AN: Enjoy! Hoping to upload more of this soon.

CJ&J

It had to be late at night. The darkness shrouded the room in a thick, wool blanket. There was an undeniable chill that snuck beneath the covers. It had to be late at night.

Will shivered, pulling the comforter to his neck and struggling to remain in a restful state.

He recounted in the silence of restlessness the day before. After leaving the crime scene, he had followed the others back to Quantico; Jack would've wanted to hold a meeting right away.

Will joined everyone in Jack's office, lingering near the doorway and against the wall. Katz and Price were already standing around Jack's desk like faithful watchdogs and Lecter had taken a seat. They were in the middle of something by the time Will had arrived and all looked towards the newcomer with renewed silence. Will had the feeling he was interrupting. He hesitated taking another step in when Jack gave him a nod of permission.

"Will, please, come in. We need your input."

Will smiled meekly. Regardless of working with everyone many times before, Will was never enthusiastic about being sociable. It was one of his stronger weaknesses, a fitting oxymoron, he would admit. In fact, he had admitted it. Yet, Jack was persistent.

The FBI Agent raised his eyebrows and seemed to hang on the edge of a cliff, awaiting Will's move. Lecter watched with an unchanging expression, sitting with crossed legs and his clasped hands capping his knees. When Will finally did decide to enter the room, the conversation resumed as if nothing had happened.

"The victim has been identified as Kathleen Ledger. Seventeen years old. We found a match on the missing list. She had first been reported missing three days ago." Beverly passed around a photo of the missing girl and a photo of the victim for comparison. It was an unmistakable match.

"Three days?" Jack frowned. "Seems like an awful long time to hold someone hostage in this instance."

"There was a lot of thought put into this. The killer wanted to make sure everything was perfect. Three days is what he needed to execute his plan," Will's distinct voice earned the attention of everyone. All eyes looked to their empathetic Profiler, all looking eager enough to start taking notes if they could. Will felt the need to continue. "The murder was theatric. He couldn't afford to rehearse so he spent more time preparing. My guess is that the three days were devoted to presentation; the note, the flower, and the antlers."

"Not the girl?" Lecter leaned back in his chair, breathing in through his nose and giving him a contemplative tilt of the head. Will suddenly felt as if he were sitting across from the man, feeling the arms of the chair beneath his clammy skin as he stared him down in the solitude of Hannibal's office.

"The killer isn't like the Ripper. He doesn't care about extracting organs or honoring the victims' bodies. Our killer was focused only on reaching the Ripper. The victim was merely wrapping paper for the letter. A vase for the flowers."

"Three days. That's a clue," Jack added. "She must have been kept somewhere for three days. Find where she's been kept and we might find our killer's lair. I want tests run on the body. Anything suspicious found on her, I want to know about it. Get me results on that letter and flower, too. I want to know what paper he used, where he got the flower, and what ink he used to write the letter with."

"We're on it!" Price and Katz gathered the pictures and returned them to the file before heading out the door. Katz offered Will a friendly smile on the way before disappearing with Price down the hallway.

Will started to follow them out the door when Jack called out to him. "Wait."

Graham slowed to a stop and turned around gingerly. He didn't like the sound of this, especially with Lecter sitting right there.

As if on cue, the doctor looked from Crawford to Graham and squirmed in his seat faintly, feigning a sensation of discomfort; something he never experienced. "Shall I go?"

"No. This concerns you, too, doctor."

"And what is so concerning?" Will asked, hesitantly re-entering the room. His voice was sharper than he had meant-or had he? Every step was a step closer to a mist that clouded his senses. It gazed back at him with a reserved smile.

Jack raised a brow at the shrewd Profiler, but he obviously wasn't impressed with the oblivious play. "I've decided to increase you mandatory visits to Hannibal's office."

That had not been the answer Will wanted to hear, even if he did have the sneaking suspicion it had something to do with the well-dressed elephant in the room.

"I've discussed this with Hannibal and Bloom. They both agree that you'd benefit from more consistent visits. If there is improvement, I may consider reducing the frequency. But until then, this is how it's going to play out."

Will was silent. His eyes scrutinized Jack's sincere, yet unyielding expression. Lecter chose a facade much harder to interpret. He did not meet his gaze and Will was almost convinced the Doctor felt awkward in this situation. But intellect told Will that this was not true.

"Was there something I did that made you change your mind?" Will pocketed his hands, forcing a smile on his face that looked less than half-convincing.

Crawford sighed, leaning forward in his chair, placing his clasped hands over his desk and resting his elbows on the edge. "It has come to my attention that you haven't been as focused as of late-"

"Focused?" Will laughed. "I'm more focused now than I have ever been before. The Ripper has an admirer who is going to kill again. I can't afford not to be focused."

Jack looked displeased, but apologetic. "I'm sorry, Will. Alana said you've been acting more erratically than normal."

Will tightened his lips, resisting the urge to clench his hands into fists. He knew exactly why she'd say something like this, but it still irked him she took such drastic action because of it. It had been a moment of weakness. A moment in which Will had opened up to her and told her how he felt.

Look where that got him.

"And Lecter?" Will drew his fierce gaze to the doctor who, just at that moment, looked up at him. "What was Lecter's diagnosis?"

Jack did not object, though he looked increasingly unpleasant. Hannibal shifted in his seat to look Will more directly in the eye. No longer did he look abashed. He didn't look displaced at all.

"I witnessed you on several occasions absent-minded. It would not usually be so concerning, however, I tried to bring you back to the present by calling your name, but you did not respond. I once even touched your shoulder but you still did not react."

"I haven't been sleeping well," Will admitted. Lack of sleep was not a crime, but Jack and Hannibal were not fazed by the revelation. Lecter actually tilted his head and frowned.

"I assumed it was because of sleep deprivation. However, the severity of your episodes can be the results of many other causes. Stress and trauma can cause you to become more easily distracted, loss of alertness and senses, confusion, and instability."

There it was. The key word. Just the sound of it slithering through Hannibal's lips made Will freeze. What was perhaps more chilling was the fact he couldn't rightly deny that he wasn't unstable. Jack knew it. Hannibal certainly knew it, as did Alana and even himself.

It was no surprise that the recent string of murders had made Will more distant than usual. More cryptic than normal. If Will wasn't already so introverted, this sudden development did not help.

"Trauma," Will growled. "What possibly could have traumatized me so much?"

Hannibal tilted his head in that way he did, the same look of non-judgement and professionalism blanketing all Will could perceive. "There are many things, Will."

And just like that, Will was assured that neither he or Lecter were talking about trauma.

Will had returned home after Jack won the battle. He was scheduled to meet with Hannibal twice a week.

As much time as that involved, Will could only find himself worrying about his dogs. Strangely, his initial distaste for the idea blurred into some other mundane reason and then it didn't seem to matter more than a daily nuisance.

But a nuisance nonetheless.

Will sighed, too frustrated about the day's events to even linger on them any longer. He turned over, his body resting on a sheeted mattress; he tossed the sheets and comforter off long ago.

Strings of thought tangled in his mind, flashing before his eyes like a plotting spider's web. Threads coiled around his head like boa constrictors, hissing whispers of misfortunes to come. Around and around they wrapped around the Profiler's tense body until he could barely breathe. Something akin to a noose tightened around his neck and his eyes watered as everything suddenly became so real.

He shot up from his bed, sitting rigid and breathing tight, fast gasps. A sickening iciness spread over his body, gluing itself to the beads of sweat twinkling over his brow and clavicle.

A whine preceded the familiar padding of paws approaching the bedside. A velvety, wet nose nudged Will's goose-skinned leg and two soft brown eyes peered up at him. Winston's ears were pressed down to his head, another whine of concern pushing air out through that nose pressed against his skin.

Will reached down and scratched the dog behind his ears, giving him a fond smile that was more straining than it should have been.

"Don't worry about me," he spoke softly to the dog whose eyes reflected the blue light streaming from the open window.

Those eyes snapped to the source of the ghostly light and Winston was suddenly half on the bed, ears craned forward and teeth bared as he barked frantically.

Will's heart skipped a beat, the dog's paws scraping their nails against his thigh as the dog continued to wildly snarl. Will jerked his head outside, squinting into the darkness. Then he saw it.

A figure.

His hands shot up to Winston's collar and neck fur, sinking his fingers into the soft pelt of the animal as it growled ceaselessly at the silhouette barely visible in the night. Terror gripped the Profiler's chest, keeping him in place. Keeping him staring out into the field where the figure stood.

His heart pounded. Blood drained from his face, from his fingers and toes. He could do nothing but watch. Watch as the figure seemed to shift. Seemed to split and morph into a horrific, spindly creature. A creature with spear-like antlers towering from its skeletal head.

Will's breath caught in his throat, his mind collapsing in on itself and he felt as if he were falling. Falling into nothingness even as his eyes continued to stare unblinkingly into that night.

Then he stopped. The spinning ended and he realized he had closed his eyes. He ripped them open and saw the same midnight rays filtering through the window. An empty field lit with a halo of blue.

His hands grasped nothing. His knuckles ached as he slowly lowered his arms, blood painfully rushing back into his fingertips. Winston was not there.

Panic flung Will from his bed, dragging him to the kitchen and only stopping when he saw the faithful dog lift its head from the floor where it had been laying peacefully. It tilted its head at Will. Utterly serene.

Will collapsed against the wall, a tortured sigh escaping his lips. He sank to his knees, his hands shaking uncontrollably. He pushed them onto his thighs to try and steady them. Calm down he repeated in his head. Calm down. Just a dream. Just a dream…

It was then Will felt the welts.

He breathlessly looked down to his bare thighs and lifted his trembling hands. Lines of red, swollen scratches met his eyes. He ran his fingers over them, feeling the raised, hot flesh of the cuts and the normal planes of his leg. This was real.

Not a dream.