Chapter Two
After Zeller leaves, Abigail stays on the roof much longer than she'd intended to. The sunlight burns her eyes, makes her head throb, but she accepts the pain. Welcomes it, even. She hadn't been lying to Zeller when she said she'd hadn't forgotten, and sunlight was supposed to cleanse monsters, right?
Eventually, the nurse chasing her finds her on the roof, staring at the sun, and pulls her inside. Abigail follows without a fuss, though the nurse fusses at her, and, once in her hospital room, crawls under the covers of her bed. She can't sleep, so she keeps her eyes closed and tries not to remember the cellar.
Every day, Will improves a bit more and every day, he asks for her.
Every day, Abigail walks down the hall to go sit with him.
"So, what are your plans for after?" Abigail asks him. She's found it easier to divide her life into two sections: Before, and After. She rarely focuses on the present, and tries to focus on After to keep Before from overwhelming her. But the thought of After overwhelms her too because she has no idea what could possibly come after this-except death.
"Well, I'd like to go home," Will starts. "To Wolf Trap. Back to my dogs." She smiles at that; even when she was afraid of Will (Hannibal's insidious whispering echoes in her head even still), she'd loved to see his dogs.
"What about you, Abigail?" he asks softly, and she winces.
"Haven't really thought about it," she says, though she has. She imagines herself somewhere bright and sunny, head throbbing, and alone. The thought of where she would go, what she would do, who she would see, terrifies her.
"Do you have a place to live?" he asks, and she shakes her head almost violently.
"No," she says, and smiles sadly. "There's no place for me."
"There's a place for you with me," Will says, and it sounds like he's surprised himself as much as he has surprised her.
"You'd want that?" she asks, and even more softly adds, "After everything I've done?" He laughs the same breathless laugh as before.
"I want a lot of things, Abigail," he says. "And one of them was finding you alive. Now that we have that, everything else seems simple, doesn't it?"
"Simple," she repeats, chuckling. "Nothing has ever been simple for us." A nurse comes in with a tray of hospital food, and Will pushes himself up with a groan. Abigail's hands are on his shoulders to help before she can consciously think, and Will freezes. She pulls her hands away.
"Sorry," she says.
"Give it some thought," he says and, as the nurse chases Abigail from the room, she can still hear the pleading undertone of his voice pounding against her skull.
"Yes, I'm his girlfriend, and I'm very anxious to see him." A familiar voice echoes down the hall. Abigail tilts her head and her eyes narrow as the nurse's station comes into view. A mop of fiery red hair nods vigorously at the distrusting stare of the charge nurse, and Abigail tries not to lose herself in the garish plaid of the woman's overcoat.
'Horrid woman,' Abigail hears Hannibal's voice in her head and, for once, she is inclined to agree.
"Will and I have been seeing each other for a very long time," the woman continues and, despite her current feelings, Abigail remains impressed at the quiver in the woman's voice.
"Wow," Abigail says as she walks up. "The whole almost bursting into tears thing you have going on almost sounds genuine."
"Abigail," Fredricka 'Freddie' Lounds breathes, surprise coloring her voice. She composes herself and asks, "How are you feeling?" Abigail can hear the selfish desire for a story in her voice, clear as day, and wonders how she could have ever brought herself to ignore it before.
"This woman is not Will's girlfriend," Abigail states. "She's Freddie Lounds." The nurse makes a noise of outrage, and Freddie crosses her arms, smirking as though she isn't fazed by Abigail revealing her.
"And tell me, how do you feel about Will Graham?" she asks, all pretense dropped.
"I feel like he should be left alone to recover," Abigail shoots back. "He's a good man, not that you would know."
"Hmm," Freddie says as the nurse calls security. She pulls a notepad out, jotting something down and Abigail forces herself to hold Freddie's gaze every time she looks up at her. Freddie excuses herself before security shows up, and Abigail's brow stays furrowed about the encounter even after she arrives at Will's room.
"You okay?" he asks as she takes her place at the foot of his bed. She debates on whether or not to tell him, eventually on deciding to say,
"Freddie Lounds is lurking around the hospital."
"Ah," he says, pushing himself up and Abigail smiles at his even breathing. It doesn't seem to hurt his wound as much anymore when he shifts. "I was wondering when she'd show up."
"She tried to say she was your girlfriend," Abigail says, and Will laughs, holding his stomach.
"Well, that certainly takes the cake for the most outrageous story she's come up with," he says, smiling.
"You aren't angry?" Abigail asks.
"Oh, furious," Will states, still smiling. "But the company I have is too important to sour with a bad mood, don't you think?"
"You don't have to put on a show for me, Will," she says. "I'm angry, too."
"That's the beauty of hospitals, don't you think?" he asks. "We're angry, but we don't have to be. Time stands still in places like this, and we can save the anger for when we get out." He looks at her, once, before averting his eyes, and asks,
"Have you given any thought to…?" His voice trails off, as if he can't bear to voice his question for fear of the answer. This time, it's her turn to smile.
"I can't promise I won't be difficult to live with," she says. "But if you still have a place for me, I'll happily take it." He doesn't look at her, but he smiles and nods.
"I'll always have a place for you," he says. They sit in companionable silence after that, Will drifting in and out of consciousness, and Abigail staring at the sunbeams that shine through the blinds of the window. She remembers one of the many one-sided conversations she'd had with Hannibal after he'd captured her.
"He still dreams of you," he'd said. "I doubt very much you've ever had anyone who loves you as much as Will Graham in your life." Here, he'd smile. "And you threw that love away." She looks at Will, sleeping soundly, and listens to the even tell of his breathing to block out the beeping of his heart monitor. His hands lay on top of the blanket, and she covers one of them with her own. Even in his sleep, he reaches out and closes his hand around hers.
Abigail had a lot to make up for, and hopefully she had a whole lifetime to do so.
