Author's Note: Yes, I do still plan on posting every Sunday. This chapter is a bit early because tomorrow I'll be rather busy all day.

Be warned: this chapter contains some gore, although it's none more extreme than seen on the show. While this story is eventual Hannigram, this chapter features a good smattering of Willana friendship.

As usual, I do not own the show or the characters, and while I make no profit by writing of them, I'd love it if you'd review!


"Will!" a young woman screamed.

Will stood a few feet away from the scene, watching a girl claw at a pair of outstretched, toned forearms. The long strands of the girl's hair were tousled from the rest she'd just been disturbed from, as well as the struggle for her life she was in. There were two large hands pinning her down to the bed by the throat; the figure responsible was shadowy, not recognizable.

She called out to him a second time, head lashing out to the side. Her henna-colored tendrils whipped about as she made panicked eye contact with Will.

"Help me!"

Will gasped. He knew that cry, those eyes, that hair.

"Abigail!" he cried, extending his arm to her. He made a move to run to her side, but found that his feet would not obey him; they remained in place, as if bolted to the floor. His eyes became trained on hers, and he took in the horror in them with a hopeless that was nothing shot of agonizing. Abigail opened her mouth, whether to scream or to cry out for him again he never would discover because the hands around her throat released her, only to seize her pillow and smother her.

An instant later, Will was standing out deep in the heart of the woods. The location seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't put a name to it. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, and more of it fell onto his bare arm. To Will's surprise, rather than melt, the flakes of snow remained perfectly intact. He was in the process of trying to grasp why that could be when he saw a mass in the snow.

This time, he found himself able to approach it, but the instant he recognized her still form his feet again mutinied against him and planted themselves firmly in place, refusing to take another step.

"Abigail?"

She did not respond; she merely looked up at the branches she could not see, unaware of the man who was sworn to protect her standing over her petite frame. Will steeled himself, inhaling and exhaling slowly, before looking the girl in the face.

The cerulean eyes found the icy blue, but there was really nothing to see. There was no light, no energy, no emotion, nothing, in her eyes. Abigail Hobbs was dead. He wanted to smooth reassuring hands over her hair, wanted collect her in his arms, wanted to hold her against his chest and cradle her there, as if he could wake her up, as if he could love Abigail enough to make her heart begin to pulsate again. But he could not wake her, he could not put breath back into her lungs. In fact, he couldn't even hold her, because his arms had followed the way of his feet and frozen in place.

The sight of something glistening in the night took Will's attention away from the glassy look Abigail wore. Her mysterious killer, it seemed, wasn't done with her yet.

The man flourished a knife and held it at arm's length over the lifeless body. Will was about to scream at him, to ask his identity and to demand he not further harm Abigail Hobbs, but the second his jaw opened to raise the inquiry, the snow that had collected over his body spread over his form and became ice, encasing him in a frigid, colorless armor that restricted him from the girl. Her killer brought the knife down and buried it in the center of her chest and...

She screamed.

Screamed?

Abigail was dead. There was no life in her veins, no oxygen in her body. She couldn't have screamed...

Will's eyes flew open, but the nightmare did not end when his sleep did. The dimly lit hallway he inhabited was a scene out of Hell; a morbid painting the likes of which Will had not seen since his investigation of the Chesapeake Ripper. The two guards assigned to the corridor that Will inhabited were dead.

The very instant that Will realized that, he spring to his feet and pushed his glasses in to place for a closer inspection of the bloodied area.

One of the guards, a stocky man in his mid-thirties, had a steel arrow running through his torso that appeared to have entered his body though one shoulder, traveled through his heart, and exited via his other shoulder. The very tip of the weapon was visible out of his right shoulder, and Will noted no other wounds, save for bruised knuckles, as if his killer had slain him solely with the arrow. A slow, excruciating death. His arms sported large bloodstains so fresh that they glinted a bit in the florescent light.

The other victim, whom Will then assumed had given the scream cry he'd dreamt of, was mounted on the wall. His head was tilted back, a long dagger buried to the hilt in the roof of his mouth. The other end of the rapier, Will considered, was likely wedged into one of the slim cracks in the wall considering that the man was hanging there, jaw unhinged, upon the cobblestone. Blood filled the guard's mouth, and it dripped down from there, soiling the clothes he wore. And then Will saw him; a third guard, this one alive, being dragged firmly by the wrist to the hallway where the two dead bodies remained by another man.

Will wanted to shout out his name, demand to know why he had come back, plead him for answers... but he couldn't even open his jaw. He lurched back down into a normal sleeping position and turned his back on the men, hoping, praying, they may think he had slept through the whole ordeal.

"What an unfortunate fate," mused Hannibal, tone silky and almost nonchalant, as if he were discussing weather with the guard. Will could have sworn he heard the guard blanch.

"Now listen closely," he continued, "as I will only say this once and I will not repeat it. Are you listening?"

There was a pause, which Will took to mean that the guard was nodding.

"These two men died in an electrical explosion. They are to be cremated and the ashes are to be given to their families."

The guard replied in a stammer. "B-but...you-"

"No. You and I know what became of these two. And I suppose he-" Hannibal paused for a moment and Will winced; Hannibal must be gesticulating at him, "will find out soon enough. Do as I have asked, as there are more weapons where those two came from and I would prefer to not waste another one."

The guard gulped. "Yes...of course, of course..."

"Keys."

There was a tinkling of metal...the sound of approaching feet...and then his cell was being opened.

Will's blood became heavy; a dense, leaden dread in his veins. There were no longer any bars to separate him from the man who had held his very psyche underwater while stressing the importance of breathing. The eerie silence was pierced only by the sound of Hannibal approaching him. Will had never felt smaller than he did in those moments. It was as if he was a mouse being stared down by a cobra; cold, deceiving, lethal.

"Will."

There was no more avoiding Hannibal. The man had him quite literally cornered. He had no idea what would great him-a gun, a knife, an apology? when he turned to face the doctor for the first time in over a month.

There he stood, in all the same poise as Will recalled. Hannibal's suit-coat was dusted with a bit of dirt and his normally meticulous hairstyle had come a bit undone from the deadly fight he'd had with Will's guards. But there he stood, with dignity, with class, and with two hands glittering with blood not his own.

He extended one of these to Will.

Will nearly fell upon the bed. He was dizzy with shock and horror and yet oddly numb from it at the same time.

"Come," Hannibal remarked, not asking but telling. Will had no say in this matter, and even if he did, the former agent had no idea what he'd do with that liberty. He extended a clammy palm and gripped three of Hannibal's fingers like a vice.

The next thing Will knew, he was sitting on an oaken, hardwood floor, gaze locked on a distant painting and head swimming. He raised a palm to his skull, blearily trying to make sense of what had just happened to him. There was a void in his day; a large blank space which he could not recall, and the events immediately beforehand were like a book of smudged ink; tidbits of the barely comprehensible swallowed in sea of lost ideas.

"Where am I?" Will wondered aloud.

No sooner had he asked that, though, than he realized. He knew these floors, he had walked them so many times in the last few months that he was surprised he didn't recognize them before.

"No," he gasped to no one in particular, voice rising in alarm. He tried to leap to his feet to make a break for it while he still could, but they slid out from under him so that he landed firmly on his backside. Will's skin had taken on a ghostly pallor and there was a filmy coat of sweat over him, making the dried blood on his right hand even more visible. He had grabbed on to a bloodied hand, he remembered that, but he'd had no idea where that hand had lead him to... Scooting backwards, he absorbed all the details in the room and grew more and more panicked with each one he recognized.

"No, no, no, no..."

Hannibal strode into the room, expression placid. "Good evening, Will."

Will gasped, once again trying to jump to his feet. He was partially successful this time but in the process his back smacked against a cabinet and nearly knocked down a display of plates. Will crumpled back to the floor, cringing slightly in the pain of the blow, now positively panting in shock and utter terror.

"Did you bring me here?" he cried.

Hannibal gave slight nod.

"Why'd you do that? Who the hell do you think you are?!"

Hannibal deftly crossed his arms. Rather than answer that, he chose to inform him: "You're safe now."

Will stared up at him, eyes wild with fear and fury. "I don't feel safe. How did you-why did you...?"

"You are not as special as you think, Will," Hannibal remarked simply. "We are all motivated by fear."

"What does that have anything to do with-"

"You can convince people to do remarkable things for you if you show them dire enough consequences," the doctor cut across, explaining himself mildly.

"What did you do?" Will asked, more tentatively than he had done before, afraid to hear the answer.

There was, however, no reply from Hannibal, only a simple stare.

Will asked him again, this time asserting much more force despite being situated on the floor. "What did you do?!"

Hannibal's body lowered as he came to a crouching position before Will. He reached out, trying to put a hand on Will's shoulder, whether to soothe or manipulate him it was impossible to tell. Will pushed the hand away. "Don't touch me," he snapped bitterly through gritted teeth.

"You saw the guards," Hannibal answered him. "The first one, the one on the wall, was the only one whom I entered the building with the intention to kill. I was hoping to startle the other two into disposing of his body, but the second man seemed to want a fight. Quite admirable of him, really, but as you saw he was not successful in that endeavor."

Will gaped at Hannibal. "So you...disposed of...the guards, and then..."

"You began to seize a bit, I'm afraid," began Hannibal, "lost time for a few hours. The prison staff has been given detailed instructions."

"Pertaining to...?"

"Pertaining to you."

"Me?"

Hannibal cocked an eyebrow. "Yes, Will, you. You are still familiar with who that is, are you not?"

"Shut up!" shouted Will, trying for the third time to get to his feet. This time, he was able to accomplish the task. His fists tightened into hard firsts as Hannibal leisurely rolled up to a standing position. "Don't ask me if I know me. Don't you dare!"
Hannibal took a slow step closer to the man as Will continued.

"You were the one, you, who taught me that. I know exactly who I am, Doctor Lecter." He spat Hannibal's professional title with so much venom in his tone that both of them flinched.

"No, you don't, Will," Hannibal returned after a painful silence. "And before you tell me otherwise, allow me to prove that to you. I know how many lives you've taken better than you do. One."

Will knew that statement to be a subtle, implicit confession to the murder of Abigail Hobbs. During his time in prison he had assimilated that Hannibal had done it, certainly, but hearing it, even in an indirect way, was like an icy, rusted pickaxe down his spinal column. It was something he had known in his heart of hearts to be true but he had refused to accept it until that moment. Part of him, a very small but nonetheless invaluable spot of optimism, had let himself hope that all of this wasn't true, that she would come visit him any day now.

He bit his lower lip and screwed shut his eyes so that the stinging, hot tears in them couldn't fall.

"Do you think her dying is easy for me?" Hannibal asked him coldly. "It's not. I've not felt remorse in a very long time, Will, but-"

"Don't tell me that you're sorry!" bellowed Will, storming pointedly towards the wall. He unclenched one fist just long enough to grip the phone in it. Before he could begin to dial, Hannibal strode over to him and snatched the hand holding the phone.

"Who're you hoping to call?"

Will tried to tug his hand away, but the grip Hannibal had on him was much too firm.

"Will," Hannibal pressed, tone never rising, "With whom do you want to speak?"

Will released the phone, eyes wide and distant and swarming with anger. "Alana. Beverly. Someone. Not you, anyone but you...Alana needs to know. She needs to know I'm..." Will struggled to finish the sentence. His first instinct was to finish it with 'safe,' but then he realized he was not at all safe, or 'okay' which had been his second thought. "...here," he concluded.

"No need," Hannibal piped, returning the phone to it's place. "The prison staff was given detailed instructions. The FBI has been informed that you were released on account of immaculate behavior and a need for near-constant mental help, which, if I may add, is not untrue."

Will ground his teeth, fighting back the urge to attack the man as the doctor continued explaining.

"You are, therefore, to be in my care at all times. We will leave the house together and we will return to it together. Neither of us will be home alone at any point."

"So I'm your hostage." Will summarized, eyebrows shooting up.

"Don't think of it as imprisonment, Will," Hannibal replied, leaning coolly in the doorjamb. "Think of it as recovery time...with an old friend."

Will shut his eyes tightly, his brow knit as he shook his head at the use of that last word.

"Maybe instead of devoting that mind of yours to learning me you should brush up on things friends do and do not do," Will remarked brutally, voice cold and leaden and entirely unforgiving.

That night, Will lay in the bed Hannibal had prepared for him. A snowstorm had befallen the area, and the sounds of the wind howling outside were clearly audible in Will's new room. As much as he hated to admit it, Hannibal had designed the guest bedroom as exquisitely as the rest of the home. There was a variety of potted plants and a single chandelier, simple but elegant, that hung from the ceiling. In the wan light of the bedside table lamp,Will lay in a pair of pajamas not his own.

While it had been a relief to be rid of his jumpsuit, he wished he could have put on his own clothes as replacement instead of those loaned to him by Hannibal. The doctor had traveled to Will's home the day before breaking Will out of it and picked up around half of Will's wardrobe, but according to him it had been "left alone so long that it all needed a very vigorous run in the wash," a statement which Will was a touch chagrined over. Still, it'd be comforting to have his clothes back and readily available. Perhaps the only thing Will would miss about prison was the ceiling, he decided. That little dose of consistency was one he had come to rely on.

As he was about to turn off his light, he froze. There was another source of stability, a second shard of the remnants of his life before the arrest. His letter.

He sat bolt upright in bed and scrambled to the floor where his jumpsuit lay in a pool. Fumbling through the folds, he began to worry he'd left the sheet of paper behind...he had, after all, lost time before leaving...

But then his troubled hands found their reward. There, in the sleeve of his navy uniform, was a miraculous little leaf of paper. A letter. His letter. Will had known when he was given the room that it'd be several days before he had any proper sleep, but now, with the semi-presence of one of the only people in the world he trusted, maybe, just maybe, he may be able to sleep a bit that night.