Disclaimer: The characters and concepts in this story are the property of Thomas Harris, Bryan Fuller, and their related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.

Summary: "If space is infinite then there's tons of yous out there and tons of mes."

"I like that thought. Somewhere out there, I'm having a good time." (Rabbit Hole)

Two different Molly Fosters. Two different Will Grahams. Just two out of innumerable possibilities. AU.

Author's Notes: This story has given me a lot of pause. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to handle writing two separate universes without being boring and repetitive. That's when I decided to just make this a straight-up world collision. Enjoy!


The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

Marathon, Florida

The collie was new. She appeared in a flash of sunset, or so it appeared to Will, though she must have simply been hiding amidst his other dogs on their great race down the beach.

Her coat blazed copper in the setting sun. There was no collar about her neck, but Will knew she wasn't a stray. Her right foreleg was gone and neatly replaced with a bald patch of skin that, while still knitting, did nothing to stop her fun. Few veterinarians would have performed an amputation on a stray. Euthanasia was cheaper and required less effort.

Will checked the beach for her owner. No candidates presented themselves. A small handful of people dotted the shore, but they were too preoccupied with the sunset or each other to be concerned with the dogs. There was no one lurking in the small cluster of palm trees nearby either. Somehow, the collie had found her way into his pack of mutts without a single instance of in-fighting and Will noticing.

Her strangeness registered as being inconsequential, and Will welcomed that. He welcomed the sedate banality of life in Florida, the comfort of fixing boat motors, the company of dogs, the interminable length of hours. He felt clear and untethered. Free floating like a boat in a placid cove. Better still, the feeling was accessible at any time. He walked twenty paces from his trailer and ended up outside himself.

Just what he needed when Hannibal Lecter decided to send a letter.

Will wouldn't have opened it, not for anything, had he known the sender. Incarceration gave the doctor distance though, so Will had torn into the envelope and found himself staring at the carefully penned script written in the doctor's fine hand. The sky drowned out most of what the doctor had written from his memory, but some words still remained. Something about scars, something about friendship, something about whether or not he was dreaming: Will could hear Lecter's voice purring in his head again. Only the water had given him any kind of relief.

Barely a year had passed since their last encounter. Will's wound still throbbed with phantom pains. He would wake up with the linoleum knife still carving its way through his midriff. His intestines spilling on the floor. The air thick with the scent of his own bowels. Outside, he could diffuse. He followed the dogs on their long treks in the surf; he stood with the waves lapping at his ankles and let himself be carried far out to sea, to the places where the water and sky were the exact same place. Inside – the trailer, himself, same difference really – he was still screaming most of the time.

He cast a glance over his shoulder to the trailer behind him. The door was swinging open on its hinges. Will hadn't even bothered to close it after opening the letter. He could still see the rich, white paper lying on the floor. Dr. Lecter's silhouette passed over the back wall. Will turned away and stared back at the dogs. They made one last loop of the beach, the collie trailing behind now, and then headed straight for him.

Beneath the salt, surf, and sand, Will swore he caught the scents of antiseptic and pine. Just how fresh was the collie's amputation? He ministered to his dogs first, and then reached towards the newcomer. She nuzzled her face against his palm immediately. No need for her to smell Will: she already knew him.

"Hi."

Will looked up in surprise. Human voices so rarely disturbed him here, especially those from outside his head.

She was wearing yellow. He never forgot that, or the way she so effortlessly ingratiated herself in the company of his dogs.

Will was glued to his spot and not just because of the letter waiting for him in the trailer. The last time he had been in someone's company had been to say goodbye to Alana Bloom before leaving for Florida. Their parting exchange didn't serve as a good model for a conversation. Will's eyes danced along the horizon, searching for somewhere that didn't have to do with her. With the freckles on her shoulders, the slope of her collarbones, the round, wide, openness of her eyes. He eventually ended up looking at the dogs instead.

The collie was gone.

He searched the beach. "Something wrong?" she asked. Will swallowed hard. There was no sign of the dog anywhere.

"Thought I saw something…" he muttered, scrambling for cognitive purchase. He found none. "I have to go."


Great Fall, Virginia

The collie was gone. Molly threw open the door of the kennel and slammed her hands around the metal interior, as if the dog could be hiding somewhere in a steel box. She then made another frantic search of the corridor and the exam rooms. The dog was nowhere to be found.

"Did someone come for the collie?" Molly asked the tech at the front desk. He answered in the negative. "Then where is she?"

"She was in the cage a minute ago."

"Yeah, well she's not there now," Molly rushed off again.

The kennel was still empty when she got back there. So was the corridor, so were the exam rooms, so were the back alley and open lots surrounding the clinic. Molly stood in the parking lot, hands on her hips, trying and failing to wrap her head around a dog still recovering from a traumatic amputation had somehow escaped from a locked, steel hole-in-the-wall. She was still standing there when Will Graham pulled up in the parking lot.

"Lost something?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied, "I've lost your dog."

Now it was his turn to wrap his head around the idea. "You lost my dog," he repeated. Molly nodded. "Were you taking her out for a walk?"

"I don't even know how she got out of the kennel."

"She couldn't have gone far."

"No."

"Did anyone see her go outside?"

"Nobody saw her outside of the kennel," Molly sighed. She turned back towards the clinic. "I don't know how she could have escaped." Her amputated leg notwithstanding, the collie's kennel door was still locked when Molly found it just moments ago.

Will said nothing. He scanned the street for any signs of a runaway dog. "She couldn't have made it far."

"No," Molly sighed again, louder this time. The dog's disappearance didn't make any sense!

The door to the clinic flew open. "Dr. Foster?" the technician asked.

"Yes?" she couldn't tear her eyes from the street.

"The collie you're looking for? She's locked up in the back."

"She's what?" Molly charged into the building. Will followed at a respectable distance. The tech led them both to the kennels in the back, where sure enough, the collie was carefully shut away. She was standing on her three remaining legs, tail wagging happily, ready to go home.

"Unbelievable," Molly breathed. She watched in awe as the technician opened the door to the kennel. The collie limped towards Will's outstretched hands. "She wasn't there. I know she wasn't there."

The technician shrugged, "I don't know what to tell you, Dr. Foster. She's there now." He walked back to the front desk.

"One of the assistants must have taken her," Molly noted, to no one but herself, she realized. Will was in his own world again, alone with the dog, and there was nothing that could compel him to return to the conversation. The level of devotion he displayed never ceased to amaze her. She had to take several steps away from the scene to clear her head and catch her breath. The whole event just seemed so impossible.

"Her feet are wet."

"What?" Molly hadn't understood a word of that.

"Her feet," Will said, pointing, "they're wet."
"Why would they be wet?" she marched over and bent down. Sure enough, all three of the dog's paws were soaking wet. There were even small tufts of wet fur dotting her body. Molly tugged the blanket from the base of the kennel and dabbed the areas gently. "This isn't from a bath."

"Salt water."

"Salt water?"

"It's salt water," Will remarked. "She's been running in salt water."

"Now that she actually can't have been."

Except that when she leaned close enough and smelled, the smell of antiseptic dispersed to reveal an underlying scent of sand and surf. Molly opened her mouth to explain, but there were absolutely no words.