Thank you to anyone who's taken the time to read my story. I appreciate it greatly. Of course even more so to anyone who took the time to review that is fantastically kind of you. This chapter is a continue of introductions. Notedly the relationship between Charlotte and Will. I promise some action will come soon but till then i hope you enjoy.

Chapter Two.

Will unlocked the front door to her apartment and followed the sound of her singing from the shower. She did have a beautiful voice. Will didn't understand opera but he understood that voice. He placed his bag down and glanced about her small home. It was cozy. Anywhere Charlotte went she made cozy. That was a strength that she didn't even realise she had.

He was going to surprise her and he hoped she'd be happy to see him. He felt so bad about last night. He'd canceled one too many times of late. It bothered him how blithe she'd become about how unreliable he was.

"Charlotte!" he called out as he took his coat off.

"William?"

She was the only person who called him that. He wasn't even sure William was written on his birth certificate. He liked the way she said it. 'Will-eh-um'. That lovely accent of her's caressing the word.

"Yeah!" he called. "I thought we could have breakfast. Where are you?"

"Shower!" she called. "Come in! Sit on the edge of the bath mon coeur!"

He obliged her. "My heart?" he called as he slipped his shoes off before taking wet footsteps across the bathroom floor.

"Are you learning Will?" she asked with a small giggle.

"No," He said. Two years should've been long enough for him to learn some French but he hadn't. Not because he didn't want too. It was because he felt as though French was her safety. She would speak on the phone in front of him in French. She talked in her sleep in French. She murmured French when they made love. It was like a cocoon of language that kept her gentle and kept her safe. He wasn't going to intrude

"So early Will!" she called from the shower. He glanced up from his thoughts. Will sat on the edge of the bathtub and nodded with a sigh. He couldn't see all of her in the shower. Just flashes of cream and peach skin. He watched her and smiled. She was very graceful. That was the first thing he'd ever noticed about her. Will watched her as she hummed to herself in the shower.

"Did you at least sleep?" she enquired gently.

"No-"

"Will!' she whined. "Will you are killing me!"

He chuckled at how dramatic she sounded. Charlotte darted her head from behind the shower curtain and narrowed her gaze. He smiled softly at her.

"I worry," she said with a pout and he gave her that cocked smile that made her heart melt.

"Worry about washing your hair," he told her. She playfully rolled her eyes but obliged by darting back under the hot water.

He heard her hesitate on her next question. He knew what it would be before she'd even spoken.

"Was your crime scene awful?" she called. He heard her trying to carry the words with confidence but she faltered.

Will stood and stretched. Rubbing his hands over his face he hesitated to tell her. She worried so much. It was causing tension. He felt the relationship become taught whenever they spoke of it. He felt her heartbreaking for him.

"If you do not tell me," she warned. "I will read about it on tattler-"

"Charlotte you shouldn't read it," Will interrupted. "It's trash. Have some respect for yourself."

She giggled lightly and wiggled beneath the cascading water once more.

"It was awful," Will finally answered. He sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. "They think it's the ripper-"

"Jack always thinks it's the ripper."

"Well this one isn't," Will said firmly. "It's not the same drive. It lacks cruelness. It's somebody trying to make a cheap dollar and that's it."

"A dollar?" she asked in confusion.

"Sometimes people sell organs," Will informed her. "It's lucrative. Relatively easy. If a person has even the slightest anatomical knowledge they'll be able to do it."

"Disgusting," she replied with a grimace and he nodded.

"Disgusting but not field kabuki," Will muttered. "This killer goes to pain stacking effort for his victims to survive. The ripper is desperate to show the world that he's smarter than it."

"Well so far he has been," Charlotte hummed and Will shrugged.

"I know," he said. "Just don't say that in front of Jack."

She laughed once more and turned off the water. Will stepped forward and handed her a towel. He caught a quick glance of her peaches and cream skin before the fluffy white towel enveloped her.

She smiled lovingly and kissed him softly. His hand rested on her back. She tried to kiss him deeper but he resisted. Charlotte pulled away, glanced up, and tried to hide her disappointment. She wrapped him close to her and sighed.

"I'm tired," he said quietly.

"I know," she soothed as her hand stroked down his hair.

Intimacy since Jack had begun using him had weakened. Charlotte saw it in Will's eyes. His imagination was so enwrapped in horrors and evil that he couldn't possibly imagine anything else. Yes of course she missed him. She missed it. She missed the way his lips pressed to her neck. The way his stubble tickled. The fluttering gasps he would illicit till finally she would abandon her English and moan softly in French.

Charlotte missed it but Will's well-being was more important to her than anything else.

It was on this thought of well-being that she was pleasantly reminded of her new acquaintance.

"Oh!" she said with a soft smile. "Oh! Will I met Doctor Lecter last night!"

He pulled away from her hug and blinked at her a few time.

"Doctor Hannibal Lecter?" he asked with confusion.

"Yes except i couldn't remember where i had heard the name. He was driving me home before I realised that it was of course your Hannibal!'

"He drove you home?" Will asked perplexedly.

She let the question hang in the air between them till Will blushed slightly. "Right…" he said. "Of course. I'll remember to thank him on Wednesday."

She kissed his cheek and wiggled away from him to dry her hair.

He followed her to her bedroom and watch her quickly and skilfully change in to casual and comfortable Sunday clothes.

They spoke over the roar of her hairdryer.

"You know he's just lovely," Charlotte called.

"I think he speaks French," Will replied from across the room. His fingers traced across the small figurines that Julian Komeda had left in the apartment. The whole thing was decorated with some sort of ridiculous luxuriousness that Will didn't understand. Charlotte however seemed comfortable here and that was all that mattered.

"He seems to be a man of many talents," Charlotte replied as she begun to brush her dried hair. "I said thank you for how fantastic he's been with helping you."

"You didn't need to," Will said. "It's his job."

She frowned and glanced up at him. "I was being polite," she scolded softly. "And more to the point William he has been very helpful."

Will shrugged and continued to walk around the room as she pulled her boots on.

"Are we going somewhere?"

She glanced up and nodded. "There's no food here. Maybe we can go to that diner around the corner?"

Will shrugged and she playfully rolled her eyes once more.

"Indulge me," she crooned softly as she wrapped her hand in his.

Will sighed and agreed, pulling his boots and coat on, before followed her form her small home.

"How did you even find this Doctor?" Charlotte asked as they set off down the street.

"Um… I didn't. Jack did. He was Alana Bloom's supervisor at John Hopkins," Will said. He felt Charlotte bristle and Will tried to tuck his smile away.

Charlotte was jealous of Alana. She had never said it aloud but Will could feel it whenever Alana was mentioned. The jealous bristle. The stiffness in her spine. The way her jaw tightened.

Will found it hilarious and endearing. The fact his beautiful French girlfriend found time to be jealous over him; a stray-dog-collecting, farm-dwelling, neurosis-riddled teacher. It was flattering.

"Would you rather Alana be my psychiatrist?" he asked and Charlotte turned a unfriendly gaze to him.

"Don't be coarse," she warned. Will chuckled and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

When they arrived she chose to sit beside him in the booth at the diner. Will took her choice to sit so close as a silent victory. They'd ordered the menu item that simply said 'breakfast' and settled in to their respective feasts of eggs, toasts, and sausages.

"I really liked Hannibal," Charlotte mentioned as she stole half a sausage from Will's plate. He feigned irritability but allowed her to take his food.

"Well at least you'll find some comfort from that," Will said and she nodded with a small shrug.

"Your comfort is more important," she said sincerely. Will smiled and wrapped an arm around her. Will kissed the top of her head. She cuddled very close. She fit perfectly beside him.

It felt nice. Will had noticed to his dismay that they'd been fighting with more more regularly as his weeks under Jack's supervision continued. Charlotte hated Jack with a burning rage Will wouldn't have ever guessed possible of her. She was usually so painfully polite. Kind and gentle.

When Will had come home covered in the blood of the entire Hobbs family everything changed. She'd begged Will to let her call Jack but he'd refused. More trouble wouldn't help. She'd been forced instead to stay calm and comfort will. She held him in her arms and told him how she'd use 'every single one of my living breaths' to 'protect the love of my life' against Jack's 'insane witch hunt'.

Will had stayed silent and she'd held on to him so tightly that night in bed it were as though she feared he'd slip away.

At least she liked Hannibal. She might be slightly more forgiving of Will joining the FBI as a profiler. His work scared scared Charlotte. Will could see it in her eyes when he spoke about it. He never went in to detail. Just enough so she wouldn't google it and get upset. They'd had screaming matches. She would usually be somewhere between rage-filled and sobbing. He'd close down and grow tired of the same argument.

It broke up into the same points always. She was worried; he'd tell her not to worry. She didn't like how jack treated him; he said it didn't matter because he was saving lives. She'd ask in a tearful voice 'what of your life?'; he would withdraw and tell her he was tired.

So the close intimacy of simply eating breakfast together in peace was not overlooked by Will.

He could see that she loved him more than life it's self.

Will however knew that her love was no match for the insidiousness of his work. It would catch up to her sooner or later. Like swarming crawling insects it would cover her and him. It would eat her alive and she'd be left with nothing.

It was best he kept at her arms length. Even if it was just for now.