O World of many worlds, O life of lives,
What centre hast thou? Where am I?
O whither is it thy fierce onrush drives?
Fight I, or drift; or stand; or fly?
The loud machinery spins, points work in touch;
Wheels whirl in systems, zone in zone.
Myself having sometime moved with such,
Would strike a centre of mine own.
Lend hand, O Fate, for I am down, am lost!
Fainting by violence of the Dance…
Ah thanks, I stand - the floor is crossed,
And I am where but few advance.
I see men far below me where they swarm…
(Haply above me - be it so!
Does space to compass-points conform,
And can we say a star stands high or low?)
Not more complex the millions of the stars
Than are the hearts of mortal brothers;
As far remote as Neptune from small Mars
Is one man's nature from another's.
But all hold course unalterably fixed;
They follow destinies foreplanned:
I envy not these lives in their faith unmixed,
I would not step with such a band.
To be a meteor, fast, eccentric, lone,
Lawless; in passage through all spheres,
Warning the earth of wider ways unknown
And rousing men with heavenly fears…
This is the track reserved for my endeavour;
Spanless the erring way I wend.
Blackness of darkness is my meed for ever?
And barren plunging without end?
O glorious fear! Those other wandering souls
High burning through that outer bourne
Are lights unto themselves. Fair aureoles
Self-radiated these are worn.
And when in after times those stars return
And strike once more earth's horizon,
They gather many satellites astern,
For they are greater than this system's Sun.
"O World of Many Worlds" by Wilfred Owen.
"You can make it all go away. Tilt your head back. Close your eyes. Wade into the quiet of the stream."
She's falling through the darkness. Above her, she sees bright and blinding lights-dimly, she thinks they must be the fluorescent lights of Hannibal's kitchen. She's falling until she isn't. Water splashes around her and she begins to sink. Only, as the lights begin to fade and red replaces them, she realizes she hasn't fallen into a river of water.
She's sinking through a river of blood, and it isn't quiet. It roars with a cacophony of hellish misery.
She opens her mouth to scream only to have blood invade her mouth. She tastes copper, and death, and the last meal she had with her parents and the first meal she had with Hannibal. She tastes Alana's screams as she pushes her through Hannibal's window, tastes Beverly Katz's first startled stare, tastes the love Will feels for her.
Will…
If she concentrates hard enough, she can hear his garbled sobs. It's getting harder to breath-it hurts, and the pain is centered around her throat, trying to keep her blood inside her body. She can feel the warmth of an untrained hand pressing down upon her wound and desperate, distorted pleas. Please, Abigail. Abigail, please. No, no, no, please. Abigail.
Abigail.
She turns her body, and can see an inky, almost blood red darkness below her. It's calling her name too. Wasn't there supposed to be a light at the end of the tunnel? She supposes that's meant for people better than her-people like Will, like Alana, and like Beverly.
People like Hannibal, and her father-and her-get that terrible, peaceful darkness. That blankness that envelopes like a mother's embrace. That nothingness that comes with the ending of a life.
Abigail!
Will, she thinks. Save your breath. If anyone is a survivor, it should be you. Not me.
She reaches for that blankness, but finds that she has stopped sinking.
Abigail!
The fluorescent lights push their way through the darkness, parting the red sea like Moses. I don't deserve to live, she thinks. Isn't that why she took Hannibal's hand?
Abigail! Will's voice is fading, still calling her name. He can't last much longer. She begins to swim, to kick her legs as hard as she can. She can vaguely see a hand reaching out for her.
She takes it, and becomes overwhelmed with a blinding light.
The sterility and brightness of the hospital will drive Abigail mad.
She knows she's uncomfortable because she's been so used to darkness and dampness. Hannibal hadn't kept her locked up long in the grand scheme of things-maybe about a year, probably less-but she'd gotten used to the darkness of his cellar. The lights of the hospital feel as though they will blind her. She reaches up to touch the bandage covering her neck-the second one in recent memory-and swallows past the pain in her throat. She swings her legs over the bed and stands, pulling her IV stand with her.
She walks out into the hall, feet covered in those nonslip socks the hospital gives out like candy, and walks to the nurses' station.
"You wondering about Mr. Graham again?" the charge nurse asks, though not unkindly. Abigail nods. "Hold on, sugar, let me call the doctor." She waits patiently while the nurse calls the doctor. He shows up quickly, shooting her a pitying smile as he walks up. The nurse talks to the doctor as if Abigail wasn't there, and the doctor turns to her.
"You're anxious to see him?" he asks, and she nods.
"This is this second time he's saved my life," she says quietly. "I want to thank him." The doctor nods.
"He is well enough to see visitors, though not for any long length of time," the doctor says. "Come with me." She silently follows him down the bright, sterile halls-her head pounds, and it feels like she will never get used to light again.
"Abigail, right?" the doctor's voice cuts through her splitting headache. "Abigail Hobbs?" She nods.
"Unfortunately," she quips, praying he doesn't mention her storied and bloody past.
"Mr. Graham's been saying your name when he drifts in and out of consciousness, almost like a prayer," the doctor says, surprising her. "I think he'll be happy to see you."
"I hope so," she says. They stop in front of a room, and she can already hear voices drifting out from it. She hears a voice she doesn't recognize and, very faintly, Will's answering responses.
"Damn it," the doctor mutters. "He can't have many visitors." He pushes the door open and Abigail winces from the bright sunlight that pours in from Will's hospital window. When she vision clears, a dark haired man with a cane walks out.
"Well, well-Abigail Hobbs," he says. "Quiet resilient, aren't you?"
"Dr. Chilton," she says, edging away from him to look into Will's room. She sees the doctor give him a sip of water from a cup with a straw. "How's Will?"
"Oh, I do believe our mutual friend will live, despite Hannibal's best efforts," he says. "Can't say if he'll survive what you'll do to him, though." Her eyes cut sharply over to him, and his smirk floods her vision.
"I'm just here to thank him," she says. She looks back into the room, the doctor motioning her inside. "And to apologize."
"I don't think things will ever be that simple between you," Chilton says. As she steps in, he grabs her arm and leans into whisper, "At least wait until he's out of the hospital before you cut out his heart?" She roughly jerks her arm away from him, and walks to Will's bed, shaken. He's sitting up, his heavy eyes widening as she comes into his focus.
"Abigail," he whispers. The doctor smiles, patting her on the shoulder as he leaves the two of them alone. "You're alive? How are-" Will hisses in pain-speaking aggravates his wound so Abigail answers his question.
"They said it was surgical," she says. "That he knew just how to cut me-and you. He wanted us to live." A faint, sad smile curls Will's lips.
"He left us to die," he whispers. She moves to sit at the edge of his bed.
"He always told me he'd take me with him," she says. "That we were all supposed to go together. That he made a place for us." She can't keep the bitterness out of her voice. "I believed him-even in the darkness of that cellar, I believed him. I-" she sees the blanket move, and Will holds his hand out to her. She takes it, feeling the weakness of his grip, and wipes away her tears with her other hand.
"Why did I believe him?" she whispers.
"I believed him, too," Will says.
"But you tried to stop him," she says. "Did you want to go with him?"
"A part of me did," Will says. "But the thought of the right thing to do being the wrong thing was a thought too ugly to bear."
"He talked about you," she says and, God, this isn't what she came here for but she can't stop the words spilling from her mouth. "When he would come to see me down in the cellar. Talked about the things he wanted to do with you."
"It's hard to grasp what could have happened," Will says, gasping. "What could have happened, and in some other worlds did happen." Abigail scoffs.
"I'm having a hard enough time dealing with this world. I hope some of the other worlds are," here, she pauses and sardonically smiles. "Easier on me." She rubs her thumb over Will's knuckles.
"Everything that can happen, happens," Will says, his eyes scanning the walls, the medical equipment, the ceiling-landing everywhere but her face. His breathing quickens, and he laughs mirthlessly. "It has to end well, and it has to end badly. It has to end every way it can."
"How did we end?" she asks, knowing her visiting time is up from the quickening of his heart monitor. He finally looks at her and smiles.
"We didn't," he says, and his eyes drift closed. She leans toward him, panic welling up coldly in the pit of her stomach, but she can still hear the erratic beating of his heart monitor. She's still leaning over him when a nurse she hasn't ever seen before comes in, and pulls her away from the bed.
"It's alright, honey," the nurse says, though her eyes look at Abigail alight with a sick sense of horror. "He's just fallen back asleep is all."
The nurse tries to urge Abigail back to her room, but Abigail loses her and wanders to another part of the hospital. At another nurse's station, she asks a different charge nurse about the woman she was held captive with for the last few months of her imprisonment.
"Oh," the nurse says, young and new and smiling brightly. "I'm not supposed to know this, but her friends snuck her out for a smoke. Our non-smoking area is across the parking lot, but I think they went to the roof." Abigail thanks her, asking the nurse not to tell on her either before walking toward the stairwell. She ducks into just as the nurse hunting her rounds the corner, and she jogs up the stairs. She pants heavily, leaning against the wall clutching her neck and stomach when she reaches the top of the stairwell.
"Ok, dumb idea," she pants. After a few deep, steadying breaths, she pushes the door to the roof open. She hears laughter, and sees Beverly sitting between a laughing Price and Zeller. The laughter stops when they catch sight of her, and Abigail wryly thinks that she's good at sucking life out of the atmosphere. Zeller's eyes narrow and he reaches for his pistol. Abigail stops short of Beverly. Her eyes meet his, and she watches his mouth pull back into a snarl. A loud smack resounds through the air of the rooftop, breaking the silence.
"Cut it out, Zeller," Beverly says.
"But, Bev-" he protests.
"Kid saved my life," Beverly says firmly. Then she smiles sardonically. "Though not my left," she adds, waving the stump of her left arm. Price snorts, and Beverly motions Abigail with her right arm, handing the cigarette to Price.
"C'mere, kid," she says and Abigail goes to her. Beverly wraps her in a strong hug. "How're you doing?"
"Fine," she says automatically, and Beverly raises her eyebrows sarcastically. "Well, not fine, but you know what I mean. You?"
"Better now I'm breathing fresh air," she says, taking her cigarette back from Price. "And, well, polluting said fresh air with my one bad habit."
"Just the one?" Price says, and Beverly shoots him a good natured 'shut up!'.
"How's Will?" Beverly asks, concern weighing down her previously light voice.
"Fi-Better," Abigail says, catching herself. "The doctor says he's out of the danger zone, and recovering. How are Mr. Crawford and Ala-Dr. Bloom?"
"Hell, nothing can put down the chief," Price says. "That man is too stubborn to die."
"Alana may never walk again," Zeller says bitterly, and Abigail winces when Beverly hits him with her good arm. "But at least she's still alive." Abigail falls silent and listens as Beverly and Price idly change the conversation to small talk, and ignores the way Zeller glares at her. Too soon, Beverly says,
"Well, I'd better get back to my room before the nurse's file a missing persons report." Zeller, Price and Abigail flinch. "Ah, too soon? Sorry." She stands and Price does as well.
"Zeller, you coming?" Price asks. Zeller takes another drag of his cigarette, eyeing Abigail balefully.
"Yeah, just gotta finish this first," he says, more toward Abigail than the others, and so she stays to hear what he has to say. When the others have gone, he takes a few more puffs of his cigarette before throwing it angrily to the ground.
"Just so you know," Zeller starts. "Bev may think you saved her life because you're a good person, but I haven't forgotten what you are."
"Don't worry," Abigail answers wearily, squinting at the clouds rolling by. "I haven't forgotten what I am, either."
I saw season 3 and, seeing as how some things were dumbass decisions, decided to disagree with them.
