Author's Note: I got 99 problems and at least 30 of them are related to the Hannibal TV series. So excited for the season 2 premier! SO UNPREPARED. ... also as I rewatched the second half of season 1 to prepare myself I realized that Will Graham and George Orr really, really needed to meet, so this happened.
to go is to return
He had a hard time putting himself back together, after the Break.
Not during. He'd been fine, during, as fine as anyone could be. He had finished repairing a motor, and despite the late hour he'd taken the boat out for a test run since the moon was up and bright, while Willy did his homework and Molly cleaned up after a late dinner and gave the dogs treats. When waves slick with pollution swarmed over the boat and grated him raw with buzzing sand, when the clouds stuttered like a broken TV screen and the moon dripped silver fungal filaments across a feathered sky, when the wind huffed in his ears like a great black beast... He'd been fine. He had lived through this before.
He knew who he wasn't.
He knew who he was. He chanted the old litany as he clung to the boat: My name is... The time is... I'm here in... My name is...
He was ex-FBI special agent Will Graham, and when the waves calmed and the droning stopped, he was himself.
It was after that the trouble started. He hadn't been very far out when the Break hit, but it took him all night to get back to land and everything was gone. The house, the dock, the sandy shore, everything. The beach was a swampy mess overgrown with a bizarre mixture of cypress and cedars. He tried diving where he thought his house should be and found nothing, seabed and rocks and weeds; he tied the boat up at the rotting wood and brick foundations of a building that had been abandoned for years and went inland to look for anyone that could tell him what had happened, where his anchors had gone.
He made it to town, but no one could tell him what was going on. People walked across cracked pavement and past each other without speaking, without recognition. His boots shattered glass with every other step. He did find a working telephone and tried to call Alana Bloom, but when the other end picked up a cracked old man's voice said, "Hello? This is Alan Bloom speaking, who's this? Is this about -"
Will hung up.
He got a ride with a family driving up to DC to check on cousins so that he could go to Quantico, having nowhere else to go. The father owned a bait and tackle store; Molly had bought Will a new rod there a couple of days ago, after a skate dragged one of his into the Gulf, but the man said he hadn't sold a rod in two, maybe three weeks. Too early in the season.
The wind roared past the rolled-down windows and hissed there's nobody there in Will's ears.
Quantico had become quicksand inhabited by queenless ants. Jimmy Price had died in some kind of carcinogenic plague that several people remembered surviving and others didn't remember at all, Zeller was gray, and Beverly Katz played violin for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. No one had heard of Dr. DuMaurier. Jack Crawford was the same man but years older; he looked at Will like a superstitious man seeing a ghost and said, "Christ, Will, your face - I thought you'd drunk yourself to death already..."
The world had splintered that night he had been out on the water, and the pieces jammed back together without rhyme or reason. There were aliens, for God's sake. Great hulking methane-breathing tanks from Aldebaran, mostly out in Washington state but some here on the east coast, and maybe they had been invading and maybe it had all been an innocent mistake, no one was sure.
Will hitched and walked up and down the drowned coastlines, searching for Molly and Willy. He bought a wheezy old truck with money that looked and felt counterfeit but the seller accepted without a second glance, and then he drove. He passed through a thousand tiny towns and half the big ones: Atlanta, Mobile, Orlando, Raleigh, Charlottesville, DC, Nashville, Tampa, Fayetteville, Charleston, Miami - their towers misshapen, their people reassembling the jumbled thrift store puzzles of their lives. No Molly and no Willy, not even his dogs. Those pieces had gone missing.
After a couple of weeks he coaxed the truck back up to Quantico on fumes - gas was dear these days - to talk to Jack again. By then the government was starting to pull its weight and do what it did best, paperwork, counting beans and spare change and lost souls. If they'd give him access to some files he wouldn't have to drive so much, changing flat tires on dark pothole-ridden roads alone and eating greasy food in strange restaurants alone and listening to confused DJs on static-distorted radio stations alone. He hadn't slept much in case someone tried to take the truck or the droning waves came back and maybe he got a little heated arguing with Jack and he said, "What about bedrock, Jack? Didn't you tell me that once? You told me that, you told me you were bedrock," and Jack said -
Jack had said -
Will had gone west to Portland after that. Had fled west, hot breath on his neck and flies in his ears. He told the bus driver who took him from Cincinnati to Des Moines that Molly's in-laws were out that way, and maybe in the Break she had slipped from Florida to Oregon; he told the woman in the frayed business suit who gave him a lift from Lincoln to Rock Springs that with the rot and decay swamping the eastern cities, Portland was the best place to start over. The van of sullen, quiet teenagers didn't ask, so he didn't tell them anything.
When he looked at the girl with the ponytail he almost told them.
(The blonde trainee who had shown him out of Jack's office held her clipboard in a familiar left hand. "It's been really hard on everyone, sir," she had said, "the Break, I mean. If you want, a lot of us have been visiting this psychiatrist up in Baltimore - he's really good, I could cancel my appointment and give you a chance.")
In Portland he squatted for a while in one of the city's many broken buildings with other strays - some dogs, a couple of cats, a few people. Portland had been hit as hard by the Break as anywhere else, maybe harder, but it was mending its cracks with gold; small businesses flourished, people regrew and reconnected. In time Will got a job maintaining boats for a man who'd started a ferry business to supplement the mismatched maze of public transportation the Break had left, and he got a room to live in, one room with a mattress and a little stained sink and everything else shared. He brought two strays with him: a long-haired brindle mutt who answered to Churchill and a tiny kid with a giant afro named Abby. Abby slept during the day and played with code on a skinny tablet computer all night, undisturbed by Will's thrashing and sweats.
No headaches, yet. No fevers. Just the work he wasn't doing and the search he'd abandoned chasing him in the dark.
On a day off he took Churchill for a walk downtown, but the damp June heat soaked him through, and then the afternoon rain started and he didn't have an umbrella so he ducked into a store. No one immediately said Sorry, you can't bring your dog in here, so he looked around. Bowls, whisks, spatulas, pans, pots, mixers - a kitchen store, and his skin prickled. Everything was beautifully made in simple, elegant designs, fit for a master chef. He turned back to the door and heard the soft hiss of the rain turn harsh. No escape that way. At the back of the showroom one of the turtle-armored aliens stood with a customer, facing away from the entrance and talking about teakettles.
Churchill sat politely dripping by a display of wooden and metal spoons. Will fumbled in his pockets for a handkerchief or something to dry him off a bit.
"Can I help you with anything?" a soft voice asked.
Will dropped a handful of change and winced at the clatter against the floor. "No, thanks, I'm - I'm just looking." He didn't cook. He ate cheap takeout and canned food on sale, mostly vegetables and some seafood, very little meat. He'd had trouble eating once - not because of the Break, long before the Break - and without Molly old cautious habits had come creeping back.
He scooped the change up and stuffed it back into his left pocket before standing up. It wasn't the Aldebaranian who had spoken to him, but another human: male, light-haired, light-skinned, grey or blue eyes, a fine blond beard, medium height, medium weight, medium in all things, watching Will.
"You, ah, you have some nice things here," Will said, glancing at the spoons and the table of other kitchen tools next to them; Churchill whined, then lay down on the floor and stretched, swishing his tail. "Do you make them?"
"Design them. My employer has contracts with the manufacturers, I'm just one of the draftsman." The man held his hand out to Churchill, who sniffed it and allowed the man to pat his head, sighing contentedly. "It's not what I did before - right before - but I like it better. It's what I'm good at." This was said without pride, a statement of fact.
"Ah. I work on the ferries - the motors, repairing them and general maintenance," Will said.
"That's a nice line of work, fixing things. I like taking the ferries; it's very relaxing."
"Do you export any of your work - I mean, do you sell back east. Anywhere."
"Um. I don't think so," the man said. "Just locally. I could ask E'nememen Asfah about it, if it's possible -"
"No, don't - I didn't mean you should." Will looked at nested bowls in light-grained wood, picked up a steel grater with a handle that curved gently to fit into his palm. "This is all beautiful. Very well-made." It deserved better than desecration.
("He's out there again," Jack had said. "Like he never left. Almost everyone I've talked to doesn't remember, and the ones who do are sticking their heads in the sand. Hell, some of them still make their appointments, even go to his dinners. Our files, the evidence we had, none of it's reliable anymore. I'm trying to build the case again, but without you and Katz...")
"Pardon me for asking, Mr. -"
"Will. Will Graham."
"George Orr."
They didn't shake hands.
"Pardon me for asking, Mr. Graham," Orr said, "but you seem a little lost."
Will met his eyes briefly - they were remarkably clear - and looked away again, putting the grater down. "Isn't everyone, these days?"
"Do you dream, very much?"
"Too much." Will ran his fingers around the edge of a bowl, smooth and perfectly sanded, then crouched to rub Churchill's ears and keep him quiet. "I don't know if it's the problem or the solution."
"Sometimes," said Orr, "what you need is a little help from your friends. Or so I've found."
"My friends are -"
(My kitchen is always open to friends.)
He shuddered, covered his face with his hand and rubbed his forehead. He'd been lost before, his mind burning reality around him, and he had still managed to find himself, but the Break was eating at his foundations even so; had split him from the truth and thrown him into the lies of the past, into a world of phantoms and aliens and the wrong brands in the stores. If he went back east he would have to fight through it again, maybe not the disease itself but all of its symptoms, and the man who had breathed twisted life into the fire... He might find himself again, or this time the shadows might swallow him, the flies choke him, the waves drown him.
"They're lost, too, I guess," Orr said.
"Something like that."
Orr's gaze traced the path of Will's hands as he picked up a garlic press, a pair of spoons, a different grater, feeling the clean balanced weight of them all. "Listen, I don't like to interfere," Orr said, "I'm not - not that kind of person. But if you need a hand, before you go to sleep tonight, you could try this: Say Er'perrehne."
"Er'perrehne," Will repeated. The word tasted light and fluid. "What does that mean?"
"I don't know. It just - it might help, with your friends. And your dreams, if you're anything like me."
Will let himself look at Orr fully, meeting his eyes for longer than an instant, and the solidity of the man set him back. Medium can also be average, the point of equally distributed weight; George Orr, in his average existence, was as balanced as the tools he designed. He was someone who didn't get lost for long. Will felt his spine straighten a little from its slump, his center shift and settle.
"Sorry, I've gone on too much," Orr said, "you don't have to listen to me. I must sound ridiculous."
"No, actually - I think I'll try it. Thanks. It can't hurt."
Orr smiled at him, mild and sweet, and Will found himself smiling back. "I should go," he said, "I don't want to take up your time while you're working - but thank you. Come on, Churchill, time to get up." The light through the windows had lost its rainy gray tone and turned pinkish-gold.
Churchill scrabbled to his feet, then shook himself and splattered water across the entire display.
"Oh God," Will said, "I'm so sorry, I can clean that up - bad Churchill, you should know better," and Churchill gave him a reproachful look as if to say, I'm a wet dog, what do you expect?
Orr laughed. "Don't worry about it," he said, "it's something to tell Heather later, she'll get a kick out of it. She has a funny sense of humor sometimes." He patted Churchill's damp head again. "I hope you find the right way, Mr. Graham."
Will and Churchill got home while Abby was still in the ratty black T-shirt she used for pajamas, eating a peanut butter granola bar and scrolling on her tablet. "If I had to leave," Will said, "could you manage the rent on your own?"
"Huh? Yeah, I guess," she said without looking up. "They love me at this place. My programs are the bee's pajamas, I get loads."
"What about Churchill? Would you take care of Churchill?"
"Sure, we get along, he's a cool dog. Aren't you? Play it cool, Church."
Churchill yawned widely and spread out on the floor in a puddle of striped brown fur.
The scrolling paused. "Are you gonna leave?" Abby said.
"I don't know yet. Maybe."
"I hope you don't." She started scrolling again, then tapped the screen. "You're pretty cool, too."
When Will went to bed, Churchill was snoring on the battered oak floor beside the mattress. He stroked the dog's flank and Churchill whuffed, one hind leg twitching. "Good dog," Will said; he closed his eyes and left his hand on Churchill. As he faded into sleep he tried out Orr's alien word, whispering "Er'perrehne" into the flat pillow.
"You say something?" Abby asked, but Will was already gone.
He was out on the boat in the night again; the waves were low and gentle, and the moon's broad silver road lay over them. He stood up to look for his house and saw for an instant yellow light flashing across the water, and then the boat tipped over.
Instead of floating up he dove down to the seabed, where the sand glittered and boiled. A nest of sea turtle eggs was hatching, tiny black flippers cracking through shells and clawing up into the water. You can't do that, he said. You're supposed to hatch up there, on the beach.
But the hatchlings ignored him. They kept pouring out of the mounded sand in a frenzy, and the currents swept them around Will in a spiral until one caught in his hair. He untangled it and it said, Does it matter where we hatch, as long as we're here? Will released it and it paddled away, disappearing into swaying strands of weed. He tried to follow it but the weed pulsed, pushing him back up to the surface and the moon lighting a path across the waves...
He woke up cold and blinking at heavy sunlight, with Abby sprawled across her half of the mattress and wrapped up in all of the single blanket. When he sat up she mumbled, "Fed Church already 'n took him out. Gonna be late."
"That's okay," he said. "Just take care of yourself. And Churchill."
He turned in his resignation and collected his last paycheck, enough to get him back to Virginia. On the way back to the room to get his few things and wake Abby up for explanations and a real good-bye, he saw a pay phone and used some of his pocketful of change to dial the number for Molly's in-laws.
One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Click. "- got it - hello? Who is it?"
"Molly?"
"Will? Oh my God, Will, is that you?"
"It's me," he said, and he leaned against the scratched plastic wall and covered his mouth so she wouldn't hear his hitched breath.
"I thought you were gone," she said. "I didn't know what happened - it got dark and I thought it was a hurricane or something so I grabbed Willy and the dogs and then we were just - here, like we never left for Baltimore, except for the dogs. And it's been all mixed up in my mind, for a while I almost thought I never went east or met you at all... I called the house a hundred times but the number didn't work and the operator got sick of me, half the people in town I tried didn't know who I was talking about and the other half didn't know me. And when I called the FBI Crawford said he didn't know where you were - was he lying? I could about kill him if he lied about that."
"No, he wasn't lying - it took me a little while to get up there and then I didn't stay. I was driving all over looking for you two, I didn't - I didn't think to call, at first, and then I guess I got scared that I'd call and you wouldn't be there, either."
"Will Graham," Molly said, "for a smart man, you can be one hell of an idiot sometimes."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry." He smiled and felt salt sting the corners of his mouth. "Listen, I want to come see you two as soon as I can, but I need to go back to Quantico for a while first. There's a case there that I didn't - I ran away from it, actually."
"Don't you dare," she said immediately. "Did Crawford ask you to do it? Is that son of a bitch trying to pull you back in, because I'll tell him what he can -"
"It's not Jack," he said, "I have to do this for myself. This one - I can't let him stay out there, not and be able to face myself or you."
"It's Lecter, isn't it. Because of the Break. I wondered if it was, when I talked to Crawford. He sounded like a mess, that'd explain it."
"Yeah."
"Well, if you have to, but you're not going anywhere till you talk to Willy."
So he talked to Willy about the fishing trip he'd gone on with his grandfather and the pony he was learning to ride and the school he'd started going to, making up lost time from the Break, and then Molly held the phone close to the floor so the dogs could snuffle and whine at it while Will talked to them. When she got back on the line she said, "I'm going to drown this thing in hand sanitizer - Will, once you're finished you are coming straight back here."
"I am," he said. "I know the way now." George Orr had given him that; had been the counterweight he needed to remind himself who he was.
"You'd better. I love you."
"I love you, too."
He walked the rest of the way back to the room with the steady rhythm of his footsteps on the solid ground echoing the beat in his head.
My name is Will Graham. I'm here in Portland, Oregon, but not for much longer. And this, Dr. Lecter - this is always how I'll go.