Chapter 10: The Video Call

"You'll have to talk to him tomorrow." Crawford was standing in the entrance of Will's living room, holding his umbrella in one hand, shaking round rain drops from it on the doormat.

Will, who was fidgeting with the empty bottles around the coffee table, shifting his weight from one leg to the other, asked hoarsely, "To whom?"

"Him."

Will's eyes turned unhealthy bleary in a moment, and his face grew pale. "No."

"He wants to talk to you online," Jack explained as if it was a completely natural thing. "He contacted the FBI and requested a video call."

For a second, there was silence, and then Will sank down onto the couch, pressing both palms on the scar across his stomach. "No," he repeated.

"I hope you understand how important this is."

"Please, no."

Jack braced his umbrella against the doorframe, and then walked up to Will. He gave his reply while sitting down next to Graham on the sofa, "He might reveal something useful."

Will's whole body shook as if he had been punched by an invisible fist. "No," he croaked the word again.

"I know that this is not easy for you."

"Please, don't do this to me."

Jack sat at the side of Will without further speaking. The younger man restlessly dug his fingers into the clammy, matted curls of his hair, and hid his face behind his wrists. Crawford leaned back on the sofa, and watched one of the dogs lazily scratch the wall beneath the front window.

They spent a few minutes in complete silence. At last, Will lifted his head up, letting out a long, tormented exhalation.

"I'm... I'm not sure that I can do this," he uttered in a low, hoarse voice.

"Of course you can."

"It requires all my strength to keep myself away from him. I... I can't take any more..."

Crawford shook his head impatiently. "Please don't tell me that talking to him would damage the peaceful happiness of your wonderful days!"

Will hung his head again, and started rubbing his forehead with trembling palms. "Please..."

"This is killing you - this inactiveness," Jack retorted. "You must do something. You have to fight. The life you chose after his escape has been totally wrecking you."

"To fight... That's what he wants. That is exactly what he wants," Will muttered in front of himself in blurred, unstable words. "Me to follow him... To fight... To not let go of him... To fight... To never let go of him..."

Crawford interrupted Graham's drunken jumble of sentences harshly, "He killed your loved ones! Who cares if this is his game too? We'll win this, no matter what. And he will pay for everything he has done!"

Will emitted a guttural, choking sound, and continued rubbing his temple. He gave no reply.

Jack spent a while keeping his eyes on the dog which was stoutly working on peeling off a part of the wall cover. Eventually, the older man made an abrupt motion, smacking his palms down on his knees, and then got up from the couch.

"Can you promise me that you won't drink before the conversation?" he asked sternly.

Will didn't answer.

Jack added, "And at least brush your hair or something. I don't want him to believe that you've been living on the streets for months."

"This is not like a real date," Hannibal murmured, while he adjusted his necktie for the umpteenth time.

"Are you sure about it?" Bedelia asked. She had been reading a French novel, but now she put the book aside and turned to look at her former colleague, who was standing in front of the huge mirror in their bathroom.

"Yes," Hannibal responded promptly.

"This is the first time you will speak to him after I confronted you with the true nature of your feelings for him."

Hannibal pulled the rosebud out of the pocket of his suit jacket, and switched it for a deep red handkerchief. For a while, he rested his long, slim fingers over the fabric with relaxed content, but then he changed his mind and removed the handkerchief just to start searching for a new one in his suitcase while answering, "That doesn't make it a date."

"What would you like to say to him?"

"I'm still considering." Hannibal folded and slipped a new maroon handkerchief in the pocket of his suit jacket, and returned to the bathroom to have a look at it in the mirror. "I might hint at his dreams. I know he has nightmares because of what I've done to him."

"I don't think that's what you would like to say to him. That's just what you are planning to say."

Doctor Lecter must have decided that he didn't like the brown handkerchief either, because he took it out and put it aside. He removed his necktie as well, and lined a cream-colored silk scarf around his neck instead. He gave no reply.

"You look splendid," Bedelia commented encouragingly.

Hannibal pressed his lips together with disdain. "Splendid is not enough," he answered shortly. "He hasn't seen me in half a year; I have to look perfect."

He turned to search for another scarf.

"What you are wearing won't make any difference to him, I hope you know that."

"I do."

"Then, why are you spending the whole morning trying different pieces of clothes for your outfit?"

"I want to look in a way that will burn in his brain like acid, so that he won't be able to forget about it for the longest time possible." Hannibal kept a pause, and then he added with sudden bitterness appearing in his voice, "Because that's what I'm going to feel when seeing him. And I want him to go through the same torture."

"If that's what you are aiming for, you are going to attain your goal for sure." That was all Bedelia replied. She turned back to her novel and continued reading.

Hannibal changed the arrangement of his second scarf five times, and then ended up putting it back in his suitcase, beginning to try different neckties anew.

Crawford saw with content that Will had done as he had been told and even washed his hair. Though the redness of his inflamed eyes, the unstoppable trembling of his hands and the pained jaundice of his skin were still overt signs of his inward suffering. And, as Jack stepped next to the younger man by the entrance of the building to hearteningly pat his shoulder, he could feel the shockingly strong smell of alcohol lingering around Will's mouth. Graham was nothing like the sober and clear-headed helper Crawford had been hoping for, but at least he had made some vague efforts to look a bit better than yesterday. Therefore, Jack decided not to chide him for his still pitiful appearance.

"Do you understand the importance of this conversation?" Crawford asked while pressing an entry card into Will's sweaty palm. "Come, we'll go to one of the labs. The experts have already prepared the technical tools."

Will followed him mutely.

"Have you heard my question?" Jack turned back to the younger man.

"I have." Will's vocal cords worked with grating difficulty as the enervated words left his lips. "And yes, I understand how important this is."

"Try to talk to him, and especially, try to make him talk."

"I'll do that," Graham assented languidly. "Is there anything in particular you want me to tell him?"

"Not really. But it's vital that you should prepare an answer for anything he might say or do so that the conversation won't break. He should keep talking. I'll record everything he tells you, and we'll also analyze the pictures."

Will nodded in silence.

Crawford wondered whether Hannibal might mention the online dating site. He hoped that it wouldn't be the case, but he was ready to give an explanation to Will afterwards if Doctor Lecter came up with the topic of the previous online conversations. The worst thing that could happen was that Jack would have to come clean with Will about the plan to catch Lecter. But somehow, he got the feeling that Hannibal would primarily use the live conversation to talk about deeper questions, not a weak trap he had already mocked during their correspondence. And even if Hannibal mentioned online dating, hopefully, he would only slip implications which are easy to misconstrue, especially as heavily under the influence of alcohol as Will was.

"What do you think he is planning to say to you?" Jack asked.

Will pulled the left corner of his mouth into a lopsided, mirthless smile. "Probably something witty and sarcastic, trying to show off."

"And are you ready with one or two sentences as a reply to his remarks?"

"I'll figure out a few words. If I don't have any better idea, I'll use some clichés about him being a monster."

"Alright. That should work."

Will shrugged, uttering in a shaky mumble, "I hope so."

Hannibal placed the switched-off iPad in front of him on the hotel table.

"Is my posture cold and indifferent enough?" he asked Bedelia while aligning the screen.

"It is." Doctor Du Maurier assured him.

Hannibal framed a new question, wonderingly, "Wouldn't it be more beneficial to the purpose if I leant a bit further backwards, away from the camera?"

"I don't think it's necessary."

"I don't want to make the impression that I'm too interested."

"You won't." Bedelia meant what she had said. If it hadn't been for the long months of listening to nothing else but Hannibal's constant struggling with the loss of Will, she would have readily believed now that Doctor Lecter hadn't even paid a speck of attention to the memory of his disloyal friend. He was as calm and dispassionate as if he had completely lost any kind of interest in Will. Somehow, he had managed to put a perfectly relaxed and casually indifferent expression on his face.

Hannibal broke the silence again in a forceless tone, "I have never lied to him about my feelings. Never pretended not to have feelings for him... This is going to be the first time I'll try to deceive him like this."

"And why do you think it might be useful to do so now?"

"I don't want to look vulnerable. Once I gave him the chance to see my true face, my weaknesses, my inner world, and he only used that to circumvent me. This is a gift I won't ever give him again."

Bedelia gently shook her head. "You also said that you still wanted to have him in your life," she remarked. "Which one is the truth? Are you done with wasting your trust on him, or are you ready to give it to him once more?"

Hannibal made a stiff motion to adjust the iPad on the table. "Could you please stop asking these questions? This is already difficult enough for me without you twisting the blade in the wound."

"I understand. But you'll have to decide on this before talking to him."

Doctor Lecter continued making pointless attempts to enhance the angle of the iPad. It was already in the best position. Yet, he spent a while organizing it and its surroundings before leaving it at its initial place. When he looked up, his eyes seemed darker than before; his voice sounded freezing cold. "I won't let him get to me again."

Bedelia chose a place from where she would be able to see Will's picture on the screen, but she could avoid being recorded.

She hoped that the conversation would not go horribly wrong. Seeing how disinterested Hannibal had managed to make himself look was not the most encouraging sign though. She had expected her plan to reach a phase by now where it already showed the fruits of her hard work, but she had to accept that this wasn't the case.

Actually, the situation looked plain disappointing. Hannibal put on the mask of his usual tricks, ready to start a new mind game, without the faintest sign of the fact that he had understood in depth what Doctor Du Maurier had been explaining to him for weeks now. Most probably, Will was going to do the same. He was going to pick up the gauntlet, and both men were going to get caught up in the same useless, self-torturous psychological fight they had always been trapped in. They weren't strong enough to change the pattern.

Bedelia drew a disillusioned sigh.

The messaging program let out a beeping noise, signaling that the line was ready for the video call.

For a few seconds, the pace of Hannibal's breathing slightly quickened, but then he managed to regain control over it and slow it down to an almost unnatural speed. After making sure that he re-created the aura of perfect disinterest and confidence, Doctor Lecter clicked in the window to start the call.

When Bedelia saw Will Graham on the other end of the line, she felt real sadness. Will looked miserable. Unhealthy, unattended, and deep in pain. Endless hatred darkened his pale blue irises, his hands were taut, both fists clenched on the slab of the table. He looked straight into Doctor Lecter's eyes.

Hannibal leaned back in his armchair, and gave the younger man a faint, malevolent smile as if he regarded the whole situation as some sort of insubstantial entertainment. He even made a casual motion to set the contrast ratio on the iPad as if some superficial technical details were more important to him than to pay attention to Will.

With his fingers cramped, Will made some constrained motions to compulsively adjust the camera on his side too.

Hannibal turned back to him lazily, while his fake smile showed content.

Bedelia suspected that Doctor Lecter was preparing his well-thought comment about Will's nightmares, but just when Hannibal's mouth made a light stir and before the first syllable could leave his lips, the hard-set enmity burned out in Graham's eyes. All of a sudden, the mask of Will's unnatural coldness crumbled, his facial muscles started twitching, and the next moment, he collapsed on the slab of the table, hiding his head behind his arms.

Bedelia saw Hannibal's palms become instantly tense around the iPad. For a moment, Doctor Lecter stared at Will's shoulders, which were shaking now with forceful convulsions.

And then Hannibal broke the video call with an abrupt drag of his fingers on the virtual keyboard. Pushing the electronic device aside on the table, he got up, and walked to the rear window of the hotel room.

He stood there for a very long time, with his back to Doctor Du Maurier, in complete silence, without a stir.