Perfectly sane. The words rang through her head all night, as she tossed and turned and dreamed of the color red. Everywhere, yet when she opened her eyes, no where. They rang through her head when Jack called her, asking her to come analyze a crime scene.

They rang through her head when she saw Will Graham. She didn't know him, nor did he know her. She knew that he talked about her too much for her liking. Worried too much, yet knew too little.

The crime scene, unlike her house, was full of red. Red splattered on the walls, layered to leave a picture of an eye. The eyes in the corpses were missing, Lydia realizes as she walks along them. Each of them in their own artistic position. Some crossing their legs, others pondering their thoughts. Alive poses for very dead people. Lydia feels a sharp pain in her head, behind her eyes. So sharp she has to take a step back, sucking in a breath.

"You okay?"

She hadn't realized he had crept up on her so easily. She turned around, opening her eyes to see Will Graham looking at her, concerned.

"I'm fine, thanks." She breathes, turning away.

"Did you know, as cliches go, 'I'm fine' is considered one of the top three largest lies in the world?" Will says, standing next to her, "If this is too much for you, I'm certain Jack would allow you to leave."

Lydia lets her tongue flick out, wetting her cherry lips, "It's not too much for me. What about you? The grapevine tells me that you're unstable, should you be here?"

"Should you?"

She turns away from him again, "Are you a shrink? Is that why you answer my questions with questions?"

"No, I'm far from a shrink." Will smirks, looking down at his feet, then over to Lydia, "Have you had one of your.. err.. visions or whatever yet? Whatever you call them."

Lydia is taken back by how up front he is, she swallows hard. "No, I haven't. What about you?" She bites her finger, "What do you even do? No one's told me, no one seems to know. You know what I do, I feel like it's only fair that I get to know what you do too."

"It might frighten you."

Lydia nods to all the corpses, "This doesn't frighten me. I highly doubt that you will." She pauses, "Try me."

"I catch psychopaths, because I think like one. As some would say, 'I put myself in their shoes'. It's incredibly mentally taxing, hence why you've heard all of the 'unstable' talk, especially about me. I don't know specifically what you do, but please, entertain me." Will looks at Lydia sadly, "I'm tired of looking at corpses."

Lydia sighs, "I think we all are. My visions are strange, I feel this aching pain, then, as shown, I either pass out or just - I'm not there anymore. I'm mentally absent. I'm an observer, I can talk to the victim. They can't say that much, depending on how they died. The woman who got her face cut up couldn't talk to me. Sometimes I'm there while it's happening, but it's all static to me, I can't see the murderer, but I can hear them, what they say."

"That's amazing." Will compliments, "I can see why Jack prefers you over me. Besides you being prettier." He adds the last part with a chuckle, pushing his glasses up his face.

Lydia's face flushes, "Um, thank you?" She folds her arms over her chest, "So can you do that on command or is it something you have to wait for?"

"On command. I usually do it when everyone's gone." Will says, "I'm worried I might do something.. do you ever worry about that?" He asks timidly, unsure if he was treading into uncharted waters.

"I usually worry about snapping my neck when I fall down. I don't do much during visions, sometimes I cry, or scream. I never actually.. do anything. What about you? What do you do?"

"One time I contaminated a crime scene. Jack was not happy about that, pretty certain he was going to rip my head off." Will scratched the back of his head.

"Why do people call you unstable?" She finally asks the big question, her nosiness getting the better of her.

Will sighs, "I was hoping you wouldn't ask."

"Now why would you hope for that?"

"Some people ask questions even though they don't want the answer."

Did Lydia want to know? Did she want to know why Will was so distant? So vacant? Did she want to really involve herself into the mystery of him? Was Lydia willing to take a step forward, only to either be pushed back or brought in too close? Was Lydia ready for this?

"Some people have to ask the questions so they can learn not to be afraid of the answer." Lydia quips, letting their eyes connect. She won't tear her eyes from his when he gives her the answer, she won't let herself be afraid.

"I've been losing time. There are long periods in which, I have no memory of." He sighs, "I have nightmares, hallucinations, I've been to shrinks, Hannibal Lector being my main shrink. I've been to psychologists, and they can't find anything. According to them, I'm perfectly fine. But.. I can just feel there's something wrong, something isn't clicking." He taps the side of his head, "I'm losing time and as I lose time, I lose hope for an answer. That's why I don't like asking questions, because the answers are either not there or terribly complicated."

Lydia nods slowly, "Losing time? How do you know though? What if you're losing time right now?"

Will swallows, "There's a very strong possibility I am. But I don't feel like I am, I know when I've lost time because I wake up somewhere else. I always wake up, though I've never fallen asleep."

"I'm sorry."

Will looks over at her, shock ghosting through his eyes, "You have no need to be."

"I am though."

Will nods slowly, "Tell me why Ms. Bloom finds you borderline unstable."

Lydia looks over at him, "Do you want the answer?"

"Very much so."

Lydia sighs, looking at the ground, "I just hallucinate sometimes, I have nightmares. I tell myself it's nothing, I don't want to believe something isn't clicking. I feel sometimes that I'm unstable.. insane even. But I just tell myself I'm human, that it's normal to lock yourself into bathrooms and scream." She runs a hand through her air, "I don't like questions either." She decides then, "The answers are complicated." She pauses, "You must think I'm crazy now."

"On the other hand, I actually think you're one of the sanest people I've ever met."


The vision is so strong she almost falls off her feet. She walks up to one of the bodies, a young man, he's whimpering, she whispers to him, "Who did this to you?"

"Who's there?!" He shouts, frantic, he wants to cry but he has no eyes to cry with. He's going to bleed out, he's going to die.

"Shhh. Tell me, who did this to you." Lydia prompts him, hoping he'll stop panicking.

"No one is there, you silly boy. You're going to die, you're hearing an angel now. No angel will help you now." Lydia whirls around, hoping to see the murderer, but sees nothing, just a towel hanging in the air, rinsing off a bloody knife. "If only you could see. Then you could see. Now, the FBI will see. They'll see what I'm capable of."

"This isn't a way to get back into the FBI." The young man whimpers, wanting to cry, "You're nuts old man."

"And you're going to die, no angel can help you. You will lay there, and you will bleed out. And I will laugh, I'll laugh as the FBI struggles to find me. I'll laugh at them all, and your family will never have the taste of justice. I was in the FBI, I can dodge them just as easily."

"Who is he? Give me a name?" Lydia reaches out to touch the young man.

"I can't see him!"

"Do you know him?" Lydia prompts, "Come on kid give me something!"

"H-H-He was a friend of my Dad's." The young man moans, "Please help me, oh God help me. Are you an angel?"

Lydia looks at him sadly, "I wish I was. I can't help you." She soothes, "You won't be in much pain for much longer." She wants to weep for him, "Just imagine you're dreaming, that none of this is happening."

The young man whimpers more, "I don't want to die."

"I know you don't." She whispers. She reaches out to touch his face - right as her fingertips are about to touch, she's yanked out of the vision. When her eyes open, she finds herself laying next to the young man. She gets up, shaking.

She has his blood on her white blouse. She quickly takes it off, revealing the white tank underneath. She runs into the bathroom, trying to rinse out the blood - frantically.

"Bleach should get it out." Will Graham says, holding out a bottle of bleach to her.

"You were watching me?" She asks shakily, taking the bleach from him, rinsing it into the shirt.

"Yes." He answers plainly, "I wanted to see what you did. You were talking, did you know you did that?"

"I must have picked it up, like I picked up contaminating a crime scene." Lydia groans, scrubbing harder, feeling tears in her eyes, "I have his blood on my shirt, Will. I can't, I c-can't get it out."

"Here." Will lightly shoves her away from the sink, taking the shirt from her. "You're getting overwhelmed. Breathe." He tells her, coaxes her, "You're in Phoenix, Arizona. It's 11:49, your name is Lydia Evans, and you are going to be just fine." He says, the blood finally coming out of the blouse.

Lydia leans against the wall, sinking until she hits the floor, "Now you must really think I'm insane." She says, putting her face in her hands. She hears the sink turn off, but she doesn't move. Will sits beside her, waiting patiently for her to pick her face up.

"I still stick with what I said earlier." Will puts his arm around her, pulling her into him, "You, are perfectly sane. You are just perfectly frightened, as you should be."

Lydia closes her eyes, "I talked to him, that young man. He was so scared, he wanted to live so badly. I wanted to save him, I wanted to help him so badly."

"You can help him by finding his killer." Will reassures her, his face in her hair, "That's how you can save him."

Lydia gets up, shrugging Will's arm off his shoulder, "We should go, tell Jack what I did.."

Will nods, putting her wet shirt over his shoulder, "He'll understand, it's not like you've ever done this before. As long as you don't make a habit of it, besides, I think they were done here."

Lydia nods, hoping that he's right.

"I'll laugh at them all."

She hears his voice in her head and she wants to disappear.


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