The walls start to blur after a while, Will realizes. The iron bars of his cell merge together; the talks with his doctor start to become one-sided and slowly, he cannot describe the pain he feels when the shock him. One sentence remains constant throughout it all.
I know who I am.
He's led to a different room this time; he does not recognize the darker hallway. The room he's led to, however is bright, and he's greeted by sunlight entering from the glass window in front of him. A ginger-haired woman sits in front of him; her dress skirt is pulled up from her knees. Her short hair is in a pony tail, barely reaching her neck, and her lipstick is pink. She smiles brightly when she sees him come in, as if he's given her a gift. She stares at him, smile and all; he doesn't make eye contact. She gets his point and looks away. There's complete silence for a moment, until one of his guards coughs loudly. She looks back at him, then turns her gaze to the guard.
"Give me the keys, then leave us." She says, annoyance in her tone visible.
They are hesitant, but she does something with her look that Will can't quite catch, but it has them stuttering and handing over the keys just fine. The only sound is of the door shutting. When they're gone, she stands up, a grace filling the way she walks over. She takes the keys, and her hands are soft as she opens one of the hand cuffs. The one on his left hand is removed, and is then latched on the large metal bar next to the chair.
"Take a seat, please." She says, motioning at the chair. He follows, and sits down. He notices the name plate on the desk far behind her. Claudia Bellrose.
Silence slides in like a bolt. Peace walks all over the room. Looking at the sunlight after so long has him completely seduced, he stares at the seven colors of the rainbows being formed as the sunlight reflects off the glass.
"So, there are two ways we can do this." She says, snapping him out of his haze. "One, you can answer the questions I ask you and I can inform my superiors, and you can go back early. Two, you can sit here with me for two hours, and stare."
He doesn't answer and she gets his point. They spend the nest one hundred and twenty minutes in not so uncomfortable silence. No voices cause a wave of peace to wash over him, and the sunlight allows him to feel free; just for a moment. Even if he's sitting with her, a woman he barely knows. She not that bad, he thinks, however after the whole Hannibal fiasco he's pretty much done with the whole first impression-last impression. Back is the feeling of paranoia and mistrust.
The small window behind her is open, and the room swirls with fresh air. Thankfully, to her word, she doesn't even utter a letter, only lets her gaze flicker to him every five minutes or so. She seems to be deep in thought, and scribbles something onto the pad in front of her every few seconds.
He doesn't ask, the change in scenery is making him almost grateful for her to be his psychiatrist. Again, her eyes flick to him, and this time they meet his. They're light brown, just a shade darker than hazel. A light orange hue covers her irises. And there's something else there, and expression he can't quite place- curiosity? Determination? He can't place it, but it's something that makes him look away.
The session ends, and the shackles are clacking against each other as he's led back to his cell. He thinks it's a once only psych evaluate, but two days later, they pull him up and drag him back to her. Same ritual follows. She smiles brightly at him when he enters, and stares expectantly at the guards, until they understand her message and uncuff him, one of the cuffs firmly latched on to the metal pole next to the chair. It greets him unflinchingly. He sits down, and looks at her.
"Hello again, Will." She says, walking to the wooden desk in the side of the room. A small DVD player sits there, and she presses the button. A symphony of notes starts to surround them.
His face takes on a questioning look.
"Toccata and Fugue in D minor." She says, as if it explains it all. "By Johann Sebastian Bach. One of my favorites. After our last session, I took it upon myself to have you listen to something. Have you heard this?"
He shakes his head, and she looks slightly put off. It's gone in a second, and he almost believes he imagined it.
"At least now you'll have something to do while I draw." She explains, and sits back down into her chair.
No other conversation takes place, other than the brilliant composition of music gracing his ears.
Two hours, and eight compositions later, he's cuffed and led back.
.
He's greeted by her sweet smile again. She welcomes him, and the same ritual goes one, as it has for the last two weeks.
"Will, I've been looking forward to our sessions lately. They allow me rest in a usually tense, stressful environment." She says. "You have brilliant skills for a delusional psychopath."
The tone is the same, but the words are harsh. As if she's been toying with them for quite a while, tuning then until they played perfectly.
His eyes turn to her, anger brewing in him. She has a sardonic smile over her delicate features.
"I didn't do it." He says, no doubt in his words.
"How do you know?" She asks, as if she's discussing the weather. "You're prone to black outs, severe headaches, and you were diagnosed with encephalitis."
"I know. I know who I am. I know that I didn't do it. Hannibal Lecter did it. Not me. I am not the delusional psychopath you just called me." He said, his feral eyes meeting her excited ones.
"Alright." She answers him, leaning back into her chair. "I believe you."
"What?" He says, provoked and confused. "Why'd you ask me?"
"We've come a far way from when you used to sit quietly, and I used to solve puzzles, haven't we?" she says, a real smile coming over her features.
He's annoyed, but he's also something he can't put his finger on. Intrigued, maybe? Who knows.
.
Jack Crawford was quickly given the few details of the case in present. The entire team was there, marking things, taking pictures, talking to anyone who lived close by.
The site he was greeted with was not pretty.
The victim is female, clothed in a white lace dress. Each hand has perfectly cut finger nails, with pure white enamel nail varnish on them, and her feet are adorned by white bun shoes. Her face however, is a different story. Just like the last four victims.
The entire skin over her face has been peeled off, scalpel most likely. No way to recognize the victim. Everything has been chaffed away, until there hasn't been a flap of skin present anywhere till her ear. Her hair is perfectly set, a small silver tiara sitting innocently.
As he turns back, Hannibal Lector stands with one of the forensic analysts.
"You're the new Will Graham." The woman tells him, and Hannibal appears to be unaffected.
As if that's so reassuring, Jack thinks.
Back at the bureau, he heard rumors of the serial killer being called the faceless thief. He shook his head, and continued to where he was going.
.
Dr. Claudia Bellrose is quite amused by her newest patient. Will graham- diagnosed with encephalitis, FBI profiler, now lead suspect for the copy cat killer- and also most likely the person who has killed Abigail Hobbs.
She quite likes him. She also, quite likes his face.
She's sitting behind her great marble desk, sketching one rich, white paper- a scene she once saw in Paris, from her balcony. For a moment, she allows herself to yearn or that familiar scenery.
And then, she's back to where she is- on her comfortable leather chair, listening to Beethoven's 5th symphony, drawing scenery and musing about her newest patient, Will Graham. She finds him like a puzzle box; a very, very old box that's stuck in some places and needs leverage and strength and continuous work to open properly.
Hannibal Lecter. The name sounds strangely familiar on her tongue, although she's sure she hasn't ever heard it. Her photographic memory is witness to that.
She's tempted to stand up, take an early leave, skip all of her private appointments and rush over to find the mystery man. But, better to know what she's dealing with beforehand. So then, she'll have to find out more about the ambiguous man named Hannibal Lecter. She also acts like she hasn't noticed that she's looking forward to her session with Will graham.
.
"Tell me about Dr. Lector." she asks one of her acquaintances when it's time for her to go home and take private appointments.
This particular acquaintance is Felicity Dorne, and Claudia considers naming her the epitome of gossip. Felicity basically trips over herself in the hurry to tell her what she knows.
"Well, firstly, he's a psychiatrist with a private practice. He's currently helping the FBI track down killers, and also-" she hushes down her voice, trying to add a dramatic flair to the already failed conversation. "- he also has an unhealthy attachment to Will Graham. The psycho had luck tricking one of the most brilliant psychiatrists, maybe because he was his friend or something?"
She would have said more, but Claudia decided she had heard enough.
"Thank you, felicity. That's quite fine."
She turns around and starts walking away, her heels clacking against the tiled floor with a mental note to talk to her partner to think about switching over to help the FBI.
.
Jack Crawford is disgusted by the rate of murders taking place. It's barely been a month since one of his best profilers has been locked away in a mental institution, and already there is the weight of a new serial killer, now dubbed the faceless thief, on him. He's broken out of his inwardly monologue of disappointment when there's a loud knock on his door.
When he beckons whoever it is to come in, a young woman with short ginger hair enters his office.
.
A week later, she's being introduced to the bureau as Dr. Claudia Bellrose, the newest addition to their team. Apparently, she can help them with identifying killer mindsets having psychologically evaluated so many murderers- psychologists and sociopaths all included.
She wonders where he got that idea.
She also decides that she likes rumors. She always learns something about herself that she didn't know before.
.
He shakes her hand as soon as she shows up to the next day. She smiles brightly; as if they're old friends meeting up for a drink and talk instead of a murder scene where someone's face has been peeled off.
Throughout the whole investigation, her eyes never reveal any sign of distress, anger, anxiety, anything that can be found in anyone viewing a crime scene that has one of their trained analysts throwing up behind the bushes.
.
They're seated at the large wooden table at his house, and it's been two weeks since she's accompanied them to all crime scenes.
"I must say, you're an excellent cook." She compliments, after taking a sip of the fine white wine. "This might be the best steak I have had in a very long time."
"Thank you." He replies, and that's the end of that topic.
A few moments of silence lapse away before she starts again. This time her question is out of the box.
"Do you believe in God?" She asks him. "Or the fact that there might be a life after death? That we might be punished for whatever we do?"
There's an accusation in her tone, but it's combined with self reflection.
"Is there a particular reason as to why you have posed this question to me?" he asks her, sipping his wine. "Do you believe?"
She laughs at his twisting of the subject, but decides to humor him.
"Unfortunately, I do. I believe that I'll be punished for whatever it is that I am doing. But then again, it is me who is doing those things, and therefore, I will take the punishment it strikes up." She replies, unflinching. "Nous récoltons ce que nous semons."
They continue eating, as if nothing out of the ordinary has been brought up.
"What makes you take their faces?" He asks, as if it's simple chit chat.
"The same force that makes you eat them." She answers, before putting another morsel into her mouth.
She smiles again, a happy-go-lucky smile you won't find on most women in their mid twenties. He smiles back. They go back to their meal then.
.
The black haired man is whimpering, crying, begging- as if that's going to stop her. She sees the raw fear hidden behind his eyes- the pure emotion building up inside him. She steps closer, putting the hand with the scalpel behind her back.
"Shh, Shh... It's going to be okay. I promise, it's going to be okay. You'll never be forgotten in my collections." She told the man, Austin something, her demeanor infuriatingly calm.
She ran a glove covered hand through his hair trying to assure him.
"I promise. Claudia's here now, and she'll prize your face forever."
With that, she brought her right hand in front of her, and started her little masterpiece. After a while, all that was left was an unrecognizable, bloodied face of a man in white clothes, and the echo of screams.