There were flames that licked at the desolate corners of his mind. They warped the gray matter that lied there. They melted away the pitiful forts and barriers. They shaped that bone arena of his skull into new twisted forms. Then those flames were doused and there was only darkness; darkness that slipped into the bleeding wounds and sunken crevices, the gouged flesh of his brain.
"I feel poisoned."
But what sweet poison it was.
Rain poured over the roof of Will Graham's car. Its heavy beating all around him offered a dark symphony that ran in tandem to the steady thud of his heart. For one ephemeral moment time stood still. The rain hung suspended in the shadowy sky. The blood in his veins froze. The pump of his heart fell away into nothing. Then it all came rushing back with the tick of a clock and the beating of a war drum.
Will stepped from the car, his foot landing with a muted splash. Instantly rain drenched him, his hair lying slick against his head. He slammed the door with a resounding thud.
The air was still and stale. His eyes were met with the same sights. The office was dotted with familiar pieces: artwork and statues, chairs and the divan, the desk, the bookshelves, the windows, the curtains, the red of the walls. One inhale brought the familiar scents of leather and old book pages. His hands clenched at familiar hand holds. They held...one, two, three then they released, calm and resolute.
Familiar tones broke the silence; they lilted and rumbled and echoed through the air. "You sit in that chair, Will, as you have so many times before." A breath, a pause and the air pulsed with the beating of drums. "It holds among its molecules the vibrations of all our conversations ever held in its presence." The former silence swept completely out of sight, its pieces shattered.
The air was heavy with the thrum of drum beats. The tick-tock of a clock beat away at his brain. Each passing slip of time was punctuated, "All the exchanges..."
Tick
"petty irritations..."
Tock
"deadly revelations..."
Tick
"flat announcements of disasters."
Tock
The exchange continued; the beat marched on. "The grunts and poetry of life. Everything we've ever said... Listen." Already the phantom whispers settled in. They swarmed like buzzards on carrion, danced like notes in an opera.
"What do you see?" Murmured right against his ear.
"What do you hear?" The words reached him through a haze, a fog of other voices.
"A melody..." The answer waded back across time, twining together with the past and the present.
"What do you see?...What do you see?" It echoed again and again.
"The orchestrations of carbon, you and me." That familiar tone again cut through the smoke and water of his mind. "All our destinies flying and swimming in blood and emptiness."
Will took another step and another muted splash followed in its wake.
"When the fox hears the rabbit scream, he comes running, but not to help. When you hear Jack scream, why will you come running?" The question swam in and out of his brain. It twisted among charred remnants and shadowed corners. It waded across a rushing stream. It drowned.
"When the moment comes, will you do what needs to be done?" The question flared brilliantly red, burning.
"Oh, yes." The answer was ash.
The steady motion of a blade cut cleanly, easily as it slid through flesh and blood. It gleamed cruelly in the cold light and reflected dull, rusty eyes back. Rain came streaming down the windows; rivers and tributaries formed and met and trailed down into the darkness. The atmosphere was quiet. There were no dulcet tones of classical music weaving their way through the air currents. There was no pleased bustle. No joy. There was only somber resolution.
Hannibal looked up. He smiled pleasantly and greeted his guest. A mask of pleasure and propriety shuttered down and over his features. Their dance was an old one but with new partners. All the proper steps were made, each step matched cleanly with the appropriate rise and fall and beats. Yet his words were ultimately hollow and empty.
"The most beautiful quality of a true friendship is to understand them, and be understood. With absolute clarity." The statement slipped from his lips, rolled from his tongue. The words slithered away to distant ears.
A blade came whistling through the air.
"I died; I'm between deaths." Each word was a pained whisper, raspy and weak. The pumping of artificial oxygen and the dull drone of the heart monitor sunk into her speech. He looked on passive, but his eyes offered token sympathy. The faint fluttering of compassion laid in his heart. Compassion for the withered strength and faded beauty.
Another step. Another splash. The rain kept falling.
Deadened eyes stared off into the distance. The ticking once again echoed in his ears. He could feel the beating of his heart in his breast, the rushing of blood in his ears.
"I'm going to enjoy my resurrection; nothing sells better than a survival story." Her voice was smug but the softest he's ever heard it. All the same it struck him the same way it always had. It rang through his brain, struck dissonant chords and ran high and tinny.
"I wouldn't count us as survivors just yet, Freddie." His own tone was smooth and very soft. It spun away through the air as thin slivers of silver. Spidery tendrils of ink curved across the silver, twisting the two together. She continued on in the same steadfast way that has marked her entire career. She noted his tone but did not hear it.
"I'm counting me as a survivor."Her tone swayed with contemplative even nostalgic notes, and her story came spilling from her throat. "I started as a cancer editor at a supermarket tabloid."
"Cancer..." He echoed quietly. A face came floating out of the darkness; it hung suspended in front of him. "...very lucrative media." His words were pragmatic, detached. His eyes continued to stare distantly, watching as that face faded out of sight once more.
"Ain't that the truth." It was an almost flippant remark. Careless. Tasteless. He turned his eyes to her form. His gaze pinned her down, dissected her. He looked at her and saw fire. "'New Cures For Cancer'... 'Cancer Miracle Cure'," she continued in the same vein unknowing that he was watching her burn.
"We're all desperate for a little hope." He prodded at the flames burning before him. Then he offered her water. He held it before her eyes, and yet it dangled just out of reach. He watched as she shook her head; her eyes wide and her arms firmly held at her sides.
"You really don't know if you're going to survive him, do you?" He watched as the flame was snuffed out. He watched the dark smoke curl against the ceiling and smother the light.
Will's eyes fell on Alana's broken form: her limbs limp at her sides and her raven hair spilled across the street. She laid quietly like a fallen angel, drenched by the tears of Heaven and sparkling among shards of broken glass.
The baying of his dogs pierced through the smog. He felt distant. His limbs felt heavy and numb. Then gravity shifted and fell away.
His house rose on a crown of thorns, the leafless branches carrying it ever higher. Piece by piece the world fell away and crumbled, the shadows receded. Silvery moon light peaked through smoke and ash and woven arms. Its light bathed his skin and illuminated the forests of his mind. He saw.
He stood steady at the balcony of the world. His hands wrapped tightly around the rifle that had materialized in his grasp. The weight was steady; the gun was firm in his palms. Carefully he took aim. The crosshairs of the scope locked the stag in its sights. The stag burned. He fired.
Hannibal leapt the counter with all the grace of a panther.
"The punctuation at the end of a sentence gives meaning to every word, every space that precedes it." His tone was contemplative. He pondered not the woman wasting away before his eyes but another person entirely.
Will moved closer.
"These are your notes on me." A brow quirked with curiosity as darting eyes took in the elegant swirls of script and the paper clipped drawing of a malformed clock.
"So they are." The simple, matter-of-fact answer drifted down among the fluttering of detached papers and the thuds of notebooks.
The papers, the notebooks, and the melted clocks were all gathered calmly and tossed into the fireplace. They burned together. Tongues of red, yellow, and orange lapped at the edges. Smoke rose and the remains curled and crumpled and fell to pieces. He looked on quietly and the fire reflected back in his eyes. They danced in that void of his pupils, lashed across the vibrant blue of his irises.
"Won't your patients need these after you're gone?" The fire continued to burn.
"The FBI will pore over my notes if I left them intact." The answer came from behind him; the owner of the voice now at his back as if he were there the entire time. "I will spare my patients the scrutiny." The crackling of the fire filled the void. "I'm dismantling who I was and moving it brick by brick." More pieces of paper were engulfed and turned to smoke and ash. "When we are gone from this life, Jack Crawford and the FBI behind us, I will always have this place."
"In your memory palace?" A body turned; it shifted with slight bemusement.
"My palace is vast, even by medieval standards. The foyer is the Norman Chapel in Palermo. Severe, beautiful, and timeless with a single reminder of mortality, a skull, graven in the floor."
"All I need is a stream." The answering reflection was almost amused.
"In those moments when you can't overcome your surroundings, you can make it all go away."
"Put my head back, close my eyes, wade into the quiet of the stream." He added his own idea of peace to the words. It wasn't an immense palace filled with famous, stunning architecture but simple nature. A current washed through his mind in place of towering walls.
"If I'm ever apprehended my memory palace will serve as more than a mnemonic system; I will live there." The statement was simple but its meaning resounding. It echoed through the space.
"Could you be happy there?" It was an entreaty for one last affirmation. The final pieces of a shrouded puzzle trying to fall into place.
"All the palace chambers are not lovely, light, and bright. In the vaults of our hearts and brains danger waits. There are holes in the floors of the mind." It was the clearest allusion to the troubled past that forged a monster: the creature thought to have died, the thing put on the machines, the beast that survived, the one no one can see. The last vestiges of thought clicked into place. The seams between the pieces blurred and faded. Only one solid image remained.
Blows were exchanged. Hannibal and Jack ducked and wove and danced one final dance. Their fists and bodies thudded heavily against each other, blood smeared and bruises blossomed.
A deep inhale and the sharp scents of ink and paper and daring wafted up from the confines of hair strands.
An image formed. An image shattered.
Hannibal's hand curled around a shard of glass that laid glinting at his feet. A sharp thrust upward sent a spurt of blood flying and a pained bellow. The tie unfurled from around his throat.
The notes of a classical piece drifted through the air. The atmosphere felt darker, tenser. He was almost tempted to fidget in his chair. Normally steady fingers twitched against the stem of a wine glass. Both forms were agitated.
"Do you know what an imago is, Will?" The question was ended with the calm slicing of a piece of meat. A fork was delicately lifted to thin lips; the meat was chewed then swallowed. A sip of wine chased after it.
"It's a flying insect." The answer was short and laced with a dart of confusion.
"It's the last stage of a transformation."
"When you become who will you be." The metaphor was completed with more confident familiarity.
"It's also a term from the dead religion of psychoanalysis. An imago is an image of a loved one buried in the unconscious, carried with us all our lives." Darkness laced the words like arsenic. Another sip of wine. Another swallow.
"An ideal." Another conclusion half-muttered as the image of flame burnt in his brain.
"The concept of an ideal...I have a concept of you, just as you have a concept of me." He glanced up now hearing new meaning.
"Neither of us ideal." There was a certain pleasure in these words. His mind's eye still watching flames burning.
Finally, Will stood above Alana. He stood hunched over her. A cold, stillness filled him; his features carved from stone. He continued to stand there as his body dripped more rain on her already soaked form.
Will could see his dark reflection peering back at him through her dazed eyes. Her lips parted to speak. She never got the chance.
"You moved my punctuation mark, Dr. Lecter, you moved my meaning." The words were weak in volume but strong in accusation. They were condemning.
"Love and death are the great hinges on which all human sympathies turn. What we do for ourselves dies with us; what we do for others lives beyond us." He offered no apologies.
"You saved me for Jack. Will you save him for me?... When I'm gone." There was a plea in her eyes. It was desperate. It was the final love of one soul to another. Silence was its only answer.
A coat fluttered down onto Alana's still form. More blood pooled; it ran in rivets with the water down the drain and out of sight.
"We could disappear now, tonight. Feed your dogs, leave a note for Alana, and never see her or Jack again. Almost polite."
"Then this would be our last supper."
"Of this life." The words were reminiscent of those said to another, very different individual some months ago. "I served lamb." This tack was almost unnecessary. Eyes darted to the arching ribs of the lamb that served as a centerpiece.
"Sacrificial." The symbolism of it noted and stated, a certain irony enunciated with each syllable.
"I don't need a sacrifice, do you?" Eyes locked and something heated passed between their eyes, something angry, something passionate, something prowling.
"I would forgive you. Would you accept forgiveness?" The deeper meaning was heard and understood. Eyes returned to the carefully placed ribs on the table. Those same eyes soaked up the placement of various fruits at its base: grapes, apples, split pomegranates. A pendulum swung and there stood innocence, sacrifice, seduction, darkness, and betrayal.
"The truth..." The words were muttered but a note of steel laid buried in the tone.
"To the truth then, and all its consequences." A wine glass was raised. A figure stood. Through the air flew a scent of ink and spice and daring and the undertones of rust and iron.
An image formed. An image shattered. A hopeful truth was not fully uttered.
Another lunge was made for the door but it held firm.
"Hannibal!" The cry rang out short and angry almost guttural in nature.
I feel wounded.
"I was hoping you and I wouldn't have to say goodbye, nothing seen nor said. You may have found that rude." Hannibal tried to make some light of the situation. He had no true desire to lay slaughter to more friends.
"Stop!" It was a fierce bellow. Words would not soothe her; her convictions would not ease.
Ring
The trill of his cell phone rang in the confined space of his car. He answered the phone holding it pinned with his shoulder while he drove with the other hand. He took in the hurried rush of Alana's words. She warned him that the FBI was on their way to arrest both him and Jack.
His eyes were alight. "Thank you. Goodbye, Alana." It was spoken with complete finality. There would be no return from this.
"I was so blind." It was a broken whisper for a dear friend she now realized she never knew.
"In your defense I worked very hard to blind you." His tone was almost sympathetic. "You can stay blind, you can hide from this, walk away." Alana was always polite and always intelligent. Hannibal didn't mind giving her one last chance. "I'll make no plans to call on you, but if you stay I will kill you. Be blind, Alana, Don't be brave."
Click Click Click
The sound of a gun firing with empty chambers filled the hallway.
"I took your bullets." I took your strength, your weapon. I took your trust.
Hannibal watched as terror washed across her face. Each pull of the trigger yielded only hollow clicks not sharp bangs of a successful shot. She turned, her hair whipping around her as she fled. Hannibal calmly stalked after her. He set the two knives he had been wielding down. He would not need them.
She darted away slamming the door behind her. Hannibal stayed clear not particularly surprised when shots burst through the door.
"I found more bullets." I found my own strength, my own weapon. I found more trust to give. But not to you.
Hannibal simply waited out of range. It was simple to avoid a gun being fired blind through a door. He listened closely as soft footsteps emerged from a place in the corner of the room. There was silence and another rapid whirl on Alana's point. He could hear the sharp intake of breath, the stumble, the exact moment when she realized she was not alone.
"Abigail...?" The tone was confused and disbelieving. The footsteps came closer to where Hannibal knew Alana stood.
"I'm so sorry." It was barely a whisper but it was dripping in regret and fear and clearly distraught.
Will ended his call with Alana, the last goodbye already said. He pressed 1 with his thumb and speed-dialed a very different person. The world was still. His gaze was steady.
"They know."
Hannibal closed his eyes as he heard glass shattered. All truths were now revealed. His eyes snapped open and darkened, all but one.
Will stalked into the house, the fallen form of Alana sprawled out behind him. As he moved he noted the blood seeping out from behind a closed door. It was clearly Jack's; if it were Hannibal's he would not be locked in the pantry.
A slight shift from behind him caused him to whirl. Stunned silence followed as he took in what he saw.
"...Abigail?" He questioned, his tone echoing Alana's from only a few moments before.
Her form trembled before him. She had never appeared younger and more vulnerable than in this moment, not even when Garret Jacob Hobbs had held a blade to her throat. "I didn't know what else to do... s-so, I just did what he told me." She stuttered unsure and wary. There wasn't a hint of the budding confidence or sly manipulation that Will remembered seeing in her.
"Where is he?" Will shuddered now completely aware that Hannibal had not already fled like he had hoped. He saw her eyes dart up and over his shoulder. Of course...
"You were supposed... to leave." Will turned slowly his steps slightly shaky. He plead with his voice and eyes, he urged the man to go now.
"We couldn't leave without you." The words sent something warm bolting through Will. He would not have suspected that Hannibal was capable of such sentiments. Hannibal's hand moved up to gently caress his cheek. "Time did reverse, the tea cup that I shattered did come together." Will's heart shuddered. Abigail remained frozen behind them. "A place for Abigail was made in your world, do you understand? A place was made for all of us, together. I wanted to surprise you ...and you, you wanted to surprise me." A pool of dread crept into Will's stomach. It overtook the feeling of warmth that Hannibal's unexpected care had aroused. "I have let you know me, see me. I gave you a rare gift, but you didn't want it."
Will saw the glint of a curved blade at Hannibal's side. Before Hannibal could fully move to strike, Will lunged and bridged the last gap between them. He embraced him and wrapped his arms fully around the man. It was startling enough to cause Hannibal to pause for just a moment. Gladly seizing the chance Will whispered right in Hannibal's ear, "Didn't I?"
Will continued knowing better than to let the tiny bit of momentum he had grabbed go, "To the truth and all its consequences." The echoing of Hannibal earlier attempt to get Will to admit his betrayal caused the man to tighten his own grip. The tip of the blade pressed warningly against Will's side. The only thing that stayed his hand was the remembrance of that scent at their last supper. "I didn't kill Freddie Lounds." Will smiled a dark smile against the column of Hannibal's throat. "At least not when I claimed to have."
Hannibal pulled back grasping Will's face firmly in his palms. The handle of the blade dug into Will's left cheek. The two locked gazes completely; Hannibal trying to ascertain the truth of Will's words and Will trying to convey his honesty. Evidentially Hannibal found some measure of what he was looking for because his eyes softened and his grip loosened.
"What was your design for this night, Will?" It was a command barely veiled under the veneer of a question.
"I hoped you would leave immediately after my call; that'd you'd be gone before Jack arrived. Kade Purnell, " the name was said with just the hint of a sneer, " believes in all the legalities Jack was willing to disregard in his blind pursuit of the Chesapeake Ripper. Freddie Lounds..." Will chuckled rather darkly, "Ms. Lounds would show up across town rather gruesomely displayed, baring all the hallmarks of the Ripper. One last masterpiece."
Hannibal's eyes darkened once more. This time it was with pleasure rather than anger or betrayal. "Not only would Jack be found guilty of breaking the law, he'd be found guilty of breaking the law over the wrong man." Hannibal's thumbs softly moved over the curve of Will's cheeks. "What a delightful gift you have given me."
"Yes." The word slipped out in a pleased hiss, drawn from between his teeth. "I would always have come here." Will trailed off; pleasure unfurling in his gut from such delicate touches. "To see if Jack were dead and if he weren't ...I'd be the fox that came running. "
Hannibal smiled allowing his hands to fall from Will's face. "It's time we left." Abigail slumped with relief in the background, glad everything seemed to have worked out.
The three walked out into the rain together each in step with the others. They slipped past Alana's cooling corpse and Hannibal eyed it with a shadow of regret. His eyes returned to Will, "She should have chosen to be blind."
Will glanced at him in askance answering the unvoiced question, "she would not have been able to handle two betrayals." The three silently slid into the car Will had parked around back. They disappeared into the night leaving the sounds and lights of police cars in the distance.
"Jus d'orange? Eau? Champagne?" The flight attendant walked down the aisle politely inquiring if anyone would like a drink.
"Jus d'orange? Eau? Champagne?" She repeated. Abigail sat at the window seat content to watch the clouds soar by.
Will rose an eyebrow at Hannibal, "No champagne?"
Hannibal smiled. "No, j'en ai assez." Will recalled just enough childhood French to understand that Hannibal had said he and Abigail were enough. Will smiled back, pleased.
Hannibal leaned closer his lips pressed to the shell of Will's ear. "I am curious though...what exactly did you do to Ms. Lounds?" Will closed his eyes as he turned his head. To unknowing observers they looked like two lovers murmuring sweet nothings to one another.
The golden pendulum swung in his mind and Will whispered back.
"I cut her lying tongue from her...
A suppressed cry as gloved hands pry her jaw open. A slash of a blade removed the offending muscle.
"She is unworthy of it only ever using it to harm others and help her wiggle her way out of trouble. I tear away her lips...
More brutal slashes rend flesh from bone. Her teeth gape from her torn face now permanently bared.
"marring the pretty features that she used to take advantage of officers and agents alike. I shred her pretty throat and wrap her vocal cords around her neck...
Blood soaked hands yank stringy cords from a thin throat. Fingers run over the cords. The hands then twist them, almost lovingly, and twine them tightly around a column dripping crimson.
"make her choke on her own words. No more vulgarities and untruths will be uttered by her. Then I split her chest open and take her heart...
Ribs splinter and part with sharp cracks. Carefully the ribs are placed leaning like a supplicant in prayer, like a sacrificial lamb. A hand reaches between them gently tear free a heart.
"It was cold, and cunning and laid unused in her breast. I burn it because she is fire and I have no need for Freddie Lound's heart...
The flame consumes the bloody piece of flesh. The fiery tongues finally lick at her and turn her to softly curling smoke.
"Finally I take her lungs...
The hands return slicing away more flesh. They remove the lungs and rearrange the ribs back into their proper position.
"I do this in remembrance of Cassie Boyle, to honor the first kill you ever gifted to me.
The pendulum swings one final time. Eyes open and hooded gazes meet.
"This is my design."
AN: Cover image is beautiful and not mine. In order to get their faces to fit I had to move them closer and it erased the ownership mark. was what it said if you're curious. Yes, this is a shameless fix it fic because mizumono left me broken. All I wanted was my murder family dammit.