassed?
Is he nervous?
Abigail hasn't allowed herself to ponder too much what Will might think of her—or more accurately, what he might feel. It's too awkward. Too painful. But occasionally, the thought creeps out of the shadows of her mind, flits across her consciousness: what if he doesn't see you like a daughter—like a child? What if you're something more to him?
And here in the woods, with the last remnants of the dream threaded through the chill atmosphere like the gilt embellishments on a tapestry, it suddenly seems possible—as if she's not just a deluded teenager with an impossible crush. She feels the ghost of his hands on her waist. The scent of her own blood on the wind.
"I think you do…" she's hesitant, of course—her voice not as clear as she'd like, not as confident. She takes a shaky step forward, boots damp with snow slush. "…I think you do remember, Will. You can tell me—I…I want you to…" she's closer to him, now, and it feels odd to be the one approaching him. Odd, to be the one to take the lead.
How long has it been, since she's initiated physical proximity with anybody? She's turned to Hannibal in moments of desperation, yes. To the one who knows her darkest secrets, who offered her not only protection but something like absolution. She has allowed herself to be weak, around Hannibal.
But no. Not with Will. Never with Will. So much is coded, between them. So much bound up in blood and trauma, in the ugliness and pain of death.
Will believes the best way to protect Abigail is to keep her locked away from the horrors of the world. Hannibal, however…-Hannibal knows what Abigail truly is. He knows that the horrors of the world have an uncanny knack for finding her.
Perhaps it's not coincidental at all, that time and time again she finds herself in the company of monsters. Perhaps all that horror stems from something dark and malignant inside of her.
"I know you remember your nightmares, Will" Abigail's voice is low, soft. She stands down on the opposite side of the log, the toes of her boots touching the decaying wood. She looks first at Will's feet, then higher—draws her gaze up over his boots, his jeans, the bright brass buckle of his belt, and the ever-present plaid shirt and hunting jacket. She looks at his face, eyes still downcast, slight hint of a flush in his cheeks. She reaches out her hand, still frigid from the cold: places it hesitantly on his forearm.
The first time she's touched him.
"Do you dream about me, Will?"
His eyes snap up to meet hers, a reflexive action that he seems to almost instantly regret. His eyes are wider than normal, bright in the cold glare of the winter sun. He's looking right at her, and Abigail sees, in his irises, the reflection of her own face: determined, yet still soft—her lips slightly parted.
She does not look like a child. Reflected in Will's eyes, Abigail Hobbs looks otherworldly, a creature forged in bone and blood, balanced on a knife edge between salvation and damnation.
He doesn't speak at first. He looks startled by the question, swallows heavy, his adam's apple bobbing empty in the smooth line of his throat.
"….yes" his voice is weaker than usual, barely above a whisper. "Yes, Abigail. I dream about you".
She hadn't been expecting this. Had thought he'd shrug it off, laugh, burrow deeper into his denial and suggest they head back to the house for a cup of cocoa and another movie, something bland, something without so much bloodshed. But here he is, in front of her—making his admission, albeit weak and ill defined. And she's not sure what to make of it. Her stomach tightens. Can she go on? Can she ask for more?
She needs to know, for sure.
Abigail's slender fingers trail down the material of Will's jacket, push up under the cuff to trail over his wrist. His skin is warm, softer than she'd expected.
"What kind of dreams…?"
"Abigail," he's still looking at her, but she can no longer make out her own reflection. His eyes are blank, now, beginning to close her out. He leaves his words dangling in the silence of the woods: a warning. A prayer.
But she can't stop. Not now.
"These dreams," her fingers find his, stroke over the webbing between and interlock, and he doesn't resist, lets her do it, closes his hand around hers. "…what happens?"
The pad of his thumb strokes over her knuckles, but he is no longer looking at her—seems to be gazing past her, into the middle distance, towards the dense line of tress where the dogs are shadows on the horizon.
"Do you touch me, Will?" Abigail takes a step forward. There's almost not space between them, now, and she can feel the heat coming from his body—and that scent, the same as in the dream: aftershave, pine and forest, something like leather and sweat. "…do you hurt me?"
Will's eyes darken, his mouth setting into a firm, expressionless line—and in that instant, he looks so much like Hannibal. That blankness. That utter, complete emptying.
"Abigail," he lets go of her hand, takes a step back. "This isn't appropriate. We can't—"
He's interrupted by the thundering of paws in melted snow. The dogs, responding to the commanding tone, are hastening towards them, tongues hanging from loose jaws, smiling wide, excited to return to their master. They bound and caper over the drifts, yipping excitably.
"We can't," he repeats, his tone subdued. "This isn't a conversation I want to have with you. Do you understand?"
But Abigail has already turned, is already sprinting back towards the house, Winston, Buster, and Doc in her wake, gambling joyously behind her retreating figure as if this, all of this, is just a game—as if all might be made right by a belly rub, a scratch behind the ears, and a warm place in front of the fire.
Will watches her go, watches until all four figures—the three canines, and the slender girl in the turquoise coat—are nothing but ink blots in the whiteness that blends sky and snow.
The distance from the thick of the woods to the house is minimal, but Will Graham feels every step stretch for miles. Beside him, the rest of the pack heel at the same slow pace, but their mood, like his, is subdued. They don't stop to sniff in the underbrush, and when a rabbit flits across a clearing, ears atwitch as it stalls momentarily in their path, the dogs glance up at it lazily, make no move to chase.
Will rolls up the collar of his jacket, shoves his hands deep inside his pockets. He is in no great hurry to return to the house.
He has failed Abigail Hobbs.
It wasn't meant to be like this. When he had first seen her in the kitchen of the Hobbs house, held in that vice-like grip by the demon she called 'Father', it had all seemed so simple. In one beautiful moment of clarity, he had known his purpose. For once in his life, the shades of gray that colored Will's moral landscape had distilled to stark black and white, and he had known, known absolutely, that there was only one good course of action.
He had to kill Hobbs. He had to save Abigail.
It wasn't like in the movies—wasn't some cheaply produced, inexpertly written episode of a shitty day-time crime show re-run. He didn't know her. He had no personal investment in her, or in her continued existence.
He didn't love her. Not then.
It was simply clear to Will Graham, in that moment, that Garrett Jacob Hobbs needed to die. And not just to neutralize the threat to the young girl. No. Hobbs deserved to die for everything he had done to her.
More than that, he deserved to suffer.
In the end, three quick shots to the chest had been enough.
And as he panicked over Abigail Hobbs' body, as her blood sputtered weakly from the gaping wound in her neck, as her heartbeat had begun to slow, Will Graham was faced with two realizations: firstly, that he had taken a life; secondly, that he was responsible for another.
The word 'daughter' had not occurred to him.
For all his ability to empathize, Will Graham did not fully understand other people. He could rationalize their actions, certainly. He could place himself in their shoes, walk the same grisly, bloodstained paths. He could see what they saw. Feel what they felt.
But rarely did that crystallize to full understanding. Perhaps, in part, because he was unwilling to allow this total merging of self and other. It was easier, particularly in his personal life, to maintain a certain distance. Easier to lurk in indistinct shadows than to turn the full force of his unique ability upon those closest to him.
It seemed rude. Invasive, even. And potentially dangerous.
But something was pulling him towards Abigail Hobbs. Was it guilt? The blood on his hands, her father's DNA seeping into his pores, poisoning his system with that burning need to be close her?
Yes, perhaps. And perhaps there was a curiosity. A desire to connect with someone just as unique, just as damaged as he was.
Jack Crawford, Alana Bloom—even Hannibal Lecter, present at the scene, stemming the flow of the girl's blood—they'd all pigeon holed him as a surrogate father, assumed his interest and concern were borne out of a misplaced sense of paternal responsibility.
But it was more than that.
Will Graham reaches the porch, the dogs rubbing up against his legs, weaving between them, excited to get in out of the cold. He reaches down to pet Watson, the smallest of the pack, receives a fistful of excited dog-saliva in return.
Will smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes.
He'd upset her. Upset Abigail. But what else was he supposed to have done? It wasn't as though he could have told her what he dreams. It wasn't as though he could have said that yes, she's there in the periphery of his subconscious, waiting for him to drift off, that damn near every night this week he's found her in that liminal space between sleep and wakefulness, that sometimes the dreams are so real that he wakes in a cold sweat, achingly hard, his hand wrapped tight around his cock.
He hadn't lied, anyway. They were hardly nightmares.
He knows enough about Abigail to know that what she thinks she wants and what she needs, are two very different things.
The house is quiet, lamps lit in the living room just as they were when he and Abigail had left the house that afternoon. Will hangs his coat on the hook by the door, tugs off his boots.
"Abigail?"
No answer, and no sign of her sleek brown hair, her delicate shoulders. Her coat is slung over the back of the couch, and he scans the room several times hoping that he's just overlooked her. But she isn't there.
Upstairs, the three dogs that had followed Abigail to the house are whining, scratching at something, and for one hideous moment Will's hyper-empathic brain jolts to all manner of horrific conclusions: what if she's done something stupid, locked herself in her room and done something awful, hurt herself…
He knows it's unlikely. Abigail doesn't seem the type to put a blade to her own skin, no matter how traumatized she is, how rejected she might feel—she's a survivor, first and foremost. Deep down Will knows that if Abigail had the means, she'd have killed her father herself, a hundred times over. She's sensitive, certainly; they have that in common, the same guarded vulnerability, concealed behind a blank and calculated exterior that some people mistake for coldness or insanity. But she's not self-deprecating, not to the point of self-harm or suicide. If Abigail had a blade, Will is certain she'd turn it on him before she turned it on herself.
He's up the stairs in a matter of seconds anyway, knocking at the bedroom door, Winston and Buster nosing at his legs and whining plaintively.
There's no answer. He frowns, uncertain how to proceed. She could be sulking, of course—punishing him for his stern comment by shutting him out. She must know, by now, that the best way to hurt him is to withdraw, to make herself inaccessible. He knocks again, calls her name. Still no answer.
Will hesitates, hand on the doorknob. He wants badly to open it, to reassure himself of her safety, or perhaps simply of her presence. There's a niggling worry in the back of his mind that he she might, in her anger, have just decided to leave—packed up her things and called a cab, gone back to the hospital. But he's loathe to barge in on her personal space when she has so obviously shut herself away. He recalls well the feeling of having nowhere that is your own, nowhere to close yourself off from the world. Growing up poor, mostly in trailers or shitty one-room apartments, has made Will keenly aware of the importance of nesting. It's part of the reason he keeps himself curled tightly in only one small room of his own home, as if the open space of the rest of the house is in some way a threat to his sense of security.
She's probably sleeping. Taking the time to calm herself, to think things over. He removes his hand from the doorknob, goes back downstairs, the dogs trotting after. Will hovers in the kitchen, not sure what to do. There's an intense sense of unease, knowing he's hurt Abigail and not immediately understanding how he might make it right, and he paces for a bit, opens and closes cupboards, puts a pot of coffee on, cracks a few cans of dog food and feeds the pack. His anxiety is bodily—he can feel the tremor in his hands as he forks the processed meat into the stainless steel bowls, and his throat feels tight and gritty. He should have told her. Should have let her know that he felt…
What?
What does he feel?
One of the most complicated parts of being hyper empathic is never fully understanding what it is that you, yourself, feel. He knows he has a strong connection to Abigail, that he feels a need to protect and nurture her. But maybe he's just picking up on something she's projecting, maybe it's all borne out of a sense of guilt and obligation. Will watches the dogs as they jostle and vie for place around the food bowls, arms folded across his chest.
He thinks about her. He thinks about her when he's working, when he's analyzing crime scenes for Jack Crawford. He thinks about her when he's walking in the woods with the dogs. He thinks about her at night, alone in bed with nothing by the milky half-light of the moon through the slats of his blinds for company. He thinks about her while he's sleeping, when in his dreams she crawls on top of him, presses soft kisses to his neck and throat.
Will runs a hand over his face, sighs heavily. It's not right, to feel this way. To want something from Abigail that she's too traumatized, too young and inexperienced to give. Something has obviously misfired in his head, out of loneliness or isolation, or in the ugly act of slaughtering Abigail's sole living relative. Something has gone wrong. And now, here he is—standing in his kitchen, equal parts terrified of losing her, and thrilling at the possibility that she might want him as much as he wants her.
He shouldn't. He can't. It's not right.
He can't just lurk in the kitchen forever, staring into space and quietly obsessing. With another heavy sigh, Will heads towards the bathroom, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose in a desperate attempt to relieve the cluster headache he can feel beginning to burn behind his eyes. A shower will help. And perhaps after he washes the tension away, he can go and knock at Abigail's door again, apologize and feed her some platitude to defer the awkward conversation indefinitely. They can return to how things were—amicable. Comfortable. No need to dissect the darkness that lurks in either of their damaged psyches.
Will is so caught up in the whirling gyres of his own mind that he doesn't notice the light seeping through the cracks in the bathroom door. He doesn't notice the slight curl of steam, the warmth and the sound of running water.
The door, when he opens it, makes no sound.
The bathroom is large—larger, really, than is strictly necessary. Will has always found the scale of the room a little uncomfortable, too much space between the bathtub and the large glass-and-tile shower, the distance between the door and the sink leaving him feeling weirdly exposed every time he brushes his teeth.
But he's glad of it, now. Glad of the expanse of damp blue ceramics that stretch from where he's standing to the fogged-up glass door of the shower cubicle.
The shower is running. And he can make out, through the steam, the shape of Abigail's naked body moving under the water, her slender fingers carding through wet hair, the gentle curve of her spine and bare shoulder blades…
He stands there, transfixed, his heart beating hard and fast in his chest. Beneath the stream of water, Abigail turns, trails a soapy hand over her own body, the swell of her breasts and the soft dip of her stomach. The steam is clearing with the cooler air from the open door, and he can see her, see everything, beads of water dripping down her pale skin.
Her eyes are closed. She tilts her head back, lets the water flow across her face as if in baptism.
Will's cock twitches in his suddenly too-tight jeans. Jesus, he should go. This is wrong—he can't stay here, can't let himself prey on her like this, like some sort of creepy pervert—but his feet don't seem to want to oblige him, and he finds himself rooted to the spot, unable to do anything but snake a hand down to the buckle of his belt, thumb dipping under the lip of the waistband, four fingers grazing over the swell in his pants.
Abigail's body is different than he'd imagined, perhaps in part because he's tried his hardest to push these kinds of thoughts from his mind. But he's dreamed it often enough, how she might feel in his arms, the softness of her skin and the weight of her small, firm breasts. How her skin would taste in his mouth.
In his dreams, her skin is often slick with blood. He licks the wound in her neck, tastes copper.
Underneath the shower, Abigail hears and suspects nothing. Her hands glide over her body, down to the space between her legs.
Will watches, wide eyed, as she hovers her hand there for a second, her eyes still closed, lips slightly parted. Her back is against the wet, white tiles of the shower, and her legs are spread enough that he can see it clearly when she takes her index and middle fingers, grazes them over her folds, between her thighs. Will's heart feels permanently lodged in his throat, he swallows but his mouth is dry, and without really meaning to, he finds he's palming himself through his jeans. His cock is painfully hard, and he wonders for fleeting moment how she'd react if he slipped into the shower, covered her gently curling fingers with his own hand.
From the kitchen, one of the dogs lets out a short, sharp bark, and Will can see Abigail's shoulders tensing, see, in the split second before it happens, how the next few moments will unfold. Her hand stills. She tips her head back again, squeezes the water from her hair.
When Abigail steps out of the shower, wraps herself in the fluffy green towel that hangs from the hook by the sink, she notices that the bathroom door is a few inches ajar.
Dinner is quiet. The two of them chew in silence, Will staring at the arrangement of canned vegetables on his plate, Abigail watching as outside the window snow begins to fall again.
She's already decided not to say anything about the bathroom door. She's embarrassed herself enough for one day, and Will has made it perfectly clear that he doesn't want to discuss the possibility that there might be a tension between the two of them, an invisible thread binding them on a level deeper and more profound than victim and savior.
She watches snow gather on the chipped white paint of the window sill, watches the glass panes as, slowly, they begin to ice over. She can be like that. She can be the icy glass, hardened by the elements. She can learn to shut it out, this persistent, nagging desire for him, this need to be close, to be touched…
"Cold again, tonight…" Will's voice sounds strange, a little higher pitched than usual. She watches him push his glasses up his nose, but he doesn't look up at her. "I can turn the heat up, if you want—" he pauses. Is he blushing? "The uh—the central air, I mean…"
"Oh, no. It's okay…" Abigail pushes her plate away, dinner half eaten. "I'll be fine with the extra blankets. It's not that cold upstairs. Heat rises, and all that…"
The conversation is formal. Polite. Her stomach contracts uncomfortably, as if trying to digest the palpable sense of discomfort in the air.
They've lost it, that unspoken easiness, that ability to sit with one another in calm and comfortable silence. Abigail feels the loss acutely, like a knife to her throat.
"I might turn in early, actually…" everything she says comes out more question than statement, her sentences dangling like a worm on a hook, waiting for him to take the bait. She wants him to stop her, to ask her if she's okay, if she needs to talk.
But Will says nothing, just clears his throat and nods his head.
"Goodnight, then…" Abigail lingers, but only for a moment, pushes away from the table and with a last glance over her shoulder, exits the room. Right before she rounds the corner, just for a second, she's sure she sees Will look up—the barest, briefest hint of his eyes, cloudy and impenetrable.
The intensity of it, the sheer force of the eye contact, however fleeting, is enough to send a shock of adrenaline down her spine. Her cheeks burn as she walks up the stairs to her room, legs unsteady as if rendered from water.
Just before getting into bed, as she undresses, Abigail lets her hand trail over her breast, her bare stomach, the heat already pulsing in the soft hollow between her legs.
Will Graham has difficulty falling asleep. He lies awake, sweating in the inky blackness of the living room, shifting and kicking at the blankets so often that every last one of the dogs give up their place on the bed in favor of more stable sleeping conditions. They eye him reproachfully from their beds by the empty fireplace, watching him toss and turn.
But when sleep finally comes, it engulfs him totally. He's dragged from the shores of consciousness, pulled under by a current so powerful that when the dream hits, he scrambles to the surface of it gasping for air.
The woods. He's back in the woods, lying on the banks of a great lake, his clothes soaked through. His shirt and pants are so heavy with the liquid they've absorbed that, at first, Will has trouble sitting up. He feels weighed down, as if something is pressing on his chest.
The patches of sky visible between the canopy of leaves are dark, but somehow still provide enough illumination for him to see, clearly, the detail of each and every skeletal finger of twig and branch. The light that filters through is cleaner than moonlight, almost electric, and when he holds his hand out in front of him the palm of it is stained blue-black, like ink.
That's when Will realizes that the liquid soaking his clothing is not river water.
He stands unsteadily, presses his hands to his damp shirt. He's starting to notice, now, the smell—the thick, cloying scent of iron and rust.
Will Graham looks down at himself, at the stains that cover his plaid button up, his jeans.
Blood. He's drenched in blood.
Panic rises through him like mist and all at once he's dizzy, weak-kneed, the tiny pinpricks of stars through the leaves above his head whirling and spinning in chaos.
Because it's not his blood. He knows this instinctively, a deep and profound echo in the pit of his stomach. He's not hurt, not wounded. No, this much blood loss has to mean a body, has to mean he's done something terrible and final. Something from which there is no return.
Will sets off into the woods, following the tracks left in the mud and slush of snow. There are two lines, persistent and unbroken, punctuated by the imprints of boots and he realizes with a sick lurch that someone has been dragged from the banks of the river, dragged through the undergrowth and deep into the forest.
The boot prints match his own. He retraces them, feet pressed perfectly into the indents. He counts steps. Fifty paces. One hundred. Two hundred.
The trees become more numerous and closer together, swallowing him up. It feels strange, to walk through the woods without the dogs at his heels. The blood sticks his shirt to his chest, cold against his skin. It doesn't seem to be drying.
Deeper into the forest. Deeper and deeper, until the canopy above becomes so twisted and dense that the stars are no longer visible. But that eerie light, that strange blue-tinted electricity, still illuminates his path.
Will Graham walks for what feels like an eternity.
The tracks stop in the middle of a clearing, the trees pressed close together around it in a perfect circle. The snow here is thicker, falling through the gap in the canopy and covering what might have remained of the footprints. It seems lighter, suddenly—there's a brightness to the snow that stuns Will for a moment, stops him dead still at the edge of the tree-line, staring at the perfect, unblemished whiteness of the forest floor.
Except it isn't entirely unblemished. As he moves his gaze around the periphery, he notices the blood—small spatters of it, at first, almost faded to pink in the fresh snowfall. But there, towards the center, the blood is thicker. Deep red, arterial, standing out in stark contrast to the crisp white.
And in the very, very center: the body.
He knows before he crosses the clearing, before he bends, kneels in the snow, before he places his bloody hands on her shoulders and turns her over. He knows immediately he sees the tangle of limbs and the torn coat that it's Abigail, her dark hair covering her face, obscuring her lifeless eyes.
Her body is cold. He strokes the hair from her face, recoils instantly when his fingertips come away damp. Her scarf has been ripped away, and the thick purple band of her scar reopened like a bloody Christmas package. The wound is the only part of her that's still warm, a thin line of fresh blood still spilling out of the rent flesh, and despite himself, Will leans in again, closer, close enough that his body is suspended over hers, hands either side of her in the snow.
He can smell her, now. The unmistakable scent of blood and something sweeter, something like night-blooming flowers, jasmine and honeysuckle. She's so still, so cold, and Will stares down at her, into her clear blue eyes. There's no anxiety. No spike of nervous adrenaline. For the first time in a long while, he feels totally calm.
Too calm, actually—almost untethered, as if his actions are not his own. Without meaning to, he dips his mouth to her neck, brushes his lips over the bloody gash. His tongue flicks out, tastes iron and sweat and the first tiny crystals of ice forming at the corners of her wound. He feels too warm, suddenly—as if his whole body has been lit up from the inside, his hands burning, melting the snow around them and sinking deeper. He closes his mouth over her neck, tongue parting the skin and probing deeper…
The body stirs beneath him.
Will doesn't notice at first, so caught up in the feel of her, one hand moving to graze over her cold skin, pushing up her shirt, the icy curve of her hip. He can feel something stirring inside him, something dark and animal, a need more powerful than anything he's ever felt before. He wants her. He wants her so much that he'd kill for her, and in that instant he knows that it was he who dragged her lifeless body into the woods, he who raked the knife across her throat and let her blood spill on the pristine snow.
Because it's the only way. The only way she can be his. The only way he can keep her safe.
Two cold hands wrap around his throat, slender fingers snapping into place with an audible crack, like ice cubes broken from the tray. His heart stops, whole body seized with sudden, intense terror. She's still staring at him, but her eyes are lively now, dancing in the half-light of the moon, pupils huge and blown as she takes him in, the ring of blood around his mouth, his stained and soaking shirt.
She's still alive. Her fingers tighten, but she isn't choking him, isn't trying to hurt—instead she pulls him down to her, forces his mouth to hers. Her small pink tongue darts out, licks her own blood from the corners of his lips, and he wants to yield to her, wants to crawl on top of her and push inside. But he's terrified, utterly and completely terrified, his own heartbeat a deafening thud in his ears, and he screams into her, the sound absorbed by her undead mouth moving over his, sucking and biting, as if she might be able to draw the very life from his body…
Will wakes to the mattress sinking beside him. For a moment, he thinks it's one of the dogs—Watson, maybe, given the weight and the indent in the bedding. He rolls over, blinks a few times as his eyes adjust to the darkness.
The shape in the bed next to him is decidedly un-canine. His pulse is still racing from the dream, and he's alarmed to find that he's hard, too. He reaches a hand between his legs, adjusts himself, tries to scoot closer to the wall to give her more space.
"Abigail?"
He can hear her breathing in the darkness, and for a horrible moment he's convinced she's still dead, still the animated corpse from his dream.
She's quiet a long, painful minute.
"…I had a bad dream" her voice is soft, sweet, and he can smell the clean shampoo scent of her hair, the same floral as the dead girl he'd kissed in the clearing. "Can I sleep here…?"
There are a million reasons that this is a terrible, terrible idea. But after the incident in the forest—both real and imaginary—he's unwilling to deny her what she asks for.
Besides, he can feel the warmth from her body. He can feel the shift in the air around them, invisible electricity pulling him towards her. He swallows heavily, reaches one hand out to press palm flat on the mattress between them. He won't touch her. He can't let himself.
"Of course. Of course you can. Whatever you need".