Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane; Excerpt from Official Transcript; Supervising Therapist: Dr. Frederick Chilton; Patient: Lecter, Hannibal; (13:11, 6/24/2014)
/Audio Recording Edited for Content (Federal Authorization: 70392-Crawford, Jack; 6/12/2018)/
*Recording Start*
"-and the only reason you're even here is because I testified that you were more valuable alive."
"Losing control of your temper in front of your staff and patients? Not the most efficient way to run an asylum, one might think the stress is getting to you. Perhaps I'll write an article on your deteriorating mental state. I'm sure I can find a journal to publish it, after all my name carries such weight in our field-"
"I've worked too long and too hard on this, I will find a way to make you give me what I want."
"Is that supposed to frighten me?"
*Recording End*
Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane; Excerpt from Official Transcript; Supervising Therapist: Dr. Leslie Burnett; Patient: Graham, William; (8:19, 10/19/2017)
/Audio Recording Edited for Content (Federal Authorization: 70392-Crawford, Jack; 6/12/2018)/
*Recording Start*
"This is all a game. An epic, cataclysmic battle between a god and a man, and I'm just a pawn. The priest that can translate the text but can't write it. "
"Why would you believe that?"
"In what reality is it an approved therapeutic practice to place a patient in direct contact with their would-be murderer?"
"Are you referring to the fact that Doctor Lecter is housed in the same facility as yourself?"
"No, I mean I have been living in a cell next to Hannibal Lecter."
"That can't be right,"
"I assure you, it is."
*shuffling*
"But you're in a minimum security wing, it's in your file,"
"Tell that to the cannibal that talks me to sleep every night."
*Recording End*
Hannibal has studied the effects of social exclusion. In some circles, he's still a respected authority on the subject.
Perhaps this is why it is so difficult to watch his carefully crafted reality slip away, the beauty of a world Hannibal has spent so long creating devolving into a brick and mortar institution of unintelligible minds and cloying, pheromone-thick fear.
Rage claws at his innards like a disease borne of the flesh, and he feeds that imagined bacterium fire with knowledge of the world he'd left behind.
His sanity is never in question, for his mind will never really be his to lose. His patience, however; his finely tuned restraint, those things deteriorate with all the finesse of a crumbling dam. Playing these games, jumping through hoops like a well trained animal, truthfully he's torn.
There is the distinct pleasure of watching a man like Frederick Chilton choke on the fumes of his failure, but that failure is inexorably tied to Hannibal's public persona. Does he continue to publish, humiliating his jailer at the cost of offering the medical community an unobstructed glimpse of his psyche, or does he drop the veil and expose a man he's not even sure exists?
Hannibal lets his head fall back against the wall and allows the metal edge of the bunk press sharply into his calf. His muscle tone is deteriorating without sufficient protein intake. Too many carbohydrates. Vegetable slop that lacks sufficient vitamin content.
He can't stop the way his lip pinches up into what feels like a sneer.
He has to stop thinking about food. About freedom. There will come a time and place for such thoughts, but now is not that moment.
Hannibal relaxes his face, muscles loosening as he allows his eyes to slip shut. It has been far too long since he last meditated, and seeing as his schedule for the next hundred and twenty years has been left unoccupied, he might as well begin the practice again.
He'd missed his mental palace. Perhaps now would be a fitting time for a series of renovations.
"Years. I've known you for years. And all this time?"
"All this time." Hannibal agrees. "I feel like there is nothing I can say to placate you?"
"You're damn right about that." Alana Bloom pulls a folding chair from where it seems to be perpetually backed against the wall outside of his cell; placed, evidently, for the comfort of the endless stream of mental health professionals attempting to successfully profile him.
Her hair is shorter now, barely skimming the soft ridges of her clavicle bones.
"Should I assume you have worked past your revulsion toward me?" he asks her, as cordially as he can muster in a dull-blue jumpsuit.
"Oh, no, when you were caught I purged until there was very little liquid left in my body," she laughs without humor and twists at a silver ring on her right index finger.
"Every now and then I see an article about you, or your victims, and I get nauseous thinking, 'What part of that man did I consume?', 'Did I ingest that woman's flesh?". So, no, I haven't yet worked through my revulsion toward you or your crimes. That fact does not, however, make me any less curious about why you did what you did."
A small part of Hannibal, an infinitesimal part, really, wants to comfort Alana. Wrap her in a blanket and brush away the doubt that plagues her mind.
He had feelings for her once, and Hannibal remembers the spark of arousal that would burn through him whenever she wore that one burgundy blouse; always with a dark pencil skirt and two-inch pumps so as not to strain her arches. There was a time when he imagined what that outfit would look like strewn haphazardly around his office, her legs around his waist, heels digging into the meat of his thighs. That was some time ago, however, and he respects the woman before him now too much to defile her in such a way.
Nonetheless, he smiles at the memory as Alana barrels on.
"Hannibal, what happened? Really? A hundred and one studies pop up theorizing why you're you, and I've read them all, Hannibal, I have; but at the end of the day I knew you, I was your friend, and I had no idea. I still have no idea."
"You should not blame yourself, I have spent a great deal of my life hiding my proclivities." he tells her honestly, leaning slightly against the bars of his cell.
"I hope you have some idea what you've put me through, not that you care," she bites back, but trails off, for the first time seeing the drawings Hannibal has only haphazardly been able to place around his cell, her eyes catching on a sketch Hannibal has not found the energy to complete.
"Is that Abigail?" Hannibal maintains his position and waits for Alana to return her attention to him. "Why do you have a picture of her?"
"I am not allowed any of my personal possessions, it became necessary to recreate what I could."
The brief flash of pity that Alana displays annoys Hannibal more than anything else, even if there is a burn that accompanies the expression.
It's misplaced and infuriating.
"Where am I?" Alana asks suddenly, gaze fierce, and Hannibal recognizes the challenging tone. "Where's Will?"
"I knew you would come to see me at some point, it was not as vital an effort to capture your image on paper."
"Well that's a fuck you if I've ever heard one," she mutters, her stage whisper tenor carrying easily through the hallway. "But you expect to see Will again as well?"
"Why are you here really, Alana? It is not for an explanation, not really, and it's not for information," she makes a face at his remarks and he knows exactly what this is all regarding. "You're here to chastise me."
Alana narrows her eyes and stands abruptly, unable to prevent the chair from skidding back a enough to make a hollow sound.
"What you did was unforgivable, and I have no doubt that something in your childhood broke you so badly there was nothing left to fix, but dragging Will into this? You wanted him to suffer."
The accusation falls flat and the room echoes with silence as Hannibal formulates a response worthy of the woman that stands before him. Once a friend, a colleague; on more than one occasion an almost lover.
"I did not intend Will to survive," he starts, voice unrepentant.
"Obviously." Alana spits with all the venom Hannibal is sure she thinks he deserves.
"I did not intend him to discover my nature, I did not intend him to survive. Despite what you may think of me, my actions were meant to be merciful."
"Bullshit. If you wanted to be merciful, to protect him, you would have slit his throat; pierced his heart. A thousand deaths you could have delivered that would have been quick and relatively painless, but you gutted him. You wanted to hurt him. There is a legitimate reason that so many people think you had feelings for Will, and it all stems from the way you tried to end his life."
"No," Hannibal corrects firmly. "The rumors of a relationship stemmed from Freddie Lounds whoring herself out for unverified information."
"Information that has been backed up by behavioral scientists." Alana counters, arms crossed over her chest.
"Alana, you believe we were friends, and I seem to maintain the same delusion, so tell me, honestly, what do you think transpired between myself and Will Graham?"
"I think you manipulated him. You exploited his ability to empathize with psychotic individuals to place yourself in a position of power and to avoid detection as the Chesapeake Ripper."
Hannibal ducks his head in an understanding nod. Hers is a fair assessment.
"I also think," Alana continues, undeterred. "That you felt a connection to Will, which, given more time, may have developed into something tangible."
Hannibal drops his head and groans loudly to play up the dramatics of the moment.
"Not you as well, Alana," he bemoans. "After everything,"
"The way you attacked him, the damage you did, motive or no, indicates a deep-seated, self-directed and internalized rage at the committing of the crime in general. You wanted to punish yourself, and the easiest way to do that, the most painful, was to harm Will."
Alana adjusts her skirt, the unconscious motion signaling their conversation has come to a close.
"Go ahead," she says tightly. "Ask. I know you want to."
Hannibal pushes himself away from the bars and watches Alana. Her calf muscle twitching slightly from where she's trying not to bounce her heel and show her nervousness.
"How is he." Hannibal offers finally, and she blinks hard.
"He's mostly healed. He's being brought up on a number of otherwise unsubstantiated charges because of your relationship," she places a hard emphasis on 'relationship'. "Jack is fighting tooth and nail to get him off the hook, but after Gideon," she doesn't finish the though, and rightfully so. Gideon had nearly cost Jack his career, let alone Will's legitimacy in the field.
"Guilty until proven innocent." Hannibal tells her, the colloquialism bitter on his tongue, and she hums in agreement.
"No trial date yet, but they'll rake him through the coals for the sake of a story. Somedays I wish you had killed him. Saved us all the trouble of watching him die slowly."
Alana purposefully nudges the chair backward with the tip of her shoe, the sharp ring of metal on concrete reverberating through the hallway.
"I'll be seeing you, Hannibal." Alana tells him, tone indicating that seeing him again may be the last thing she will ever voluntarily do, so Hannibal waves a hand in dismissal.
She's almost out of sight when Hannibal whistles sharply and the click of her shoes halts.
"One last thing, Alana," he calls out to her. "You wondered what you'd consumed?"
The silence of reluctant curiosity is the only response he receives.
"I do care about you, as a dear friend and colleague. Perhaps that is why I spent so long curing the wine barrel."
Hannibal will go to sleep that night recalling the sound of Dr. Alana Bloom regurgitating her lunch atop Frederick Chilton's Italian leather loafers.